Kenwood 2007 Annual Report Download - page 12

Home Electronics Business
The Home Electronics business is another of our longstanding
operations like the wireless radio equipment business. Since our
commercialization of a high-class FM tuner using advanced
high-frequency technology and honored as the world’s best,
Kenwood has expanded the business under the concept of “high
fidelity” and expanded its presence as an audio system
manufacturer around the world. At the same time, Kenwood has
produced many proprietary sound technologies that significantly
improve quality, and continued to offer fresh, attractive sound
entertainment for the market, at a time when media technology
shifted from analog to digital. This concept remains meaningful
even after the drastic restructuring due to market maturity and
quickly changing trends.
Taking the spread of new digital media as a great business
opportunity, Kenwood is now commercializing digital media
products including digital audio players to realize the highest sound
quality in a given product space. At the same time, Kenwood is
proposing new “seamless entertainment” by connecting these
players to home audio and car electronics products. Kenwood
established its “Sound Meister Edition,” a product line for which its
Sound Meister was engaged in a detailed process from product
design to selection of components. This strategy was implemented
in order to enhance product lines consisting of high value-added
models, in line with the above significant changes in the market.
In the field of pure audio, Kenwood has enhanced its high-fidelity
audio product lines using traditional high-fidelity technology fused
with the latest digital technology. Kenwood has also
commercialized products that are seamless with digital audio players
and personal computers through a USB terminal.
In the field of portable audio, Kenwood develops products by
combining a proprietary patent technology which can reproduce
sound that approaches CD-quality by complementing the high
register lost when compressing CD music data; new high sound
quality technologies required in the digital media era, such as an
original lossless compression method that enables users to record
data on HDD with nearly the same sound quality as CDs; and analog
technologies that only a manufacturer specializing in audio can
provide.
Kenwood will continuously strive to open up new grounds for
“sound entertainment” with higher fidelity and more
entertainment, by leveraging cutting-edge digital media and
networking environment, while focusing on its traditional
high-fidelity reproduction.
12 Kenwood Corporation
Outline of Businesses