Chapter 351 Please Keep Working Hard
The most obvious change that Shirakawa Electric's portable CD player has brought to the record market is that more and more record companies are paying attention to CDs.
Before, everyone just wanted to watch the fun, or wait for the reaction of the first person to try it out, to observe this new music medium.
Now Warner Pioneer, which was the first to test the waters, told them that CD records seemed to perform much better than expected.
An initial sales of 80,000 copies is not a result that any singer can achieve.
According to the normal sales trends in the record market, this CD single will most likely sell more than 500,000 copies within half a year, and is expected to reach the 600,000 mark.
Sales of 600,000 are definitely an explosive achievement. Even the top artists cannot guarantee sales of 600,000.
It's only the early 1980s now, and 300,000 can be considered a big seller.
The record market at this time is different from the 1990s, when sales of millions were common. The value of 300,000 is already very high.
And now the person who has achieved this result is just a newcomer, let’s not talk about how much role his popularity and marketing played.
The industry generally believes that Shirakawa Electric's CD player is one of the important factors. In addition, the low price of CD records is also the most intuitive reason that attracts people to buy.
A vinyl record usually costs around 3,500 yen, and Sony's CD album has dozens of songs, so the total price is 3,800 yen.
But Shirakawa Electric was in no rush to cram all the songs onto the CD, even though it could store 74 minutes of music.
Shirakawa Electric's request to Warner was for a single, in addition to an A-side song "Second Love", there was also a C/W song "Mirror in the Mirror" .
These are all the songs on this album, with a total length of less than 8 minutes, less than 10% of the total capacity of the CD.
This may seem a bit wasteful to ordinary people, after all, the cost of a CD is fixed at 20 to 30 yen, regardless of whether it is full or not.
In order not to waste such a large capacity and to show the world its super length, Sony crammed 74 minutes of music into it at one time.
As the content increases, the price will naturally increase, so Sony set the price at 3,800 yen.
Compared to vinyl, the price is only 300 yen higher, but there are a lot more songs.
Compared with this, the price seems to be a good deal. After all, the price is not much different, but you can enjoy more music.
However, Shirakawa Electric did the opposite. He ignored the long capacity of CD records and only played the songs he wanted to play.
The price has also dropped significantly, now retailing for 1,500 yen, and it's 300 yen cheaper if you buy a CD player combo.
The Japanese people, who have been listening to music for so many years, have never enjoyed such low record prices.
But the sound quality of CDs is much better than that of cassettes and vinyl records, without even a trace of background noise.
With such a stark contrast, why not buy a CD and give it a try?
As a result, Akina Nakamori's third single achieved an extremely high initial sales of 80,000 copies.
So with a selling price of 1,500 yen, will the record company make a profit?
There is no doubt that profit is inevitable.
The record cost of less than 30 yen alone guarantees the record company's profit.
The price of pressed discs at CD factories is usually no more than 200 yen per disc. This is because CDs have just become popular and the production technology is not yet fully mature, so the price is so high.
As the process improves in the future, the cost of CDs will continue to decrease, and the price of pressed discs will also decrease.
But even now, after deducting the 200 yen for the pressing price, the record company can take about 54% of the remaining 1,300 yen.
Then the record store takes 30%, the publisher and producer takes 10%, and the rest belongs to the songwriter, composer and singer.
Among them, the lowest share for singers who only sing is less than 1%~
In short, the record company can get at least 700 yen for the entire CD.
After deducting the fixed production and publicity costs, the rest is net profit.
Compared to the previous vinyl records, I may have received a little less, but not too much less, after all, the cost of vinyl records is high.
However, record companies saw future business opportunities in CDs. These small records were very cheap!
Low price is the biggest advantage for sales.
Not only are CDs cheaper, but CD players are also cheaper than vinyl record players.
From a long-term perspective, whether in terms of price, sound quality, or portability, the market for CDs must be larger than that for vinyl.
In this case, why not try it out a bit and start experimenting with the CD market?
With this idea in mind, not only Sony Records, but also Universal, EPIC, JVC and other record companies began planning to launch their own CD records.
Among them, overseas record companies are the most active. They are much more optimistic than Japanese local companies in accepting new things.
After all, there was Akina Nakamori's single first, and everyone was envious of the sales of 80,000 copies in the first week.
In this atmosphere, before the second week was over, some record companies had already announced plans to release CDs in the future.
Of course, if we talk about the fastest speed, it has to be Warner Pioneer.
At the end of October, Shirakawa Kaede and his assistants came to Warner Pioneer headquarters near Kita-Aoyama in Minato Ward.
The reason I came here today is to discuss this cooperation with Warner, and also to visit at the invitation of its executive director Naoto Chida.
Just entered the door of Warner Pioneer, except for the reception staff here.
Naoto Chida, the executive director and president, also stood in the front lobby to greet him personally.
“You are so polite, Chida-san. This cooperation has achieved such a result because of everyone’s concerted efforts.
But I want to congratulate your company. Another new talent with unlimited potential will make his mark in the music industry."
"Haha, the facts have proved that cooperating with Shirakawa Electric is definitely an extremely wise choice." Naoto Chida studied and worked abroad in his early years and only returned to Neon in recent years.
He is the head of the Neon branch appointed by Warner headquarters and is the foreign capital faction within the internal faction.
Because they have lived abroad for many years, their personalities are much more enthusiastic and cheerful than those of Japanese people.
Also because he has been influenced by the purest capitalism, he also adheres to the principle of putting profits above everything else.
The previous bet agreement between Shirakawa Electric and Warner Pioneer was signed under his suggestion.
At this moment, Chida Naoto enthusiastically shook Shirakawa Kaede's hand and said, "By the way, speaking of this newcomer, someone would like to thank Shirakawa-san in particular."
As soon as he finished speaking, a girl wearing a scarf emerged from the crowd.
When she smiled while holding the bouquet, her big front teeth were particularly noticeable, making her look a little silly.
Hey, who is this fat girl? Baichuan Feng looked at the girl who came forward with some curiosity, secretly wondering.
"Mr. Shirakawa, thank you so much for your care. I will work harder in the future and never let Shirakawa Electric down."
After saying this, the girl pushed the bouquet in her hand forward, then lowered her head and bowed, maintaining this posture motionless.
Uh, Baichuan Feng seemed to know who she was.
When she was about to take the flowers from the other party, the girl suddenly seemed to remember something, raised her head and said quickly, "By the way, I'm Akina Nakamori, please take care of me!"
The hand he extended paused for a moment, and Bai Chuanfeng laughed in silence. But soon he naturally took the bouquet and bowed politely.
"Please keep working hard~"
"Hai!" Nakamori Akina responded crisply.
Handing the flowers in his hand to the assistant beside him, Shirakawa Feng turned around and greeted Chida Naoto beside him.
To be honest, he almost didn't recognize this future queen. Why is Akina Nakamori so fat at this age?
Baichuan Feng thought about it again in his mind. That face still with baby fat looked like it had not grown up yet.
Well, on this point, my own little tiger teeth are more adorable.
I don’t know if the fate of this pair of “arch-enemies” will be entangled in the future, but Baichuan Feng is too lazy to care about these things.
He doesn't want to get involved in the affairs of the entertainment industry, especially matters between women, as that is not what he is good at.
But speaking of little tiger teeth, she has ignored me for two days.
As for the reason, it’s because of the fat vegetable in front of me.
The things here..., forget it, let's talk about it later~
Looking at the backs of Shirakawa Kaede and Chida Naoto as they left, Akina Nakamori returned to her dazed look.
"Agent-san, this Shirakawa-san is so young, how come he looks like a student~"
"Akina, shut up!"
Not to mention the mutterings behind him, Shirakawa Kaede has already started chatting with Chida Naoto about the future of the CD market.
“I have to say that Mr. Shirakawa’s vision is admirable. The new type of player, CD, is likely to become the mainstream device for people to listen to music in the future.
What's more convincing is that Shirakawa's portable CD players are really good, and Sony's big ones are nice, but unfortunately they don't fit in a backpack."
Naoto Chida highly praised Shirakawa Electric's move to miniaturize CD players.
Since the Walkman came out, people have become accustomed to and prefer this way of listening to music anytime and anywhere.
It is convenient, privacy-oriented, and looks very technological. There is no reason why the public would not like it.
Even in Naoto Chida's opinion, the responsibility of popularizing CDs in the future will still fall on Shirakawa Electric.
As for Sony..., Naoto Chida felt that they were too conservative and not aggressive enough.
"By the way, regarding Warner's next CD, Mr. Shirakawa, do you have any questions?"
Shirakawa Feng smiled and said, "Our disc pressing fee will always be 3% lower than Sony's. Please rest assured, Chida-san."
"That's great." Naoto Chida nodded with satisfaction.
The cost of CDs is very low, and the cost of pressing CDs is also very low. However, capitalists will never stop moving forward in their pursuit of profits.
Next month, Shirakawa Electric's CD factory in Chiba will go into production, and Japan will have another CD manufacturer.
Now that the CD factory is about to go into production, wouldn't it be a natural thing to attract orders for their own business?
Relying on the previous pleasant cooperation, Warner was naturally Baichuan Feng's first target.
However, due to the existence of Sony, if Warner wants to give the order to itself, price discounts are essential.
A 3% price reduction on a record would undoubtedly save a lot of money for tens of thousands of records.
After getting some practical benefits, Naoto Chida agreed to give the CDs of other Warner Pioneer artists to Shirakawa Electric for pressing.
Warner Pioneer not only has Akina Nakamori, but also more experienced and more famous artists.
For example, Chage and Asuka, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Sachiko Kobayashi, Genko Wada, and Kaoru Konishi, one of the five beauties of enka.
Their fan base is even larger, and the number of albums they release each year is also huge.
Now with Akina Nakamori's trial, Warner has decided to release more CD albums next month.
"By the way, is Mr. Shirakawa interested in the record industry?" A sudden sentence from Naoto Chida made Shirakawa Feng stunned.
