Japan's Consumer Electronics
The Japanese consumer electronics industry is one of the most 
prominent industries in the world and is the world's largest electronics manufacturer by companies such as Sony, Pentax, Casio, Citizen Watches, Hitachi, Mitsubishi Electric, Panasonic, Roland, Sharp, Canon, Epson, Yamaha, Sanyo, Fujitsu, Korg, Kenwood, Sega, Fujifilm, JVC, Toshiba, Pioneer, Technics, Nikon, TDK, Nintendo, Olympus, etc.
After World War II, Japanese business began to rapidly develop consumer electronics products using keiretsu methods. By the 1980s, a relatively small number of industries dominated Japan's trade and investment interaction with the rest of the world.
Sony was founded in 1946 by Masaru Ibuka and Akio Morita and rapidly advanced in the electronics field. The invention the first pocket transistor radio placed the company at the forefront of electronics 
development, both in Japan and worldwide. As other companies were formed to compete in this area, the industry producing consumer electronics became major exporters that invested overseas in the 1980s. In 1991, 46.7 percent of colour televisions and 87.3 percent of video cassette recorders produced in Japan were exported. The export shares of some products were too small to show separately in summary trade data, however audio tape recorders represented 2.9% of total Japanese exports in 1988, video cassette recorders 2.3 percent, radio receivers 0.8 percent, and television receivers 0.7 percent, totalling 6.7 percent.
These industries built Japan's success in developing commercial applications for the transistor in the 1950s and generations of semiconductor devices of the 1970s and 1980s. Output came from large, integrated electronics firms manufacturing semiconductor devices, consumer electronics, and computers. The companies’ international success came from continually pushing miniaturization and driving down manufacturing costs.
Japan's Industry Today
Due to its high concentration of electronics companies, Japan is the largest consumer electronics manufacturer in the world. Japanese companies have a reputation for high quality and innovation, having introduced products such as the Sony Walkman and VHS recorder.
Japan's success overpowered the United States consumer electronics industry. Charges of dumping and other predatory practices led to orderly marketing arrangements by Japan in 1977. Restraints limited the export of colour televisions to 1.75 million units annually from 1977 to 1980. The agreement gave some protection to the United States' domestic industry. Japanese companies responded by investing in the United States, by the end of the 1980s, only one United States-owned television manufacturer remained.
Japan's overseas investment in the consumer electronics industry was motivated by protectionism and labour costs. After three years of voluntary export restraints, seven Japanese firms located plants in the United States by 1980. Japanese firms continued production of the most technologically-advanced products, while shifting production of less-advanced products to developing countries, such as Taiwan[dubious – discuss]. Moving production caused Japan's export of colour televisions to fall during the 1980s, from 2 percent of total exports in 1970 to only 0.7 percent in 1988.
