Some interesting and surprising facts about one of the most successful Japanese electronics companies ever Panasonic.

Panasonic was founded in 1918 as the Matsushita electrical housewares manufacturing works by Konosuke Matsushita. Matsushita used his innovative spirit to expand the company from offering a straightforward product to producing quality electrical products in a short amount of time although the company was devastated by war Matsushita’s leadership drove the company to rebuild into an even stronger and more successful company. Matsushita’s spirit continues to drive the company as his work ethic dedication to quality and forward-thinking nature are the basis of all their business operations. Now 100 years after its founding Panasonic is a multi-billion dollar company that offers a wide range of electronic goods including cameras televisions, audio equipment, home theatres, phones, and more. Inspired by Panasonic's long history of ability to adapt to incredible success and forward-thinking nature it's time to take a closer look at this multinational electronics corporation with the 15 things you didn't know about Panasonic.

1. History of Panasonic

Panasonic started as a seller of light bulb sockets although today Panasonic is known the world over as a multi-faceted electronics company it had a very simple beginning. In 1918 the company was founded by Konosuke Matsushita and only had two other employees his wife and his brother-in-law Its only ventures at the time were selling light bulb sockets. In 1927 production expanded into bicycle pumps followed by light fixtures motors electric irons and vacuum tubes.

2. Panasonic built ships and Airplanes In WWII

During the Second World War Panasonic switched its focus to supporting the war effort this led to Panasonic setting up shipbuilding and plane-building sectors but it proved to be difficult since nobody at the company had any experience in these areas. However, they did successfully produce 56 wooden ships and 3 wooden aircraft during the war however Panasonic suffered many losses during the war including 32 Factory and office facilities and about 11,000 staff members.

3. The Company was not called Panasonic

2008 Panasonic was called the Matsushita Electrical Industrial Company from 1935 to October 2008. Panasonic was first used as a brand name in 1955 for audio speakers the Panasonic name was created out of a combination of the words pan and Sonic which the company says the meaning of bringing the sound the company makes to the world number.

4. Panasonic and Tesla are business partners

In July 2014 Panasonic announced that it had made an agreement with Tesla to participate in a massive battery plant called the Giga factory that Tesla plans to build in the US by 2020 the plan is estimated to cost 5 billion dollars and it's expected that it will result in reducing Tesla's battery (4680) costs by 30%. Panasonic announced its initial investment in the Tesla Motors battery factory would amount to tens of billions of yen. Panasonic will provide Tesla with 4680 batteries by March 2024. Pansonic is to begin mass production of Tesla's new 4680 batteries by the end of the fiscal year 2024.

5. Universal Studios once belonged to Panasonic

In 1990 Panasonic purchased an American media company called the Music Corporation of America or MCA for 6.59 billion dollars five years later 80 % of MCA was sold to Seagram company for 7 billion dollars and the name was changed to Universal Studios Today Universal Studios is part of NBC Universal which is owned by Comcast.

6. Panasonic is one of the biggest supporters of the Olympic Games 

Panasonic has been one of the top sponsors of the Olympic Games ever since the 1988 Calgary Olympics. In 2008 Panasonic's HD equipment made the first Olympic Games with full HD official coverage possible at the 2016 Rio Games Panasonic provided 115 projectors which were used during the opening ceremony they also provided 10,000 surveillance cameras and various broadcasting equipment for the Sochi 2014 Winter Games these are just tiny samples of everything Panasonic does to support the Olympics.

7. They first expanded to the US market in 1961.

Konosuke Matsushita traveled to the United States for the first time in 1961 and he had a very successful trip where he met with American dealers and established agreements that would allow him to move to the US market the company began producing television sets for the US market shortly after under the brand name Panasonic and later on starting in 1979 Panasonic TVs were sold in Europe as well the company sold products under the national brand outside of North America from the 1950s to the 1970s however federal could not be used to sell products in the US due to the existence of the National Radio Company.

8. The Panasonic Toughbook claims 50 % of the rugged laptop market 

Toughbook is a brand name owned by Panasonic that refers to its line of rugged computers Toughbook is designed to withstand vibration spills drops extreme temperatures and rough handling tough books are widely used in a variety of industries including military construction health care law enforcement manufacturing oil and emergency services. Panasonic claims 50% of the so-called rugged laptop market with this one product alone.

9. Panasonic built the world's giant hi-def LED screen

Panasonic built the largest high-definition television LED screen at the Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth Texas in 2014 the world record-breaking screen is 2600 and 14 square feet with display dimensions of 94.5 feet by 218.4 feet the video board nickname is the Big Hoss TV and its consists of nearly 4.8 million pixels and displays 281 trillion colors it's bigger than two jumbo jets put together the screen is used to display live race coverage leaderboard information instant replays and interactive entertainment.

10. Panasonic invented a tomato-harvesting robot

Panasonic's newest robot was introduced in December 2017 at the robot exhibition in Tokyo the robot has been designed to use its camera range image sensor and artificial intelligence to only pick soon-to-be ripe tomatoes that are ready for harvesting this task was previously thought to be too delicate for a robot to handle without damaging the sensitive fruit or picking up undesirable Tomatoes but the Panasonic robot proved it was up to the task.

Panasonic also claims it can match human efficiency by harvesting 10 Tomatoes every minute.

11. Panasonic is the 97th most valuable brand in the world

Panasonic just made it into the top 100 of Forbes's most valuable brands list the company comes in at number 97 between Walgreens and Nivea the Panasonic brand is valued at 6.9 billion dollars.

12. A stone monument marks where Panasonic was founded 

In November 2004 on the 110th observance of the birth of Panasonic founder Konosuke Matsushita, a stone monument was unveiled that marks where the 23-year-old Konosuke founded the Matsushita Electric housewares manufacturing Works which later became Panasonic. The stone monument is located in Okie rocky Japan in Osaka Fukushima the monument is 1.8 meters high and 2 meters wide and is inscribed with the Japanese character for the path as written by Konosuke himself.

13. Panasonic is the title sponsor for the new Jaguar Formula E team

At the beginning of 2016, Jaguar announced that it would be joining the all-electric Formula E racing series, and nine months later it was announced that Panasonic would be their title sponsor the official name for the racing team is Panasonic Jaguar Racing. The team's car is a Jaguar I type 1 and of course, large Panasonic logos can be seen on it from every angle.

14. The founders of Panasonic and Sanyo were brothers-in-law

After World War, II Panasonic founder Konosuke Matsushita set about trying to refocus and rebuild his company meanwhile his brother-in-law Toshio Liu founded Sanyo as a subtractor for components the two companies became competitors in the same market but long after the two founders had passed away the companies merged when Panasonic bought Sanyo in December 2009. Toshio Liu was one of the three original employees of the Panasonic company.

15. Panasonic set a record with their Evolta batteries

In 2015 Panasonic set a Guinness world record for the longest distance traveled by a vehicle on a railway track powered by dry cell batteries in an attempt to demonstrate the strength and durability of their Evolta batteries Panasonic powered a small train solely with 600 of their batteries and it traveled 14.05 miles before running out of power the two-hour 36-minute train ride took place in Akita Japan and the train was built by 13 local high school students.

In 2014 to attract more workers to its Chinese operations Panasonic offered to pay ex-pats hazard pay to compensate for the chronic air pollution they are subjected to as they work in the heavily polluted environment China has the world's worst air pollution with over 3 million deaths per year being attributed to the toxic air.