New Year’s Top Interview: Achilles President Mamoru Ito President Mamoru Ito of Achilles Corp. (TYO:5142) spoke recently with Japan Rubber Weekly about its business and the company’s new headquarters. He said the relocation has enabled the company to centrally coordinate and direct operations more efficiently, while Achilles plans on using the proceeds gained from the sale of the former premises...
Thanks to a booming sports lifestyle market beginning at the start of the 21st century, demand for sports shoes in Japan recovered, with sales in 2002 reaching 42 million pairs. However, from 2006 onward, there were no particularly popular categories or hit models. Amidst excess inventory and a slack market, sports shoes sales dropped to 37 million pairs in 2008...
The size of the retail shoe market in Japan (excluding slippers and sandals) is at around 1.6 trillion yen, with 400 million or so pairs being sold. This comes after a slump from the late 1990s to the early 2000s during a lengthy economic slowdown, when the market shrank to 1.49 trillion yen in 2002, a year in which over...
The number of motor vehicles produced in Japan in October 2015 was approximately 813,000, a 0.5 percent drop over the same month of the previous year and the 16th consecutive month that the figure had fallen against the previous year, according to the Japan Automobile Manufacturers’ Association (JAMA). Passenger car production was approximately 690,000 vehicles, the first increase—albeit a slight...
Sumitomo Riko Co. Ltd. (TYO:5191) held a ceremony in Thailand to mark the opening of SumiRiko Chemical and Plastic Products (Thailand) Ltd. (SRK-CP). A subsidiary of Sumitomo Riko in Rayong Province, SRK-CP manufactures and sells precision parts for office equipment. Tetsu Matsui, Sumitomo Riko president and COO, said at the ceremony, which took place in early November, that he hopes...
In October, the number of automobiles produced in Japan fell 0.5 percent compared to the same month the previous year, to 813,110 units, marking the sixteenth straight monthly decline. The slump in automobile manufacturing has led to an across-the-board drop in production of automotive rubber products. According to statistics from Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI), total production...
