* Values are in thousand USD
Japan as the most famous industrialized country in Asia imported 870 million USD worth of fasteners from different countries and the value of its exported fasteners was about 2.87 billion USD in 2017. Based on these statistics, the value of Japan’s exported fasteners is more than 300% higher than that of its imported fasteners. Japan is thus called a self-sufficient country in the fastener industry.
It seems that between 2013 and 2015 Japan reduced its fastener prices (This decision could be related to its reducing GDP during the years). Statistics show that this strategy was not successful.
The value of imported fasteners decreased by more than 10% and the value of exported fasteners dropped by 13.0% in the period of price reduction. Japanese suppliers could recover their market in 2016 again, when they left this strategy.
Main Partners for Japan’s Fastener Import
In terms of fastener import, the main partners of Japan are China, Taiwan and USA. These 3 countries have represented about 77% of Japan’s fastener import market. China’s market share is more than 35%; Taiwan supports more than 26% of the fastener users in Japan and USA is ranked in the 3rd place. US fastener producers support more than 16% of Japan’s fastener import market. Other countries altogether support 22.9% of Japan’s fastener import market.
China
China is the biggest fastener exporter to Japan; the following table shows China’s market between 2013 and 2017. China wanted to control its market share through decreasing the prices (It decreased its prices by 20% between 2013 and 2016), but Chinese suppliers found this strategy wasn’t successful, and therefore, they modified their prices in 2017.
Taiwan
Taiwan is the 2nd biggest exporter to Japan in the fastener field. Taiwanese suppliers tried to compensate their loss through increasing the price by 2% in 2014, but it couldn’t be a successful strategy, so in 2015 and 2016 they decreased their prices.
Based on the results of China and Taiwan, it seems that Japan is not a price sensitive market.
USA
USA provides high-tech fasteners for Japanese consumers. During 2013 to 2015, the market share of USA increased; however, the numbers of quantity and value decreased, which means Japanese consumers need US production in any situations.
Other Countries
Other countries, which decreased their prices as the 3 biggest suppliers, did not help themselves gain more market share in Japan (see the following table).
Japan’s Fastener Export
China is the first market for Japanese fastener producers, while USA and Thailand are respectively ranked the 2nd and the 3rd market. These 3 countries bought about 60% of Japanese total fastener export. Statistics show that the average price of Japanese exported fasteners is between 8 to 9 USD per kilogram.
China
China represented 23% of Japanese exported fasteners and the value of fasteners exported to China had decreased for 4 years.
During the 4 years Japan tried to keep the constant quantity of its export.
In 2014, Japan decreased its price by 9%, but its market (in terms of the quantity) increased just 2%. In 2015, Japan decreased its prices by more than 8%, but the quantity of the exported fasteners decreased by 10%! In 2016, Japan decided to increase its price for China market by 1% and its exported fasteners in terms of quantity increased by 11%! In 2017, Japan increased its price by 1% again and its market share in China became 12% higher in terms of quantity!
These statistics prove that decreasing the price is not a good strategy for Japanese fastener producers.
USA
The same story happened in US market. Decreasing prices did not result in the value increase of exported fasteners. However, in terms of quantity the story is different.
In 2014, the 6% decrease in the exported fastener price only caused 5% increase in the exported fastener quantity, and therefore, it did not compensate for the lack of value between 2013 and 2014. In 2015, Japanese exporters decreased their prices by more than 7%, and the negative situation was not controlled. The exported quantity decreased by 1% and in terms of value it decreased by 8%. In 2016, the 2% increase in the price of fasteners caused 3% increase in the quantity of exported fasteners and 5% increase in the value of exported fasteners. In 2017, the 4% increase in the price of fasteners caused the 1% decrease in the quantity of exported fasteners but 3% increase in the value of exported fasteners. Source: Fastener World
Thailand
Decreasing the price did not help Thailand increase its market share. It is again proved in the market of Thailand.
Other Countries
The same story happened in other countries.
