The History of Panasonic
In 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.
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.
Panasonic created another successful product during 1923 which was a bicycle lamp that was in a bullet shape with a battery that had a life that was ten times longer than comparable products on the market.
This was followed by Panasonics first electric iron which was produced at an affordable price in 1927.
By 1931 Panasonic began to manufacture a product that they are more known for today. They designed and manufactured an award winning radio that had 3 tubes, the R31. Panasonic patented part of its design and then allowed other manufacturers to use their innovative design to encourage the expansion of the radio industry.
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.
Panasonic were manufacturing their first colour CRT TVs which they were mass producing by 1960.
During 1991 Panasonic manufactured the first rewriteable optical disc recorder for television images which was a forerunner to the DVD recorder. They also made a commitment to environmental responsibility in 1991 with an environmental charter.
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.
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