SOURCENEXT CORPORATION

Tomoaki Kojima, Director and Senior Managing Executive Officer

Q. Please tell us about your company's business, especially your business overseas.

Our company was established in 1996 and has been providing various applications for use on PCs and smartphones. In 2017 we started selling the "POCKETALK" translator, which we have gained more than 90% of the market share in the translator market.

This year, in order to respond to the drastically changing market caused by the new coronavirus, we started selling telework-related products: software to change the background image of webcams, software to reduce noise during web conferences, in addition to cloud services and 360-degree cameras for web conferences.

In particular, the 360-degree camera "Meeting Owl Pro" is a unique product that can detect who is talking and focus the screen on the person, hide the background, and detect and mute typing sounds using  AI. We are currently expanding its sales in Japan.

In regards to the overseas business, we first expanded POCKETALK to Europe after people there responded well when we displayed the product at an exhibition there. I believe there is a high demand for translation devices in Europe because there are people that speak many different languages living there.

We set up a company in the Netherlands because we also sell B2B and to some mass-market retailers in Europe, in addition to using Amazon to sell our products.  We provide user support, including after-sales service, which we believe is very important. 

Q. How did you choose our company?

When we first expanded our business overseas, we asked another overseas company to do  

VAT registration and filing. However, we were dissatisfied with their response speed, such as not answering our questions or not replying for a while. Because we consider Europe to be an important market, we decided that this issue would hinder our sales, and we transferred to OPTI after looking at several companies. 

OPTI responds very quickly, which we found extremely helpful. The documents required for VAT registration differed from country to country, and it was difficult, but OPTI supported us until the end.

Q.Please tell us your aspirations for your future business, and anything you would like to say to us.

As the world changes drastically due to COVID-19, we would like to strive to create new businesses, both in and outside of POCKETALK, under the slogan “Creating the source for the next generation” which is also the origin of our company name.

Specifically, in regards to POCKETALK, we will continue to actively develop the product so that inbound customers, assuming that they will not come to Japan for a while, can use it for language learning, or use it in video conferences that use Zoom or Skype. 

In addition to POCKETALK, as we mentioned earlier, we have launched the “Meeting Owl Pro”, a revolutionary camera that captures a 360-degree panoramic view of the participants in a video conference and automatically focuses on the speaker, which has received favorable reviews.

In terms of overseas expansion, we are looking to accelerate the sales of POCKETALK in Europe, using the Netherlands as a base. Post-COVID-19 sales are already showing signs of recovery, and it is possible now to travel between countries in Europe, so we would like to expand sales mainly in the Netherlands, rather than in Japan. In addition, we would like to get down with expanding POCKETALK sales in Asian countries as well.

Regarding products for the overseas market, we are considering introducing larger POCKETALK products, products with more color variety, and new products such as the conference tools we have explained about earlier. 

We would like to ask OPTI to continue to support us by outsourcing complicated tax affairs in order to concentrate on our main business, which is expanding the sales of POCKETALK overseas.