Kenwood has, in my experience as a ham, been slow to bring new products to market and slow to abandon existing products. Part of the reason is that ALL communications products are only about 25% of JVC Kenwood's business. With limited engineering, production, and marketing resources, they've been putting their efforts towards the land mobile radio market because, well, that's where the money is. Whatever resources are left, if any, go to amateur radio.
Given the specific chip shortage cause by the Asahi Kasei Microdevices (AKM) fire in October 2020 and the general electronic component shortage caused by COVID-19 related shutdowns (which went on much longer in China than the U.S.), I think Kenwood just found themselves stretched too thin. Amateur radio was the first part of the company to be temporarily "parked" while they concentrated on other things. Now that the supply chain has improved, JVCK can get back to amateur radio products.
I am hopeful that their presence at Hamvention and planned attendance at
Ham Radio Friedrichshafen and
Tokyo Ham Fair along with the announcement of the TH-D75 is an indication of future good things from Kenwood. Maybe a new flagship mobile radio next year followed by a new SDR-based HF radio in 2025. We can hope. But, they will never be like a certain other Japanese competitor who seems to bring out new products every month (yes, I exaggerate).
