他她話題:日本電子巨頭爲何敗給iPhone(下)?

By 2006, a year before Apple introduced the iPhone, Japanese consumers could watch broadcast TV on their phones.

到2006年，就在蘋果公司推出iPhone的前一年，日本消費者已經能夠通過手機觀看電視節目。

Yet, for all the advances, Japanese manufacturers struggled to challenge Finland's Nokia Corp. and U.S.-based Motorola Inc. abroad because the Japanese firms had churned out phones for the domestic market throughout the late 1990s and early 2000s based on a telecommunications standard used only in Japan. In order to sell phones abroad, the companies had to modify the handsets to work on foreign networks.

儘管技術上進步驚人，日本廠商在海外市場卻難以對芬蘭諾基亞(Nokia Corp.)和美國摩托羅拉(Motorola Inc.)形成挑戰，因爲從90年代末到本世紀初的這段時間，日本廠商都是根據僅適用於日本的通訊標準制造手機，以滿足國內市場的需求。爲了在海外銷售手機，日本廠商必須對手機進行改裝以適應海外市場的通訊網絡。

Late to the market, Japanese manufacturers struggled to gain a foothold with foreign carriers, unlike South Korea's Samsung, which forged relationships with network operators around the world and worked quickly to supply products tailored to overseas markets.

由於產品在海外上市的時間晚，日本廠商很難像韓國的三星那樣與海外電信運營商建立穩固的合作關係。三星與各國的電信網絡運營商建立了良好關係，並致力於迅速推出專門針對海外市場的產品。

The inward-looking mentality earned Japan's devices the moniker, 'Galapagos' phones: a reference to the uniquely evolved creatures that Charles Darwin found on the Galapagos Islands that served as the foundation for his theory of evolution.

由於重點關注國內市場，日本手機贏得了"加拉巴哥"(Galapagos)手機的稱號，將日本手機比作達爾文(Charles Darwin)在加拉巴哥島上發現的獨特進化的生物。據說正是在加拉巴哥島上的發現爲達爾文的進化論奠定了基礎。

The most popular Japanese feature phones were often long, skinny versions of clamshell-type phones. They came with a host of features unique to the Japanese market such as digital money to make purchases, the ability to double as a monthly pass for trains and buses or a function to swap contact details with a push of a button.

最好賣的日本功能手機往往都是狹長、輕薄的翻蓋機型，而且帶有專門針對日本市場的很多功能，比如內置可支持刷卡購物的數碼芯片，還可以升級爲帶有公交卡的功能，或者能夠一鍵交換聯繫方式。

The iPhone's debut in 2007 changed everything.

2007年iPhone的面世改變了一切。

While the rest of the world saw the iPhone for what it was - a game-changing product - some executives in Japan dismissed it, believing their phones were already smart enough.

雖然全世界意識到了iPhone對於整個行業的意義──它是一款具有決定性的產品，然而日本的一些高管卻忽視了它，固執地相信自家的手機已經足夠智能了。

In July 2008, a few weeks after Softbank Corp. introduced the iPhone in Japan, Tadashi Onodera, chief executive of Japan's No. 2 carrier, KDDI Corp., said the device couldn't 'fully satisfy the needs of [Japanese] cellphone users.' Three years later, KDDI, under new management, began to offer the iPhone and it became KDDI's best-selling smartphone.

2008年7月，軟庫公司(Softbank Corp.)將iPhone手機引入日本幾周後，日本第二大運營商KDDI Corp.的首席執行長小野寺正(Tadashi Onodera)聲稱，iPhone無法完全滿足日本手機用戶的需求。三年後，更換了管理層的KDDI開始銷售iPhone手機，後來iPhone手機成爲這家公司最暢銷的智能手機。

'The Japanese firms misread the market,' said Ryuji Ono, a Tokyo-based partner at consulting firm Roland Berger. 'They weren't watching the rest of the world.'

諮詢公司羅蘭貝格(Roland Berger)駐東京的合夥人大野隆司(Ryuji Ono)說，日本公司錯判了市場，沒有留意整個國際舞臺。

Smartphones now account for 56.6% of all new mobile phones shipped in Japan, according to Tokyo-based market research firm MM Research Institute. Apple and Samsung accounted for more than 20% of the Japanese market in the past fiscal year, compared with five years ago, when there were almost no foreign brands.

根據東京市場調研公司MM Research Institute的數據，現在，智能手機已經佔到日本新手機出貨量的56.6%。在過去一個財政年度，蘋果和三星在日本市場佔據了逾20%的份額。而就在五年前，日本手機市場上幾乎還沒有外國品牌的身影。

Apple was the top smartphone manufacturer in Japan in the past fiscal year. And Samsung cracked the top five in the domestic smartphone market.

上個財年，蘋果是日本第一大智能手機品牌，三星也躋身前五強。

By the time Japanese manufacturers jumped on the trend - the first Japanese smartphones running Google Inc.'s Android operating system appeared in the domestic market in 2010 - Samsung was already flooding the Europe and the U.S. with a wide range of models.

等到日本廠商試圖趕上這股智能手機潮流時（第一批運行谷歌安卓(Android)操作系統的日本品牌智能手機2010年纔在日本國內市場推出），，三星已經在歐美市場推出了衆多機型。

Backed into a corner in their own country, the leading handset makers have had no choice but to consolidate and re-enter foreign markets.

在自己國內幾乎陷入絕境的日本領先手機制造商們別無選擇，只能攜手合作，重新打入海外市場。

NEC Corp., Hitachi Ltd., and Casio Computer Co. in 2010 joined forces to form a cellphone joint venture majority owned by NEC. Later that year, Toshiba Corp. sold its phone business to Fujitsu. In February, Sony bought out its joint-venture partner, Sweden's Telefon AB L.M. Ericsson, giving the Japanese company full control over its money-losing smartphone business.

2010年，日本電氣公司(NEC Corp.)、日立(Hitachi Ltd.)和卡西歐(Casio Computer Co.)組建了一家手機合資公司，日本電氣擔當大股東。是年晚些時候，東芝(Toshiba Corp.)將手機業務出售給了富士通。今年2月，索尼從瑞典愛立信公司(Telefon AB L.M. Ericsson)手中收購了合資公司的全部股權，對處於虧損狀態的智能手機業務有了絕對的控制權。

But times remain tough. In the most-recent quarter, Fujitsu, NEC, Sharp, Sony and Panasonic all reported losses in their handset business segments.

但形勢依然嚴峻。最近一個季度，富士通、日本電氣、夏普、索尼和松下的手機業務均告虧損。

What's more, Sony, Panasonic and Sharp are backing away from the TV business, unable to withstand another round of competition with already battered balance sheets.

而且，索尼、松下和夏普均逐漸弱化了電視機業務，已經不堪重負的資產負債表很難經受起新一輪的競爭。

The television television stelevisiond so essential to an electronics company's success that it was deemed 'the king of the living room.' 'The golden age of TV is over, and TV will never be king again in the consumer-electronics space,' Kunio Nakamura, a former president and chairman at Panasonic, said in an interview last month with the Nikkei newspaper.

松下前總裁兼董事長中村邦夫(Kunio Nakamura)上個月接受《日經新聞》(Nikkei)採訪時說，"電視機的黃金時代已經過去，電視機永遠也無法在電子消費市場稱王稱霸了。"

Panasonic recently came to Europe with a new waterproof smartphone called the Eluga, selling it in Italy and Germany with a target to ship 1.5 million units in Europe this fiscal year.

松下最近在歐洲市場（意大利和德國）推出了一款新型防水智能手機"Eluga"，目標是本財政年度在歐洲的出貨量達到150萬部。

NEC Casio, which sells shock-resistant G'zOne handsets through Verizon Wireless in the U.S., plans to ship about two million phones outside Japan this fiscal year, or about 40% of its total target of five million units.

NEC Casio通過運營商在美國銷售防震手機"G'zOne"，計劃本財政年度海外市場出貨量達到200萬部左右，約佔其財年總出貨量目標500萬部的40%。

Sharp is focusing on the Chinese market, though the company doesn't specify how many of its targeted 7.7 million handset shipments will go outside Japan. Fujitsu, meanwhile, aims to reach a deal with an overseas carrier later this year.

夏普則更專注於中國市場，不過該公司未具體說明其770萬部的總出貨量目標中有多少將在海外銷售。同時，富士通正努力在今年晚些時候與一家海外運營商達成合作協議。

For Sony, the bulk of its phones are sold outside Japan. With a flurry of new models this fiscal year, Sony plans to ship 34 million smartphones world-wide, surpassing the targeted output of its four closest Japanese rivals combined.

索尼的手機產品有很大一部分在海外銷售。本財政年度，隨着一系列新機型的推出，索尼計劃在全球銷售3,400萬部智能手機，超出其四家本國同行目標出貨量的總和。

In a sign of the changing attitudes, NTT DoCoMo Inc. President Kaoru Kato arrived at an interview with a reporter last month carrying a Samsung Galaxy phone.

NTT DoCoMo Inc.總裁加藤薰(Kaoru Kato)上個月在一次接受採訪時隨身攜帶的是一部三星Galaxy手機，這在無形中也透露出日企高管的態度轉變。

It would have been unthinkable even three years ago for the president of Japan's largest carrier and the mobile arm of NTT Corp., which is one-third owned by the Japanese government, to carry a Korean phone.

NTT DoCoMo Inc.是日本第一大運營商，也是NTT Corp.的移動子公司，而NTT Corp.由政府持有三分之一的股權。就算是短短三年前，這樣一家公司的總裁帶着一部韓國品牌的手機亮相簡直令人難以想象。

Mr. Kato says he uses the Galaxy because it was the first available summer smartphone model running on DoCoMo's 4G networks. He says he may switch to a Fujitsu or Sony model eventually.

加藤薰說，他使用三星Galaxy手機的原因在於，它是今年夏季最先推出的使用DoCoMo 4G網絡的智能手機。他說，最終他可能還是會換成富士通或索尼手機。

'I'm not trying to be a pitch man for Samsung all of a sudden, but it has a nice, clear screen,' Mr. Kato says. 'Everything is really improved.'

他說，"我並不是突然間變成了三星手機的推銷員，但這款手機的屏幕確實很漂亮、很清楚。各方面都真正得到了改進。"