Japan, which is seen as the beacon of human technology in the eyes of our older generation, why has it been experiencing consecutive trade deficits in recent years? This can be easily explained - spending more while earning less naturally leads to a deficit. The main reasons for excessive spending are twofold, one being that Japan, as a country, has inherent deficiencies and lacks in many aspects.

Taking the data for the first quarter of this year as an example, Japan's overall exports big dump by 18.7%. The goods can't be sold, so how can they make more money? Especially its original pillars, 3C products and cars, are coinciding with the global trend of intelligentization and new energy transformation in the past two years. Japan completely can't keep up with the pace. For example, besides being expensive, can you think of any other features of Japanese phones? Maybe the younger generation has never seen Japanese phones before.
The automotive industry has always been the strongest fortress of the Japanese economy. Regardless of the winds from all directions, the sales of Japanese cars remain stable. However, in recent years, Japan has missed out on the largest increment in the automotive sector, which is the innovation in new energy transformation. Japan is clearly lagging behind the pace of the world.
When it comes to this, we still need to explain that it's not just about us eating into the international market share of Japanese cars. In fact, in a sense, we are not in direct competition with Japanese cars. Among the main markets for Japanese cars going abroad, a significant portion does not overlap with us, and there are others who are truly eating into the Japanese market. For example, the export volume of German electric cars has risen by 152% in the past two years. Unexpected, right? Everyone thinks that the German electric car industry is relatively backward and can't keep up with the pace, but it depends on who you compare it with.
It can be said that Germany has been investing in the field of electric vehicles for many years and made the transition early. Several years ago, they began to introduce our powertrain and in-car technology. Therefore, whether in terms of innovation or industrial support, although not leading in the world, it is definitely world-class. Apart from being suppressed in our market, in markets in other parts of the world, German new energy vehicles can be said to be taking over a lot of market share. So, whose market share do you think German-made cars are taking away? In addition, Korean cars are generally overlooked by us.
But in the international market, Korean cars, especially Korean new energy vehicles, are definitely one of the hot-selling systems for Market Makers. In just last year alone, the export volume of Korean pure electric vehicles rose by 58.1%, and the export amount of new energy rose by a big 50.3%. So, who do you think is taking up this part of the incremental market? Therefore, although Japanese cars are still the leader in the world and their sales and profits are not low, the future of the Japanese car industry in the next incremental market is not bright. The difficulty in earning more money is still quite high compared to before. It is this state of earning less and spending more that determines the general bearish outlook on the Japanese economy.