ABSTRACT
In advanced country markets, colour televisions have accounted for the lion’s share of the market, with videocassette recorders being the major new product. As a mass production industry consumer electronics implies a different set of skills from that of other sectors such as computers. It is in the consumer electronics sector that Japanese firms have become most dominant, accounting for over half the world market; indeed the familiar products have become synonymous with the rise of Japanese industry. The development of the industry can again best be explained by looking at the main core countries before proceeding to discuss internationalization. In the case of televisions, the main consumer product, the national focus is particularly appropriate because each country tends to have adopted different transmission standards. From the beginning of the sixties, the government targetted consumer electronics as a key growth sector and gave it research and development grants and infant industry protection, e.g. keeping out Zenith.
