A brief history of Panasonic

Posted by | Posted on 12:40 AM

By Armadeus Cornelius

Panasonic was founded by Konosuke Matsushita in Japan in 1918 and was originally known as Matsushita. Konosuke initially operated from a rented two-story house where he used the first floor to manufacture electric devices.

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.

Since its inception in 1918 Panasonic has grown into a company that now has three hundred and six thousand employees spread over its six hundred companies and is now the fifth largest manufacturer of electronic items in the world. They also have over forty thousand patents within Japan and fifty four thousand patents out of Japan. Their product range extends to over fifteen thousand products which they sell all around the world. In 2007 they registered a larger number of patents than any other company in the world.

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.

About the Author:

Comments (0)