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Japan’s biggest maker of pens is hoping to avoid a customer backlash after rising inflation prompted the company to raise the price of its best-selling model for the first time.
Pilot implemented a 10 per cent price increase for its Frixion pen two months ago, the first since it went on sale in 2006. Fumio Fujisaki, chief executive, said it was the first time during his 40 years at the company that it had raised the price of a best-selling item.
The company’s experience shows how Japan is starting to deal with the return of inflation, following decades when prices barely moved after the bursting of the country’s 1980s asset bubble.
Fujisaki, who joined Pilot fresh from university in 1984 and took over as chief executive in 2024, said he was having to learn to do business in a changed environment.
“Japan has suffered deflation and raising prices has been very difficult for us . . . We have had to change our mindset,” the 63-year-old Fujisaki said.
The country’s core inflation rate, which excludes fresh food and energy, is expected to stay above 2 per cent next year, giving the central bank room to raise interest rates from ultra-low levels. This month the Bank of Japan set its main policy rate at around 0.75 per cent, the highest since 1995.
Consumers are encountering inflation across a growing range of products and services. Japan Post has raised its postage rates for mail by 30 per cent, the first increase in 30 years. But companies have often been reluctant to pass costs on to customers.
Pilot’s shareholders have been putting pressure on the company to take advantage and set higher prices. Fujisaki, who is moving to improve efficiency and introduce more branded products that can command higher prices, says that is now happening.
For years, Pilot’s only price increase was that of its high-end fountain pen, which retails for millions of yen, in response to rising gold costs. The company raised prices for more of its range last year.
However until October the Frixion pen, which makes up more than 40 per cent of its pen sales in Japan, was still priced at ¥230 ($1.47) — the same as when launched almost two decades ago.
Fujisaki admitted that the increases were a risk, testing the willingness of Japan’s middle class to pay more for an everyday item and the capacity of rivals to hold their own prices down and take market share.
It is “too soon to judge customer reaction” but if competitors “present the same quality and maintain the prices, that would be a problem”, he said.
As the country’s biggest pen maker, Pilot “should take the lead in managing the price . . . If we raise prices, other companies may follow suit”, Fujisaki said.
He added: “The prices of eggs and natto [fermented soyabeans] have already gone up — this [kind of everyday item] is the remaining part.”
