Panasonic banks on high-end products to hit 2-digit share

Japanese appliance manufacturer Panasonic is banking on its high-end products to meet the company's two-digit market share penetration in the Philippine market.

In an interview with Panasonic Philippines president Rodolfo G. Perez, he said the company's Plasma Television and Digital (video and still) cameras, among others are two of Panasonic's several products that would strengthen the company's market penetration in the Philippines, especially in the upscale sector.

"Our high end products are our growth engines," said Perez in an interview.

In the high-end appliance market competition, Panasonic is still juggling to compete with other Japanese and Korean brands like Sony, Samsung, JVC, Sharp, especially in television category.

In the mainstream television market, wherein a lot of players struggle to capture an ample market share, Panasonic is able to sustain 10 percent share of the Philippine market, Perez said.

Because of the increasing number of television brands entering the Philippines, including the Chinese-made products, Perez said nobody could dominate the Philippine television market.

On the other hand, Panasonic's refrigerator products take the lead in the country's refrigerator market as it maintains its manufacturing plant for refrigerator, washing machine, air conditioner here.

Panasonic maintains two manufacturing plants in the Philippines, in Rizal and Sta. Rosa, Laguna.

Its Laguna plant makes cellphones and fax machine products, while the other plant in Rizal manufactures washing machine, air conditioner, and refrigerator products.

Perez added that for the last two years, Chinese brands failed to dominate the Philippine appliance market, despite the cheap price offering of Chinese-manufactured products.

Currently, Panasonic is enjoying good sales performance in its refrigerator and air-conditioning units in the Philippines.

Overall, in the Philippine appliance industry, the growth remained stagnant because of the prevailing economic instability in the country, he added.

The continuing increase of fuel has also threatened the industry's growth, considering that buying appliance products is the first one to be sacrificed by a consumer in times of financial difficulties.

Perez was here in Cebu recently to grace the partnership between Panasonic and Tisoy Restaurant in A.S. Fortuna for the latter's latest Sports related promotional campaign.