Have American electronic products lost their reputation?

Question

In the market, most electronic products that sell or at least appeal to the public are Japanese or Korean brands. For ex: Sony Vaio, Sony Camcorders, Toshiba, Kodak, Samsung,Sony Playstation, Nintendo, JVC, TDK etc.

I hear this from many of my friends who say basically the same thing "In America you can get the best, top-of-the-line electroncs like Sony or Toshiba or Nintendo..."

I ask them "these are Japanese brands...what about American brands?" To which they invaribly reply "If you buy American brand, it will definitey fail & you will end up spending a lot of money just for maintenance itself..."

Why do majority of the people have that opinion? Do American electronics really suck compared to the Japanese ones?

Answer 1

So called American electronics are inferior, most definitely. These companies that either exclusively manufacture for the US or those that were started in the US but no longer have anything to do with the US are the glut of the problem.

Its all about the marketing. Did you know that most consumers think JVC is American, Nintendo as well. But look at where the leading edge is in electronics, most defense systems are made in America, the highest end audio and video are made here as well. Krell, Martin Logan, Runco are all American run companies.

These companies are trying there best to keep the manufacturing process in the US. It is not easy, electronics are very high polluters with toxic chemicals used in there manufacture. If in the US a towns water supply was tainted (Pacific Gas and Electric) the public would skin them alive. But kill off a town in remote china and no body knows about it.

That is where the foreign manufactures have the upper hand in providing electronics. First they copy the high-end stuff from the US with no repercussions, try to get a patent for a US company in China. So they don't have to do all that engineering. They then figure out how to make thousands of these as cheap as possible with the cheapest components possible. ( I remember a time when I didn't need a surge suppressor on my TV). Next with sweat shop labor, pennies on the hundreds of dollars in labor and terrible working conditions across the globe contribute to the bottom line.

They also benefit from a mass-market standpoint. Wal-Mart sure investigates everything they sell.... right. Best Buy and Circuit City are the two biggest contributors to the decline of midline American consumer electronics. By their business practices and failure to properly train their staff they too can squeeze the bottom line. Back in the day before Best Buy and crappy customer service we had local mom and pop shops that wanted to sell reliable electronics and service these to last for years. So they bought these from US companies and had great success.

When anyone here asks about fixing a product more than a year old answerers will say to look at replacing it, that has to be good on the environment, huh.

So in summary it isn’t the American electronics industry that sucks its the big box retailers that continually go to those that are unscrupulous in there business dealing.

Vote with your feet!! Don't go into Best Buy,Wal-Mart, or Circuit City ever again.

Answer 2

American brands of electronics have had the reputation of being inferior to Japanese electronics for at least thirty years...evidenced by a comment made in the movie, Back to the Future made in the early 1980's. (Michael J. Fox's character Marty astounds the "Doc from the 1950's" by telling him that the best electronics come from Japan)

You ask if they lost their reputation, but they never had one to begin with...
American companies don't compete with Japanese electronics because they are business savvy. They understand that it would be nearly impossible to break through the stranglehold of the perception of the American public...they all think that Japanese electronics are better.
In America, we as consumers don't need to try and save a few pennies by making the products in the U.S. We are the richest country in the world and think nothing of paying for Japanese products of superior quality because 1) we can afford it 2) we want to have the "best" products 3) society today has completely accepted the fact that this has been the prevailing opinion for decades, so it is commonplace.

Answer 3

They haven't had a reputation in years.

Very little is made in American, even if it is an American company, the products are made overseas.

All the electronic companies moved overseas or were sold to Japan or went out of business during the 1980's. The only American companies are the relatively new ones that started with the computer age.

FYI, most of your Halloween candy is made in China. Those not made in China are made in Mexico.

Your shampoos, deodorant and all other personal care products are made in Canada, Mexico or South America.

Read the back of the label. It will say distributed by XXXX American company.
This is a hint it was not made in America.

In the 1960's American toy makers manufactured their toys in Japan. In the 1970's when Japan starting manufacturing cars, the toy manufacturers went Taiwan and now they are in China.

The reason Korea is in the Electronics industry is Korea is trying to emulate Japan's success. When Japan made toys, Korea went into the toy making industry. When Japan started manufacturing cars, Korea followed. (Do you recall the introduction of Hyundai and their commercial?) When Japan went into electronics again Korea followed.

Personally I would not assume an electronic product is better because it is made in Japan. I have never assumed that and my experience with Sony just soured me on all Sony products.

My Sony Vaio computer has had problems since nearly day one and Sony did not honor the warranty. Rather than fix it they had me reset it to the original manufacturer's setting each and everytime I called, rather than admit it was a defective product. They dragged their feet until the warranty was about to run and then requested I ship the computer to them with $400 to cover the return shipping cost.

My Korean TV & VCR failed nearly as quickly as the computer.

I have hear bad thing about:
Kia (Korean)
Nissan (Japanese)

I go company by company and not Japanese vs American.
I know which companies/products have failed me and I avoid those brands.

Answer 4

Wouldn't know being a foreigner... but british electronic goods are so great that their makers have mostly gone out of business. That's irony by the way...

You have HP, we have Amstrad and the Japanese have Sony and Toshiba. No more comment needed.

Answer 5

Are there any American electronics anymore? Most everything is manufactured overseas. A lot of U.S. companies have been bought or taken over by foreign companies. It's hard to keep track. I think American companies have gotten too greedy and too lazy. They are also too arrogant and think they are omniscient. Too many business executives are in love with their opinions. It is a key reason we lost out with the Japanese back in the 80s/90s.

Answer 6

Pretty much no consumer electronics are made in the USA now. Even RCA Thompson and Sharp have most of their products made in China, Malaysia, or Indonesia.

Why?

It costs too much to make things in the USA.

In the US, labor costs have risen out of proportion to the productivity of the workers - in other countries, you can get people who are desperate to work for very little money. We also have worker's compensation and health benefits, whereas in many countries, they just fire people when they get injured - there are 20 more people clamoring to get that job.

In the US, we have environmental regulations that prohibit manufacturers from dumping waste into the countryside, and require them to treat waste before releasing it. In other countries, they have little or no regulation, or corrupt officials take bribes to look the other way.

Corporation owners seek to maximize their profits, so if it's cheaper to make things in another country, they'll move their operations.

The cause of this situation is the "free-trade" cult which says there should be no restrictions on trade - but this doesn't account for the differences in production costs. To make a fair situation, if it the labor cost of a product made in the US is $10, and the labor cost of a product made in China is $1, then there should be a tariff of $9, less importation costs.

Basically, things are not made in the US any more because it is cheaper to make things overseas, where companies can take advantage of the workers and despoil the environment, and not have to pay for those costs.

Of course, someone pays - the people in those countries pay with their bodies, and your children will pay with theirs when they inherit a poisoned earth.

Answer 7

in all seriousness, what brands are American? i can only think of my cable box, which is Motorola but manufactured in Asia. There aren't many American brands of consumer electronics, that I am aware of.

-DEC/Compaq/HP
-Motorola (outsources manufacturing to various countries)

It's not really a question of quality, it's more of a cost issue. American labor standards require nominal wages which increase costs per unit. In many other countries, the people who make the products earn a low wage and in turn a lower cost per unit.

Answer 8

Yo Crazy
What American electronics ? There are none ! Even those few that have components in them that are made here -- those components are usually only a fraction of the components IN the gear in question !! Seems that we, here in the USA opted some time back to allow these industries to be taken over by the Japanese and others !!

We DO however make our own MUNITIONS and are the best in THAT field than any others --- our bombs and missiles are top of the line !!

Answer 9

Obviously your friends have no iPods (Apple), xboxes (microsoft), or a great laptop (HP/Dell) , or printer (HP).

American electronic products are better than ever (of course all of them are manufactured in Asia, but that's a different issue).