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July 22, 2016:   RIP VHS: World's Last VCR Will Be Made This Month .

July 22 : The final videocassette recorder is manufactured by the Japanese company Funai.

Be warned, vintage videophiles: Japan's Funai Electric, a company that claims to be the last manufacturer of videocassette recorders (VCRs), will manufacture its last VHS player this month. Funai, which manufacturers the VCRs in China for Sanyo, says the decision comes after selling only 750,000 units last year, down from a peak of 15 million units per year. The decreased production numbers have made parts costly and difficult to source, the company says.
40 years after the first VHS video cassette recorder rolled off the production line, the last known company making the devices is ceasing production. According to Japanese newspaper Nikkei, Funai Electric, a Japanese consumer electronics company, will give up on the format by the end of the July after 30 years of production. Declining sales, plus a difficulty in obtaining the necessary parts, prompted Funai Electric to cease production. While the Funai brand might not be well-known in the west, the company sold VCRs under the more familiar Sanyo brand in China and North America. JVC's VHS configuration debuted in 1977, sparking the VHS/Betamax configuration war. VHS trumped Betamax, which debuted in 1975, thanks in large part to its embracing of the X-Rated market; Sonybanned the adult industry from releasing movies on its configuration, leading many consumers-who didn't want to purchase two different devices-to choose VHS. A decade later, in 1987, VHS controlled 90%of the $5.25 billion VCR market. (Last year, Sony announced it would finally stop selling its blank Betamax cassette tapes.).
VHS ruled the home entertainment world for more than two decades. Sony created the DVD player in 1994, but the technology did not debut in the U.S. until 1997, due in larger part to copyright concerns from major movie studios. With early DVD players retailing for $1,000 or more, VHS remained the top configuration in the United States into the new millennium

Believe it or not, a search on Amazon for "VHS movies" still returns 135,267 results.
It may surprise you to learn that Japanese companies are still making video cassette recorders, but this fact won't remain useful for too long - manufacturing will cease at the end of the month. Funai Electric, a company that produces its own consumer electronics as well as handling production for other, larger companies, is the only remaining Japanese manufacturer of VCRs, but Nikkei reports it'll close down the lines by August..
The reasons cited are, as you might imagine, the contraction of the market and the difficulty in procuring necessary components. Although other companies like Panasonic got out of the market a while back, Funai had been producing VCRs in China for Sanyo, who sold them in the US and other markets. Funai produced its first VCR in 1983 and sold as many as 15 million a year at one point, but last year managed sales of just 750,000
Which, to be fair, is still quite impressive in the age of Netflix and rewritable digital media - just not enough to keep VCRs in production. VHS cassettes, however, are likely to stick around for a while yet; they're still easy to find in Japanese stores, and Sony only stopped selling Betamax tapes last year even though it ceased production of recorders in 2002.

When did the first VCR come out?
JVC released the first VHS machines in Japan in late 1976, and in the United States in early 1977. Sony's Betamax competed with VHS throughout the late 1970s and into the 1980s
Who invented the VCR player?
The history of the videocassette recorder follows the history of videotape recording in general. Ampex introduced the Quadruplex videotape professional broadcast standard format with its Ampex VRX-1000 in 1956. It became the world's first commercially successful videotape recorder using two-inch (5.1 cm) wide tape.
When did the VCR become popular?
The competition between the companies led to the release of three different, mutually incompatible VCR formats: Sony's Betamax in 1975, JVC's VHS in 1976, and the Philips V2000 in 1978. Two of these would come head-to-head in the 1980s in what became known as the first Format War.
When did the VHS become obsolete?
VCR becoming obsolete. Look at the evidence for yourself. According to a 2006 Nielsen study, more American households have DVD players now than have VCRs. In 2006, all major movie studios in the United States stopped producing VHS tapes films

Products are being replaced at a fast pace, as consumer demand changes. VCRs are one such product, as the last of its production ended this year. CCTV's Terrence Terashima reports from Tokyo.