SANYO Unveils its Lighter Version of eneloop Rechargeable Batteries
Here is yet another marketing tactic by Sanyo to sell its eneloop battery in an already lucrative and competitive world wide market. This time Sanyo targets the lower market segment, the remote controls and alarm clocks, a less power hungry devices sort of speaking, the market that has been dominated by regular, non-rechargeable, cheap dry cell batteries. Sanyo calls them “eneloop lite” and it comes in AA and AAA size. The company sells the pack of 2 (AA) and 2 (AAA) at prices of 780 and 640 JPY respectively. But the lower price means lower capacity.
The eneloop lite AA batteries come with a rating capacity of 950mAh comparing to the regular AA eneloop, with capacity of 1900mAh, and eneloop lite AAA batteries with a rating capacity of 550 mAh, comparing to 750mAh for the regular AAA eneloop battery. The lower capacity in turn results in lighter batteries, yes approximately 30% lighter than a size AA eneloop and approximately 15% lighter than Sanyo size AA alkaline manganese dry cell. Given the number of functioning remote controls in a regular house hold, I still find the prices little too high. But nevertheless it is a good marketing strategy by Sanyo, no matter how they label it. The new eneloop lite will be released on June 22 only in Japan.
