Come on man, for 100% it's for profit. I do not see into the books but ESN floods everyone with rubbers. I cannot belive the cost of a Ryzen CMD, MSRP around 37EUR and K3 MSRP around 60EUR is anywhere meeting reality. I can't see how K3 costs 70-80% more made in the same factory with slightly different material and slightly different process.
I'm sure German labor costs and energy costs are not low, but Daiki, BTY and Sumitomo... Like I'm not very educated (and I could google it if I wanted to) about the location of the ESN factory, nor the Daiki factory nor the Sumitomo one. Tamasu, which is the BTY factory is in Tokyo and I would assume labor costs, industrial tax, energy prices etc etc are super freaking high there. So there's one thing people should consider about high Tenergy and Dignics prices. And I'm not even considering that do you think BTY is giving their many sponsored players rubbers for free? Bullshit. You and me pay for it every time we buy a sheet of Tenergy and Dignics. We sponsor FZD, Harimoto etc etc.
I'm sure Daiki and Sumitomo faces similar "problems" which is why they are not contracted that much by others. Since all their additional costs just pile up too high.
Like honestly I would not be surprised that the cost of making a sheet of Tenergy would be like 5USD and everything else is what I mentioned plus maybe some R&D and tooling costs.
Regarding DHS you have a point in contracting these companies. Acquireing Sumitomo is kinda lol, since Sumitomo is a huge automotive supplier, maybe they would aqcure DHS if they wanted but whatever. They surely could and could tap into Daiki and Sumitomo's IP, and Sumitomo's rubber IP should be pretty freaking huge.
I remember reading probably on MyTT that Oscar at Nexy was actually contacted by Lining (major shareholder in DHS), that they wanna develop a rubber in Japan. But that whole deal fell flat on its tits due to covid or who knows what but the end result is the Etika rubber at Nexy.
I would love to see more Sumitomo rubbers be it Mizuno or any other brand. I used Mizuno Q5 last year, it is one of the most lovely rubber out there. I would take it over Tenergy 05 any day. 2 small issues, heavy, 52-3g cut, and for me it bubbled up in 2 months. Now for 2 moths life it's pretty darn expensive but if it lasted for 6 months at least I would be still rocking it. It's super nice to use, very forgiving, technical, fast, spinny, it truly has everything except lightness and durability. (unless my sheet was faulty)