Panasonic company: main stages of development and today’s strategy
Panasonic company plans to invest in the development of artificial intelligence and machine learning technology. The amount of investments will be 150 million dollars.
The funds will be provided through the Conductive Ventures II venture fund. Part of the money will be used to expand the staff of developers to create software and hardware that can be used for various business areas. Panasonic plans to introduce products based on neural networks, which can be used for unmanned vehicles, financial institutions, healthcare, e-commerce and others.
It should be noted that the Japanese company has followed the example of its colleagues from around the world that are actively mastering artificial intelligence technologies. Among them such Internet giants as Google, Cognitive Technologies, Facebook.
The application of neural networks is a promising industry, the developments on their basis allow recognizing human speech, perform semantic search, identify text. Machine learning is the basis of robotics, expert systems and linguistic skills are built on it.
Panasonic is one of the world’s largest companies producing household appliances and electronics. In terms of revenue, it is on the Fortune Global 500 list.
The Konosuke Matsushita brand was founded in 1918 as Matsushita Electric Industrial, Panasonic was a trademark. In 2008, it was decided to rename the company for better brand recognition. After opening the business, it was possible to get a large contract, which saved Matsushita from bankruptcy. In 1920 the company consisted of 8 factories that produced bicycle headlights, wires, irons and other small electrical appliances. In 1931 radio receivers went into assortment. Despite the difficulties, Panasonic managed to survive during the Great Depression and World War II, primarily due to proper management and care for employees.
The trademark Panasonic appeared in 1955 to promote products in the U.S., Canada and Mexico. The word is Greek and means all sound. It was not chosen by chance – the company planned to supply audio products under this brand, but after a while all products began to go under this brand.
In Europe, the corporation became known in 1962, when its representative office was opened in Germany.
The Technics SL-1200 MK2 vinyl player became a breakthrough, breaking all sales records in 1979. Since then, the Panasonic brand has been associated with quality and affordable prices.
In 2014, the company invested about 10 billion yen in the construction of the Tesla Motors battery factory. In 2016, the Japanese company is an official partner of the American city of Denver, where it implements the idea of creating a smart city.
