A brief history of Panasonic
Sunday, March 29th, 2009In 1918 Konosuke Matsushita set up a company that he called Matsushita. At first he traded from the upstairs rooms of his two storey house where he manufactured electric products. Many years later the products were branded Panasonic.
By 1920 Konosuke Matsushita had moved to a larger workshop and was able to expand its production capacity. Even at this point they were manufacturing innovative products and they earned a reputation for high quality at low prices. One of the products that they produced was a unique adaptor that allowed two light bulbs to be plugged into one light socket. This product and the others that they produced were so popular that they had to build a bigger new factory and offices in 1922.
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.
During 1927 Panasonic started manufacturing their first electric iron that was at a price that many could afford.
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.
Throughout the 30s and 40s Panasonic continued to innovate and manufacturer quality products. By 1952 they had designed the first monochrome television to have a rectangular picture tube at a price that people could afford. After this innovation all television tubes were rectangular. During the 1950s was investigating methods of recording video signals.
Panasonic were manufacturing their first colour CRT TVs which they were mass producing by 1960.
Panasonic was the first company in the world to make a rewriteable optical disc recorder that recorded video signals in 1991. They also created a charter in which they committed to protecting the environment.
Panasonic is now the 5th largest manufacture of electronic products by value in the world with over 600 companies and 306,000 employees. They manufacture over 15,000 products and have over 40,000 patents in Japan and 54,000 patents outside of Japan. In 2007 alone they filed 2100 patents which were the most filed by any company in the world during that year.
Throughout its history Panasonic has innovated with designs that improve on other products that are available in the market. Their products are always high quality and provide solutions to everyday problems for ordinary peoples life. By not accepting the normal ways of doing things Panasonic has consistently produced ground breaking products that are better than others in the market.