Panasonic's huge loss to embark on the road to large-scale transformation

Panasonic focused its plasma business and Sanyo Electric, which has been acquired through integration, as the focus of corporate transformation.

Matsushita Electric said that Panasonic, Matsushita Electric Works, and Sanyo Electric have merged globally, and Panasonic Electric Works has completed integration with Matsushita Electric in January this year. It is expected that on April 1, 2012, Sanyo Electric will merge its work. carry out.

It is understood that on April 1 last year, Matsushita Electric held 100% of Panasonic Electric and Sanyo Electric, and plans to complete the integration of the latter two on April 1, 2012. "The speed of integration is faster than expected." said the above person.

According to Panasonic's introduction, the future division of Matsushita Electric will be streamlined from the original 16 to nine, with 9 divisions centered on three pillar industries: First, the family life electrical appliance industry, the second is the component industry, and the third is the energy solution. industry.

Xu Wei, head of the public relations department of Panasonic (China) Co., Ltd., said that the above three industries are the future development direction of Panasonic. The system solution industry is Panasonic's emerging industry, which is biased toward the energy industry. Sanyo Electric's integration work is still in progress and is expected to be completed on April 1 this year.

Although Panasonic is full of confidence in the future development prospects, the primary problem to be solved is the current profitability. In April-September 2011, Panasonic’s sales revenue reached 4005.2 billion yen, up 92% year-on-year; however, it was a loss of 136.2 billion yen, which was a profit in the same period of 2010; the consumer electronics sector has become a “stricken area” for losses. .

In this regard, industry analysts have pointed out that how to complete their magnificent turnaround at a loss is the biggest test Panasonic will face in the future. In the consumer electronics market in mainland China, Panasonic encountered a strong suppression of Korean brands led by Samsung and LG.

Doing surgery on the plasma business Panasonic attributed the loss to Panasonic to the downward pressure on the sales of home appliances and the appreciation of the yen caused by the economic downturn in Europe and the United States. Matsuda Group President Tae Hsiung Wen-hung pointed out that in order to strengthen its profitability, it will implement a weight-loss plan for television production and semiconductor businesses that do not contribute much to profits.

According to local media in Japan, Matsushita plans to stop the plasma TV panel production line at the third factory in Amagasaki, Hyogo Prefecture, in March of this year. At the same time, it plans to cut thousands of employees by collecting early retirement employees.

Panasonic related sources said that although the advantages of self-luminous plasma technology, but the supply chain has been small scale, coupled with more mature liquid crystal products, manufacturing costs and technology to catch up, let the plasma TV is further marginalized. Therefore, the company is currently discussing feasible measures for the television industry.

Panasonic has always been the most loyal supporter and solid backer of the global plasma panel. Before 2008, Panasonic TV focused on plasma. After the overwhelming global LCD TV was forced to develop LCD TVs after 2008, Panasonic's 42-inch TVs still insisted on using plasma. In the industry, Panasonic is almost synonymous with plasma TVs.

In fact, not only did Panasonic lose money, other major panel companies also suffered losses.

Global Panel Industry's “Big Brother” - Samsung’s LCD business unit suffered a loss of 90 billion won in the third quarter of last year. The loss of LG Display’s operating loss for three consecutive quarters was 492 billion won, far exceeding the market’s average forecast of 1965 billion won. It was 10 times the amount of losses in the second quarter, and Taiwan's panel giant AUO had a net loss of NT$15.796 billion after the tax year in the third quarter of last year, which was far higher than market expectations.

In mid-November last year, the integration of Sony, Toshiba and Hitachi's small and medium size LCD panels business was finally settled. The three companies signed a formal contract to form a joint Japanese display company. According to reports from Japanese media, Japan Display Corporation has assets of 230 billion yen, which will begin operations in early 2012 and will surpass Sharp to become the new leading small and medium-sized LCD panel in the world.

Compared with the practice of the three Japanese companies “wintering,” Matsushita has not adopted mergers and other methods to flatten the “wintering costs,” but has adopted more direct methods such as layoffs.

In this regard, the industry believes that in the event of a loss, Panasonic and Sony, Toshiba and other Japanese companies are different, there is no suitable company in the plasma field can be "locked together to warm up", to take direct measures to lay off the factory is also helpless .

However, at the time of the large-scale "downsizing" of the plasma business, Panasonic did not abandon the panel business altogether. It is still actively planning to seize the commanding height of the next panel technology.

Daping Wenxiong said at the recent US CES2012 show that Panasonic is considering investing in the OLED TV market this year. He believes that large-scale OLED TVs (the next generation of flat-panel TVs) will be put into the market around 2015, and Panasonic is now observing market trends. Panasonic's first product will be put into the market before this.

It is worth mentioning that, for the research and development of OLED technology, Korean companies have been very active. Samsung and LG Display are increasing investment in this area year by year. The global AMOLED market is almost exclusively owned by Samsung. Not only that, the two South Korean companies are also actively purchasing necessary equipment from local manufacturers, and the Korean government is also accelerating the self-sufficiency rate of related equipment in China to 80%.

The pursuit of OLED by Chinese mainland enterprises is not far behind. Except for BOE's huge investment of 22 billion yuan in the construction of the 5.5-generation AMOLED production line, manufacturers such as Tianma, Rainbow, Visionox, Truly and Hongshi are also actively deploying.

To solve the current loss situation, Panasonic not only has to face the trouble of the plasma panel color TV, but also for the acquisition of Sanyo Electric also needs strong integration.

Panasonic acquired Sanyo Electric's 50.19% stake in the company in January 2010 and became Sanyo Electric's largest shareholder. However, Sanyo Electric's business did not integrate too much. Until July last year, Sanyo Electric in Japan and Southeast Asia. The washing machine and refrigerator business was sold to the Haier Group.

Former home appliance industry reporter Liang Zhenpeng said that when Panasonic and Sanyo's new energy and battery core business integration is completed, Sanyo for Panasonic, the Chinese market has been like a chicken ribs, the sale of its white business is only a matter of time.

Panasonic's sale of the washing machine and refrigerator business to Haier Group has also been considered by the industry as an important measure for "slimming down."

It is reported that Panasonic said in its 2010 fiscal year report, "Sanyo is a leader in the field of solar panels and rechargeable batteries. The acquisition of Sanyo will expand and deepen our original field. After the acquisition of Sanyo, Panasonic will be with Sanyo. The environment and energy-related fields work together. "And for Sanyo's white-box part, Matsushita did not mention it in its annual report.

At the same time, the further integration of Panasonic and Sanyo will include the development of larger-capacity lithium batteries. Through the development of new materials to enhance the product's price competitiveness, to cultivate the market, and the introduction of new products, such as home energy storage batteries, all these integration activities have also been in the industry. Sanyo’s white-light business is expected to be abandoned by Matsushita sooner or later.

In December last year, Christopher · Lim, head of Panasonic's public relations department, revealed that the company will unify the brand name of all its consumer products as Panasonic (Panasonic). Then on the 23rd of the same month, Sanyo Electric's headquarters building sign was removed, marking the start of Panasonic's full integration of Sanyo's business.

However, it will inevitably encounter resistance during the integration process. In January of this year, more than 3,000 employees of Shenzhen Sanyo Electric (Shekou) Co., Ltd. had a collective strike due to labor disputes. Workers took to the streets to protest, once causing traffic in the vicinity. According to the workers, they were forced to collectively strike because the company failed to provide corresponding compensation to the workers.

Despite the protests of more than 3,000 employees, it still failed to stop Matsushita’s determination to integrate. Matsushita said that it had completed the acquisition of the capital of Sanyo Electric in April last year, and it is currently advancing orderly in other integration processes. On the issue of brand retention, it means that the world will promote Panasonic as its goal, only Sanyo brand is retained in individual regions and on individual products.

In this regard, industry analysts believe that Panasonic intends to complete its strategic transformation by reorganizing and integrating Sanyo's business opportunities. It will spin off its low-margin and highly competitive business to enter the environmental energy field. Panasonic has already determined its future development. Trajectories and profitability in the energy sector will directly challenge Panasonic's rectification.

Matsuzaka Environmental Promotion Division head, Miyai Machiko, revealed that it is expected that by 2018, Panasonic’s overall performance will exceed 10 trillion yen, while the energy system business will reach at least 3 trillion yen. "In the future, Panasonic will not only provide a single product, but will use it as an energy-saving and environmental protection system, providing each household with energy-saving and environmental-friendly solutions that integrate the latest technologies such as digital, network, environmental protection, energy saving and building materials.