The Rise of Panasonic

Panasonic was founded in Japan in 1918 by Konosuke Matsushita. Initially the company was known as Matsushita and Panasonic was a trading name and brand although recently the company has been renamed Panasonic. Matsushita operated at first from the first floor of his 2 storey home and manufactured electrical goods.

It wasnt long before Panasonic outgrew the upstairs of his house and it needed to move to a large workshop in 1920 which allowed them to make additional products. Virtually from the beginning Panasonics products were innovative, well designed, high quality and at affordable prices. One of the initial products that Panasonic made was a double adaptor which made it possible to connect two light bulbs into a single socket. The growth of Panasonic continued until 1922 when it was necessary to move to yet a bigger building.

Panasonics success continued in 1923 with another unique product, a bike light that was in the shape of a bullet that had a battery that outlasted comparable products by 10 times their useable time.

This was followed by Panasonics first electric iron which was produced at an affordable price in 1927.

During 1931 Panasonic manufactured an award winning and reliable 3 tube radio known as the R-31. Konosuke even patented his unique design in the product and then made it available to all manufacturers to spur the radio industries growth.

In 1952 Panasonic had designed a rectangular cathode ray tube (CRT) which was an industry first. Up to this point television tubes had been round but they soon all became rectangular. They incorporated their rectangular tube in to an affordable black and white television. Throughout the 1950s Panasonic also researched ways of recording video.

By 1960 Panasonic had produced their first mass manufactured television that had a colour picture tube.

Many innovations were produced between 1960 and 1990 and by 1991 Panasonic produced the first optical rewriteable disc recorder for video -this was a precursor to the DVD Recorder. Also during 1991 Panasonic introduced an environmental charter that committed them to help to protect the environment.

Panasonic now hold over 40000 patents in Japan and a further 54000 outside of Japan. They produce in excess of 15000 products which distribute to virtually every country in the world. Panasonic employ 306000 people within 600 companies and by value they are the fifth biggest electronic manufacturer in the world. During 2007 they filed 2007 patents which were more patents than any other company in the world.

To begin with Konosukes Panasonic company and its employees strived to find ways of designing and manufacturing top quality products that provided solutions to everyday problems of the average person. This was done by questioning the standard way of doing things and finding ways of manufacturing products that were better than products that already existed. This philosophy has been applied throughout Panasonic history and today Panasonic still applies these same principals in every product that they manufacture.