ABSTRACT
In Japan, there has been a great deal of soul searching about the loss of market leadership in numerous electronic and information technology product categories to foreign competitors, with liquid crystal displays (LCDs) gaining substantial attention. This chapter describes the rise and fall of the Japanese flat panel display (FPD) industry. It looks at the LCD industry over time to examine the initial dominance of the Japanese firms and their declining positions over time. The chapter considers the effect of macro-level technology changes, upon the competitiveness of Japanese FPD producers. It examines the explanations for the failure of Japanese firms in LCDs and in the FPD industry overall. In the midst of overall failure and exit, however, Sharp stood out for a long time as the single firm that was able to compete in FPDs internationally on a large scale.
