Japanese
watch maker Casio Computer is going to enter the highly competitive market of
smart hours. The company introduced its first digital wristwatch over 40 years
ago, hopes that her experience in the industry will help its products compete
with tech Apple Watch.
The
company is going to take this step against the backdrop of generational change
in its leadership. Last week, CEO Kazuo Kashio Casio, one of four brothers who
founded the company passed to his son as president Kazuhiro. Thus, after 27
years at the head of the company he is preparing to hand over power to his son.
Casio
plans to release a smart watch on the markets of Japan and the United States by
the end of March, said Kazuhiro Casio in an interview with WSJ. The price will
be affordable - about 50,000 yen ($ 400). But Casio added that the final
decision is still pending. In comparison, prices in the US Apple Watch starting
from $ 349. In terms of design and functionality of the clock will be designed
primarily for men who lead an active lifestyle and sports, Casio said. The
company's goal - as soon as possible to increase sales of smart hours to 10
billion yen ($80 millions).
Casio
plans to create a product that would be smart for hours, and not a gadget,
which among other things shows the time. In contrast, from Apple, whose devices
have repeatedly hits in experiments Casio clock, advanced technologies had been
mixed success. So, Casio produced a watch with a built-in meter heartbeat,
calculator, a dictionary of the English language, remote control for the TV, as
well as messaging and other features.
"Sometimes
we just were products with interesting features and then they stopped releasing
due to low sales, - Casio said. - Now we try to bring our smart watch on the
level of watchmaking excellence. It is a device that is not easy to break, easy
to put on and comfortable to wear."
At
the end of the last fiscal year, sales Casio watches reached record 153 billion
yen ($ 1.2 billion). The share of hours accounted for about half the company's
revenue, which also sells calculators, cameras and other electronics.
Significant advances in the watch business Casio has achieved in 1974, when it
reached the first digital wristwatch Casiotron. But the company's sales have
been modest so far, until the end of the 1990s. He did not hit her watch from
the G-Shock. Since 2004, Casio has focused on analog clock with limited
functionality.
"I
do not think that we will succeed quickly with smart clock, but we want to
develop this area in the long term," - said Casio.
According
to forecasts of IHS, smart market hours will increase from 3.6 million units
shipped in 2014 to 101 million in 2020. At the same IHS predicts that the share
of Apple Watch on the market this year will be 56%, but in 2020 reduced to 38%,
as the market will come new players, whose intelligent clock will run on the
operating system Android.
