Panasonic History and background

A little bit of history and background information

Panasonic is now a household name in many parts of the world. It is an internationally recognised global brand, with a great reputation for quality and service.

Where did it start? It all started in 1918, when Konosuke Matsushita formed the Matsushita Electric Devices Manufacturing Works This was housed on the first floor of a two storey house.
Televisions hadn't been invented yet, of course, television came along in the 1920s.

The first things Matshushita made were electrical plugs and sockets. In 1927 these were followed by a bicycle lamp, which was the first product to carry the National brand.

They started making radios in 1931, still under the National brand.

The brand name Panasonic came along in 1955, when they were expanding into international markets. They found that the brand name National was already in use so they chose the name Panasonic, initially for their operations in the United States, Canada and Mexico.

The origin of the name is satisfyingly simple. They were selling radios, and put together the words Pan meaning all, and sonic for sound, so Panasonic simply means all sound. When you think of the modern terms such as surround sound and the like, the early adoption of all sound as a name was pretty good, really

Present day

Today Panasonic (Matsushita Electric Industrial Company Limited) is one of the largest electronic product manufacturers in the world, comprised of over 600 companies.

They manufacture and market over 15,000 products under brands such as Panasonic, National, Technics, and Quasar all over the world.

Panasonic company profile

Company Name: Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd

Head Office Location:
1006, Kadoma, Kadoma City, Osaka 571-8501, Japan

Tel. 81-6-6908-1121

President: Fumio Ohtsubo

Foundation: March, 1918
(incorporated in December, 1935)

Net Sales:
9,108.2 (billions of yen)
77.19 (billions of dollar)
(U.S.$1.00 = 118 yen)

Number of Employees:
328,645

No. of Consolidated Companies:
653

All figures as at March 31, 2007

Useful websites

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Panasonic History and background

A little bit of history and background information

Present day

Panasonic company profile

Useful websites