I don’t know, but Konosuke Matsushita, the founder of Panasonic, probably didn’t know how big his brand would be when he started Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd about 100 years ago in Japan. What started as a duplex lamp socket vendor in 1918 has evolved to be one of the world’s biggest brands as far as electronics goes.
What does Panasonic sell? A wide range of products. First is television sets (history) – Matsushita’s brother-in-law started Sanyo as a subcontractor for components after World War II but Sanyo grew to become Panasonic competitor and was acquired by Panasonic in December 2009; in January 19, 2006, Panasonic stopped producing analog televisions which contributed to about 30% of its total TV business to concentrate on producing digital televisions. Panasonic also makes batteries – in fact, Panasonic recently delivered over 100 million Lithium-Ion battery cells for Tesla’s Model S Electric Vehicle. Tesla Motors Inc. is a Silicon Valley-based company that designs, manufactures and sells electric cars and electric vehicle power-train components. It is owned majorly by Elon Musk, a brilliant South-African native entrepreneur. From this, you can tell that Panasonic is in all the right places. Panasonic also makes cameras – the point-and-shoot Lumix series that have so far been successful in the lifestyle camera market. Last but not least is the phone business where Panasonic makes both fixed and CDMA line phones as well as mobile phones such as the popular Panasonic P51.
Panasonic is coming to Kenya – When opening a new store or service center in a new market, you need lots of resources. These resources are quantifiable by cash input as well as human resource input and Panasonic has that. On Wednesday 17th July, Panasonic will launch its first one-of-a-kind fully equipped service center and showroom in Nairobi’s Parklands area. The company is also doing a lot of aggressive marketing on Social Media i.e. Facebook . Here, Panasonic’s top management comprising of the Managing Director for Middle East & Africa – Mr Masao Motoki and the Managing Director for Polestars – Panasonic’s partner in Kenya – Mr Bhop Indar Singh will shed some light into the company’s expansion plans in Africa and also the importance of the Kenyan market in their global strategy.
