For October 2008 Matsushita has announced to change the Name to PANASONIC. Reason: Since 1925 Matsushita uses the brand "National" for the Japanese market but also more and more the brand Panasonic - as used worldwide.
Brands:
Matsushita, Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. Ltd
The first Matsushita radio, a 3 vacuum tube model, was introduced in 1931. It won first prize in the Tokyo Broadcasting Station radio contest. Other inventions followed, including electric motors and electric fans. [http://www.bookrags.com/biography/konosuke-matsushita/]
Other source:
For the brand National Matsushita has also built it’s first radio in 1933, called R-1. Ten years later Matsushita was the biggest radio builder in Japan.
In 1935 Matsushita launched their first television, an area of production that has since proved immensely successful. 1935 also marked a turning point in the size, production and sheer growth of Matsushita Electric.
This particular year saw the company manufacturing 600 different kinds of product with sales extending to overseas markets for the first time. Their employee base rose to 3500.
By 1942, Matsushita became the first radio manufacturer in Japan. As the swinging sixties approached, the total number of employees had risen to 28000. The company reported profits of 1.5 billion yen.
By now, Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. Ltd is without a doubt one of the world's largest and most successful electronics companies. It has grown from just 3 to 290 000 employees, and accounts for $51.7 billion net sales worldwide.
National
Since 1927 Matsushita uses the brand National. Originally this was used for a well selling bicycle lamp with battery (see also other US-Brands National without connection to Matsushita). More? See under National.
Panasonic
Panasonic had to be introduced as a new brand for export to th USA because the brand National existed already. A few radios were sold before by the name of Matsushita.
In Europe there was no problem and such equipment was sold for the brand National until about 1985. Because the brand Panasonic seemed to have a better name since about 1980 Matsushita began to combine the names to National-Panasonic to slowly switch over to Panasonic since about 1990. For other products like Robotics the name NAIS is used.
Technics
More and more Matsushita wanted to get also a good image for HiFi and about 1975 the brand Technics was launched. This brand achieved highest volumes for Hi-Fi-Equipment.
Since 2004 only Panasonic is used for electronic consumer goods. In this field Panasonic has about twice the market share than Sony. Hitachi is bigger as a company because it is a company operating in different fields like chemicals big machinery etc.
JVC
This company came into possession of Matsushita and is well known as a leader for VHS-Systems. Together with Matsushita JVC produced more such products than the rest of the Japanese manufacturer.
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