Kubota Co., Ltd. (HQ: Osaka, President and Representative Director: Yuichi KITAO) (hereafter “Kubota”) and Mitsubishi Mahindra Agricultural Machinery Co. Ltd. (HQ: Shimane, CEO: Akio TANAKA) (hereafter “MAM”) have agreed to enter into a business collaboration for the Japanese market. In the future, we will proceed with discussions on the specific content of the collaboration.
We will respond to diversifying customer needs and contribute to the sustainable development of Japanese agriculture by expanding mutual OEM supply and utilizing products compatible with Kubota’s IoT platform “KSAS”, which is the basis of smart agriculture.
- Background and Aim
As Japanese farming population are aging and shrinking, it is shifting to large sized farming organizations and small sized part-time farmers. This trend is inspiring increasing customer needs for labor saving, operations and cost efficiency in farm machine and sophisticated technologies such as autonomous and IoT solution.
Kubota and MAM have implemented own approaches to handle customer issues. Kubota is finding solutions in their large selections of products from small to large size, and in promotion of Smart Agriculture that utilize self-driving agricultural machines and the farming support system KSAS. MAM offers a lineup of products equipped with Mitsubishi’s proprietary technologies and pursuit of craftsmanship spirit or “monozukuri spirit” ( “Craftsmanship Spirit”) under brand message “Long Life”. However, it is critically important to secure resources in each company to sustainably respond to diversified demands of Japanese customers while expansion of Japanese agricultural market is not expected.
Kubota and MAM are announcing that they have agreed to start discussion to endeavor to offer products, services and solutions that meet the customer needs through mutually utilizing resources to contribute to continuous and stable food production in Japan.
- Scope of Business Collaboration
- Expansion of Mutual OEM Supply
- Expanding the existing scope of mutual OEM supply placing a main focus on the tractors, the rice transplanters and the combine harvesters, including implements and associated equipment.
- Utilization of Farming Support System KSAS
- Discussing supply of agricultural machines that can accommodate Kubota’s farming support system KSAS and utilization of the system at MAM.