Panasonic (Panasonic) is a well-known Japanese home appliance manufacturer with a history of more than 100 years since its establishment.
It is also known as a global company, with a wide range of home appliances and services overseas, with overseas sales accounting for 57% of regional sales (FY2021 results) .
And Panasonic is currently focusing on the development of AI ( artificial intelligence ), applying that technology to home appliances and services in pursuit of a “better life.”
In this article, we will introduce the fields of AI development conducted by Panasonic, use cases, and explain the future of the company, so please read it to the end.
Table of contents
- About Panasonic
- Basic Management Policy (Values)
- History
- stock price
- Panasonic×AI – Panasonic’s AI development fields and application examples
- ①Data analysis
- ②Voice/Language
- (3) Biometric data analysis
- Face recognition technology that Panasonic and AI are currently putting the most effort into
- Panasonic’s future potential (growth potential)
- Panasonic Group Recruitment Information
- Summary
About Panasonic
First, Panasonic’s
- company overview
- Basic management policy
- History
Introducing
| enterprise | Panasonic Group |
| founding | December 15, 1935 (Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.) |
| Established | March 7, 1918 |
| location | 1006 Kadoma, Kadoma City, Osaka Prefecture |
| representative | Representative Director, President and CEO: Yuki Kusumi (Panasonic Holdings Co., Ltd.) |
| number of employees | Consolidated: 243,540 (as of the end of March 2021) |
| amount of sales | Consolidated: 6,698,790 million yen (fiscal year ending March 2021) |
| capital | 258.74 billion yen (as of 2019) |
Basic Management Policy (Values)
Panasonic conducts business based on its management philosophy. The management philosophy is the purpose of business and the basic way of thinking of business activities, and is strongly expressed in Panasonic’s Principles, Creed, and Spirit to Be Observed .
On the Panasonic Corporation website, there is a page that describes the “Prince”, “Belief”, and “The spirit that we should abide by”, so if you are interested, please read that as well.
▼Panasonic Group’s Basic Management Policy can be found on the official website below
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The company name Panasonic was coined in 1955 as the name of a speaker for export, combining the words Pan (general) and Sonic (sound) with the idea of ”delivering the sound created by our company to the whole world.” I was.
After that, Panasonic was used as a global brand in a wide range of regions and products, but since 2008 it has been positioned as a corporate brand and from 2022 as a group brand.
History
| June 1917 | Konosuke Matsushita started manufacturing and selling light bulb sockets in a rented house in Ikaino, Tsuruhashi-cho, Higashinari-gun, Osaka (currently 2-chome, Tamatsu, Higashinari-ku, Osaka). |
| March 7, 1918 | Moved to Daikai-cho, Nishinoda, Kita-ku, Osaka (now Daikai 2-chome, Fukushima-ku, Osaka). Established Matsushita Electric Appliances Manufacturing Co., Ltd. |
| 1927 | Sells square lamps for bicycles. From this product, we begin to use the trademark of “NATIONAL”. |
| December 1935 | Reorganized as Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd., Matsushita Electric (later Matsushita Aviation Industry, Panasonic Electric Works), Matsushita Radio, Matsushita Dry Battery, Matsushita Electric Heat, Matsushita Metal, Established 9 branch companies including Matsushita Electric Direct Sales |
| 1952 | Established Matsushita Electronics Co., Ltd. in partnership with Philips in the Netherlands. |
| 1964 | The “Atami Conference” is held. Problems such as fierce sales quotas for affiliated stores and defective TV products became problems, and the dispute lasted for three days. This is an opportunity for Konosuke to return to top sales as chairman and acting general manager of the sales department. |
| 1965 | After the Atami Conference, a “new sales system” was introduced as a major reform that bet on the company’s future. The main points of the new sales system are (1) the development and enhancement of a nationwide sales network, (2) a direct sales system by business divisions that does not go through sales offices, and (3) a new monthly sales system. |
| 1971 | “PANASONIC” logo changed to “Panasonic”. In the same year, the stock was listed on the New York Stock Exchange. |
| May 2003 | Aiming to improve global marketing power and brand value, we have decided to unify the global brand to “Panasonic” and set the global brand slogan to “Panasonic ideas for life.” |
| October 1, 2008 | Changed company name to Panasonic Corporation. Corporate group name changed to Panasonic Group. At the same time, the brand will be unified to Panasonic worldwide. |
| April 2011 | Made Panasonic Electric Works and Sanyo Electric a wholly owned subsidiary. The new system based on this reorganization started in January 2012, the year after both companies became wholly owned subsidiaries. |
| September 4, 2013 | Under the new brand slogan “A Better Life, A Better World”, a four-company system (“Appliance Company”, “Eco Solutions Company”, “AVC Networks Company”, and “Automotive & Industrial Systems Company”) was launched. |
| October 2, 2017 | Made PanaHome (now Panasonic Homes) a wholly owned subsidiary through a share consolidation. |
| November 13, 2020 | Planned to shift to a holding company structure in April 2022 and change the trade name to Panasonic Holdings Co., Ltd. Prior to this, announced that the current in-house company system will be abolished and business reorganization will be implemented in October 2021. . |
| April 1, 2022 | Shifted to a holding company structure and changed the trade name to Panasonic Holdings Co., Ltd. |
Stock price
Panasonic stock price
Panasonic’s stock price fell to around 1,000 yen at one point due to the invasion of Ukraine in March.
However, it picked up from there and temporarily recovered to about 1200 yen.
As of July 13, 2022, the stock price is around 1110 yen due to the announcement of the price increase of wiring equipment.
Panasonic’s AI development fields and application cases are wide-ranging, but we will introduce three in this chapter.
- Data analysis
- Voice/language
- Biometric authentication
I will explain each.
①Data analysis
Panasonic’s data analysis technology is mainly used in the “Aeolia” series of air conditioners .
For example, when the built-in “AI Omakase Comfort” operation is activated, the air conditioner automatically selects the operation mode according to the season, outdoor/indoor temperature settings, and adjusts the temperature and humidity.
In addition, the “room learning function” analyzes and accumulates the effectiveness of the air conditioner in the room each time it is operated, and adjusts the operation according to the characteristics of the room.
In addition, we are developing products that make full use of data analysis, such as automatically adjusting the heating method according to future temperature changes by linking with Weather News weather forecasts. It is expected that the manufacturing of home appliances that have been
②Voice/Language
Panasonic’s natural language processing technology has been adopted for multiple services, but this time we will introduce “face-to- face Honyaku” that supports face-to-face customer service without interpretation .
With this service, customers face each other when serving customers, speak into their own microphones, and play machine-translated speech.
By the way, the result of back-translating the translated foreign language into Japanese is also displayed, so you can check how it is translated.
In addition, you can easily register proper nouns unique to your industry or site, and register and recall frequently used phrases, enabling customization to suit your site.
And here’s how the service works:
Spoken voice data is sent to a translation engine (Mirai Translate [NICT-based]), where speech recognition, translation, and voice synthesis data is sent to a terminal, where the machine outputs it.
As the number of foreign tourists is expected to increase in the post-corona era, the demand for such services will increase in the future.
(3) Biometric data analysis
Panasonic’s biometric data analysis is also used in the field of nursing care for the purpose of improving the quality of on-site care and reducing the workload, and has been adopted in a service called “Lifelens” .
Specifically, a camera and vital sensor called “Bureca” that can process AI can remotely monitor changes in the physical condition and appearance of nursing home residents.
It is also possible to create a nursing care plan that considers the burden on personnel by utilizing the accumulated data.
Furthermore, Panasonic has evolved this biometric data analysis, and has announced the concept of “Smart Aging ,” in which AI analyzes images and sensors and reports to nursing care staff as needed.
Therefore, it is expected that Panasonic’s AI research in the nursing care field will continue to advance.
Face recognition technology that Panasonic and AI are currently putting the most effort into
Panasonic’s face recognition applies deep learning technology in addition to the image recognition technology it has cultivated over many years. The feature is that it can recognize the face with the world’s highest level of accuracy (NIST official evaluation report) even if the angle of the face changes, changes due to aging, glasses or a mask.
Therefore, in the corona crisis, wearing a mask has become the norm today, and Panasonic’s face recognition technology has been introduced at various facilities and event venues.
For example, from March 2022, Tokyo Dome will introduce a new service called “facethru” that uses the face recognition cloud service “KPAS”, making it possible to enter and make payments using face recognition .
Specifically, by registering your face photo and credit card information in advance and performing authentication with the camera of the terminal installed at the venue, you can enter and pay while wearing a mask.
These have produced effects such as reducing contact opportunities (reducing the risk of infection), reducing waiting times, and preventing impersonation.
Panasonic’s future potential (growth potential)
In conclusion, it can be said that Panasonic’s AI development has ample future potential.
This is because while Panasonic has announced that it will withdraw from structurally unprofitable businesses such as solar panels and liquid crystal panels, it has announced in its medium-term strategy that it will take measures to establish a business model in the future as an investment for growth in AI development. because
In addition to the AI developed by Panasonic itself , he announced that he would also focus on the machine learning-based software platform of Blue Yonder , which became a wholly owned subsidiary in 2021. We will focus on investment.
In addition, Panasonic has a vision of using AI to solve the problems facing Japanese society, such as coronavirus and nursing care, by focusing on face recognition while wearing a mask and biometric data analysis services to reduce the burden of nursing care, which was introduced earlier. is launched.
Therefore, attention will continue to be focused on Panasonic, which is trying to solve social problems in Japan with AI.
Panasonic Group Recruitment Information
The Panasonic Group’s recruiting types and salaries differ for each operating company, so please check with each company.
In addition, Panasonic is recruiting paid internships in AI development, where participating students can have their own individual themes and conduct research and development.
You will be able to gain experience that cannot be gained from other internships, such as the use of Panasonic’s abundant data sets and the social implementation of research.
Summary
This time, we introduced ” AI ( artificial intelligence )” that Panasonic is focusing on .
The company is actively investing in AI development research and plans to continue to invest in the future, so its trends are attracting attention.
In addition, Panasonic is a company that actively presents academic conferences and papers for job-hunting students, so it can be said that it is the best environment for those who want to conduct research and development related to AI as working adults.
In a society where IoT and DX will continue to advance, we must keep an eye on not only Panasonic’s trends but also the stock price movements.
