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is a Japanese consumer electronics company headquartered in Daitō, Osaka, Japan. Its United States-based subsidiary Funai Corporation, Inc., based in Torrance, California, markets Funai-licensed brands including Sylvania, Emerson Radio, Magnavox, Philips, and Symphonic. Funai is the main supplier of electronics to Wal-Mart and Sam's Club stores, with production quantities easily topping 2 million flat-panel televisions during the summertime per year for Black Friday sale, which all 2 million units easily sold-out within few minutes. Funai is the OEM providing assembled televisions and video players/recorders to major corporations such as Sharp, Toshiba, Denon, and others. Funai also manufactures printers for Dell and Lexmark. ==History== Funai was founded by Tetsuro Funai, the son of a sewing machine manufacturer. During the 1950s before the company was formed, Funai produced sewing machines and was one of the first Japanese makers to enter the United States retail market. Then, the introduction of transistor technology had begun to change the face of the electronics market. The Funai company was formed, Tetsuro Funai became CEO for 47 years and a self-made billionaire, and the first actual products produced were the transistor radios. In 1980, Funai launched a sales and manufacturing subsidiary in Germany. Funai also developed the Compact Video Cassette (CVC) format in the same year, a joint development with Technicolor, trying to compete with VHS and Betamax. Sales were poor and not well-received, and the CVC format was abandoned a few years later. Funai began to see rising sales of the VHS format, so in 1984, Funai released its first VHS video cassette player (VP-1000) for the worldwide market, while ordering all transport mechanisms from Shintom for quick and efficient production. Funai always believed that lower competitive prices and high production quantities; without sacrificing quality; were their biggest keys to success. By the late 1980s, Funai quickly became the largest 2-head monaural VHS video cassette recorder (VCR) manufacturer in Japan. In 1991, a U.S. sales subsidiary was established in New Jersey, and it began to sell cathode ray tube (CRT) televisions. In 1992, Funai canceled the contract from Shintom due to rising cost of its chassis mechanism and the expensive Japanese labor, and that's when its profits began to skyrocket. Funai developed a new, permanent strategy in 1993 to cut costs in production by up to 80%, by opening two new state-of-the-art factories in China, which transferred all VHS VCRs production from Japan. Funai became the first VHS VCR manufacturer to sell a new VCR below $100 for the North American Market, and VCR sales spiked. Shortly, Tetsuro Funai, the founder, became Japan's very first billionaire electronic CEO. Later, the DVD technology was formed, and by 2001, Funai sold its first DVD player for less than $100. By then, Funai's U.S. subsidiary had relocated to Torrance, California. Today, Funai is one of the world's largest producer of DVD players, and is now one of the major suppliers of electronics to Wal-Mart on Black Friday day. In 2008, CEO and founder Tetsuro Funai retired and stepped down from CEO to become chairman. Philips signed a seven-year contract with Funai to license, sell, and distribute Philips- and Magnavox-branded televisions in North America. In 2013, Funai acquired the option to buy the rest of Philips' consumer electronics operations and a license to globally market Philips branded consumer electronics. But that purchase was terminated by Philips because of what Philips saw as breach of contract.〔http://www.broadbandtvnews.com/2013/10/25/philips-to-take-legal-action-against-funai/〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Funai」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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