Joby Confirms Japan Market Strategy

Akihabara News (Tokyo) — Joby Aviation Founder and Chief Executive Officer JoeBen Bevirt used an earnings call on May 12 to confirm his company’s general strategy with regard to the Japanese market.

“Our approach is a little bit different than some of the other folks. We want to not only build the aircraft, but also operate the aircraft and deliver that service kind of more directly to end customers,” he explained.

He added that due to the tie-up with All Nippon Airways (ANA), he feels that Joby has “the right partners to help support what those launches might look like.”

The Joby-ANA alliance was unveiled in mid-February with the declaration that they would “bring aerial ridesharing services to cities and communities across Japan.”

The partners added that this service would likely be integrated with a ground transportation service with support from Toyota Motor Corporation.

Toyota is the top investor in Joby Aviation, to the tune of about US$400 million.

Joby Aviation’s financial report for the first quarter of 2022 was generally welcomed by the market. Since the firm is, like all eVTOL companies, not at the point at which it can sell aircraft or offer its core services, from a financial point of view it is a matter of comparing the money raised by backers with the money spent on development costs and related expenses.

In Joby’s case, it spent US$72 million in the January-March period and says that it expects full year cash expenditure of between US$340 million and US$360 million.