Pioneer 2016 Annual Report Download - page 8

■ Sustain sales growth and maintain high profitability via strategies that respond properly to changes in the environment
■ Establish early “connected car life” related business
Basic Directions
■ Consumer Market Business
Constantly offering new value to
Pioneer’s customers around the world
Global automobile ownership is expected to grow
further, led by emerging markets. A survey we car-
ried out in emerging markets indicates that roughly
half of car owners would like to upgrade their
hardware in vehicles. Further taking into account
the growing popularity of smartphones, this shows
that the needs for hardware are undergoing major
changes, and we see this as a significant opportu-
nity for our business expansion going forward.
■ Projected trends in automobile ownership
(Million vehicles)
2015 2016 2021 2026 (Calendar year)
(Source: FOURIN)
1,800
1,500
1,200
900
600
300
0
■ Other Regions
■ Europe
■ North America
■ Japan
■ Survey on emerging markets
(Pioneer research)
■ Very interested ■ Interested
■ Not interested ■ Uncertain
■ Already upgraded
In emerging markets, roughly half of car owners seek up-
grades of car audio/navigation products
Reasons
・Smartphone connectivity
・Feature expansion (driving assist)
・Improving sound quality
28%
19%
50%
1% 2%
Areas to strengthen and regional strategies
To appropriately meet changing market needs, we will
put a special focus on the areas of “connectivity,” “re-
liability and safety,” “entertainment,” and “new fields,”
and pursuing strategies suited for individual regions.
In the “connectivity” area, we are enhancing our
line of smartphone-linked products to stimulate mar-
ket demand for upgrades of hardware, especially in
emerging markets.
In the “reliability and safety” area, we will offer
our own added value through our hardware featur-
ing new advanced driving assist functions, which
include warnings to the driver using Pioneer’s pro-
prietary image recognition technologies and probe
information*1. Multi-Drive Assist Unit, which we plan
to release within the Japanese consumer market
in September 2016, works with CYBER NAVI car
navigation systems to prevent rear-end accidents
using screen-displayed images and sound, and also
features an event data recorder function and the abil-
ity to alert the driver by email when unusual activity
is detected while the car is parked, supporting the
overall car-driving experience from driving to parking.
In the “entertainment” area where Pioneer spe-
cializes in through our experience in the speaker
business since the foundation of the Company, we
will offer new forms of in-vehicle entertainment that
combines our products and services with music
contents, and deploy new value-added products
utilizing smartphones. CYBER NAVI features Music
Cruise Channel, a music streaming function, and by
combining this with music streaming service provided
by RecoChoku Co., Ltd., the driver and passengers
can easily enjoy a variety of music as they do with
car radios.
Integrating CYBER NAVI with RecoChoku’s music streaming service

In the “new fields” area, in Japan we are pro-
actively working with NTT DOCOMO, INC. in the
field of automotive IoT (Internet of Things), and with
Tokio Marine & Nichido Fire Insurance Co., Ltd.,
to develop services for automobile insurance, and
also expanding our commercial-use businesses that
utilize the cloud such as a Vehicle Assist telemat-
ics service for fleet vehicles. We will also introduce
models adapted to specific automobiles in Europe
and the United States that do not comply with DIN
standards,*2 and in other regions, we will expand
our business areas by placing a greater focus on
products in the affordable price range.
*1 Probe information: Road traffic information generated mainly from vehicle’s
tracking data
*2 DIN: Deutsche Institute Norm. In this case, the standards for the
external dimensions of hardware
06 Pioneer Corporation Annual Report 2016