JEDDAH, 17 December 2003 — National and Panasonic brand names have been unified into a single brand — Panasonic.
“All National branded home appliances and electrical products made by Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. Ltd. will become Panasonic,” Seiji Koyanagi, chief executive officer at the head office of Panasonic-M.O. Alesayi Electronics Co. Ltd. in Jeddah, told a press conference.
“By March, we would like to end our preparation for the brand unification so that by April all products will be ready with the Panasonic brand name,” he said.
The brand unification would take place across the Middle East-Gulf region and the rest of Asia including China - except for Japan, where the National name was born.
National has a 40 percent share of the Japanese market. Koyanagi said the company’s sales turnover globally was in the region of $75 billion. Its share of the Middle East market for consumer electronics, excluding PCs and mobile phones, ranged between $3.5 billion and $4 billion. “We’re aiming at a SR1 billion share of the Saudi market by 2006,” Koyanagi said.
The company adopted the brand name “National” in Japan in 1927.