'Highest expectations' from India, says Panasonic

Aiming to widen its reach in the expanding Indian consumer and enterprise space, Japan-based electronics major Panasonic Corporation says it has the highest expectations from the world's second biggest market in terms of population.
Panasonic, which is also a major IT hardware player, said it expects to sell about 1 million units of its Toughbook laptops, business mobile notebooks and tablets globally by 2014 fiscal (April 2013- March 2014), helped by emerging markets like India.
"We have the highest expectations for not just our Toughbook products, but also for Panasonic from India," Panasonic Corporation Head IT Products Business Division Hide Harada told PTI here.

The firm expects to capture 50 per cent of the global ruggedised tablet market with its Toughbook range by 2015 fiscal, aided by growing numbers from emerging markets, especially India, he added.
"Apart from India, we also believe that our products will find good demand in the markets of Latin America, Middle East and Africa," Harada said.
Rise in spending in developing countries on mission critical sectors like defence, infrastructure, oil and gas, the segment's demand in such regions is also expected to increase, he said.

Stressing on the rising demand coming from emerging markets like India, Harada said the firm expects to sell a million Toughbook products globally and emerging economies will help in achieving this target.

A 'ruggedised' device is specifically designed to operate reliably in harsh usage environments and conditions.
Panasonic's Toughbook targets B2B and focuses on mission critical sectors.
With the rise in spending on infra, oil and gas sectors aided with more and more workforce operation from outside the office spaces, such products will find a growing acceptance, Harada said.
According to research firm IDC, the world's mobile worker population will reach 1.3 billion, representing 37.2 per cent of the total workforce by 2015.
The USD 73.27 billion-turnover company expects a healthy growth in ruggedised tablet market with rising demand in the enterprise sector.

VDC Research, a M2M market intelligence and advisory firm for technology suppliers and engineering, has said that the market will grow at a compound annual growth rate of 21 per cent between 2011 to 2015.