• 
• 

Published on October 5, 2007

The plan is aimed at making it the market leader in key flagship products by 2009.

Daizo Ito, CEO of the Panasonic Group in Thailand, said his company wanted to beat its rivals and become the No-1 player in all of the major product groups: plasma television sets, digital still cameras, air-conditioners and refrigerators.

Panasonic is already the market leader in electronic shower machines, fax machines, cordless telephones and projectors, as well as electronic whiteboards, called Panaboards.

The GP3 plan stipulates that Panasonic should increase its share of the plasma-television market from 35 per cent now to at least 40 per cent in 2009.

Its market share for digital still cameras should also rise, from 8 per cent now to about 25 per cent in 2009, while its share of the refrigerator market is expected to jump from 18.5 per cent to at least 22 per cent in the same period, making it the market leader in both product categories.

Panasonic also wants at least to maintain its 23-per-cent share of the local air-conditioner market, in which it overtook Mitsubishi during the first half of the year to become the market leader.

Panasonic yesterday announced the launch of the latest models in its Lumix range of digital still cameras - the FX33 and the FX55, the first to be equipped with an "intelligent auto mode" feature - with a supporting budget of Bt200 million.

Actors Theeradej "Ken" Wongpuapan and Pakorn "Dome" Lam have been appointed brand ambassadors for the Lumix range and feature in a commercial for the cameras, which are targeted at youngsters and working people. The two stars will go on roadshows across the Kingdom as part of the "Panasonic Lumix Battle" campaign.

Pinyo Chansiriworakul, product manager for digital still cameras at Panasonic Siew Sales (Thailand),

said the company expected the Bt200-million launch to increase Lumix's market share from 8 per cent now to 15 per cent by December, lifting it from No 5 for digital still cameras into the top three.

Sony leads the local market for digital still cameras with a 24-per-cent share, followed by Canon with 20 per cent, Samsung with 12 per cent and Nikon with about 10 per cent. The market is expected to grow about 10 per cent this year to 850,000 units.

"We expect to sell about 25,000 units of the new Lumix models by December, half of them FX33s and the other half FX55s," Pinyo said, adding that the FX33 was priced at Bt13,990 and the FX55 at Bt14,990.

Pinyo said Panasonic would spend at least Bt300 million annually over the next two years marketing its Lumix cameras. The GP3 business plan sets out that the brand is supposed to become the market leader by 2009.

Panasonic Siew Sales expects total sales of Bt21.2 billion in its fiscal 2007. The company achieved sales of Bt10.3 billion in the first half, from April to September.

Ito said the Panasonic Group recently shut down a factory in Pathum Thani that manufactured cathode-ray tube (CRT) components for television sets, mainly for export to India and the United States. The closure follows the growing popularity of flat-screen and digital television sets in world markets, particularly India and the US, at the expense of CRT sets. Panasonic will shift production of CRTs to its factory in China.

Ito said the company had organised a job fair to assist the 2,400 workers affected by the factory's closure.

Kwanchai Rungfapaisarn

The Nation