You have to be flush for this throne

By EDWINA GIBBS

TOKYO - It looks like the perfect business opportunity. Every house has one. Everyone uses them. And one Japanese company is making the most technologically advanced products of their kind.

But Toto has found that selling a better toilet requires patience.

Toto, the world's dominant maker of high-tech loos, made toilet history in 1980 when, improving on a US model that combined the bidet and the toilet, it produced the "washlet" - bringing warm water to the user's nether regions.

"We brought electronics into the water closet," said Hiroshi Kobayashi, Toto's general manager of restroom product research.

Sometimes dubbed Japan's super-thrones, top-of-the-line washlets come with wall-mounted control panels as complex as those of stereo systems.

The many buttons allow adjustment of the nozzle position, water pressure and type of spray, plus blow-drying, air purification and seat warming. Water and seat temperatures are adjustable.

The controls can be set so the lid rises as the toilet is approached.

Japanese have embraced the high-tech toilet. Government statistics show that combined toilet/bidets are now installed in 52 per cent of Japanese homes compared with 14 per cent in 1992.

Toto - which employs around 1,500 engineers - dominates that market with a 65 per cent share.

But where Sony's Playstation, Toyota Corollas and Pokemon have blazed paths into western popular culture, Toto's high-tech thrones have not travelled well. Toto officials blame matters both cultural and practical.

A relatively long history of flush toilets in the US and Europe - about 100 years - has resulted in many competitors and cheap toilets.

Westerners just aren't used to paying hundreds or even thousands of dollars for high-tech versions.

Most Western bathrooms lack an electric socket near the toilet, something that people in Japan were keen to install when the seat-warming feature was introduced.

But after making some inroads in the US with more standard models, especially with the advent of low-flow toilets in the 1990s, Toto's washlets are starting to make an impression.

Its US washlet sales, which began about eight years ago, have risen to more than 1,000 units a month this year from 600 two years ago.

"It's not the same amount of numbers but the trend is very similar to what we saw in Japan 20 years ago - low figures for about five years and then a sharp J-curve. We have great expectations for US sales next year," Kobayashi said.

But marketing toilets is not easy. Building showrooms is expensive and some analysts estimate it will take another five years before overseas revenues, now only 5 per cent of Toto's total sales, climb to 10 per cent.

And some cultural barriers seem too hard to break.

"You'd think that because Europeans are used to the bidet, they'd be more interested. We just don't know why they aren't," said Kobayashi.

Some analysts argue that Toto would be better off pulling its washlets out of the US and Europe and concentrating on more receptive Asian markets. China is a key market for Toto, where it makes 1.1 million toilets and sinks annually.

While US consumers are just waking up to washlets, the Japanese are going even more upmarket.

Toto's new Neorest model gets rid of the inner rim of the bowl and brings in "the tornado flush".

The tank is gone, the bowl is connected to the water pipes and water swooshes around in a whirlpool fashion - making for a toilet that's easier to clean.

Appealing to hygiene-conscious Japanese willing to part with between 210,000 ($3100) and 350,000 ($5230) if it means they don't have to scrub the toilet bowl, the Neorest, which went on sale in July last year, is seen as a significant contributor to Toto's earnings.