After nearly a century of existence, Matsushita Electric Industrial is ditching its founder’s name to trade under one name globally — Panasonic, its best-known brand — hoping this and an $11 billion reserve of cash will increase its growth outside Japan and help the company compete with rivals like Samsung and Sony.
Expansion overseas is an urgent task for Matsushita, which earns half its revenue from its home base of Japan, where the population is aging. Sony earns more than three quarters of its sales outside Japan, helped in part by its strong brand name.
Matsushita markets its products outside Japan under the Panasonic brand, while in Japan it sells home appliances under the National brand, splitting customer attention and employee identity among the three brands.
“We will strive not to waste even one moment of our effort or one drop of our sweat, and focus everything on Panasonic,” the company’s president, Fumio Ohtsubo, said this month.
A shift in branding to Panasonic for home appliances in Japan will be completed by March 2010.
Matsushita’s decision to change its name, effective Wednesday, comes half a century after a rival company, Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering, was renamed Sony.
The late Konosuke Matsushita started his company at the age of 23, when he turned part of his rented house into a workshop. The company reckons that now — its 90th anniversary — is a good time to make the name change, and it will promote Panasonic as a single worldwide brand.
As part of its drive to expand globally, Matsushita plans to introduce its washing machines and refrigerators in Europe by March, going head to head with brands like Electrolux of Sweden.
Matsushita, with available cash of 1.16 trillion yen, or $10.9 billion, may consider mergers and acquisitions as a way to take on bigger rivals and increase its sales of…