Panasonic mulls launching ACs under Sanyo brand

Consumer electronics maker Panasonic is considering extending product portfolio under its Sanyo brand by introducing air conditioners in the coming summer season, a top company official said.
Panasonic is pushing Sanyo as a 'niche brand' for online sales only and looks to make it a 'value for money' brand for the segment. It is targeting youth segment with its trendy designs, the official said.
The company is adding ACs to the portfolio almost one- and-a-half years after it introduced TV panels in the Indian market.
The company is quite upbeat after Sanyo bagged an order to supply 60,000 units of ACs to state run Energy Efficiency Services Ltd (EESL) through a competitive bidding.

"We are exploring the situation proposing AC under the Sanyo brand in the upcoming summer season," President & CEO Panasonic India, and & Vice President of Appliances Company, Panasonic Corporation Manish Sharma told PTI.
He further said that both TV and AC would be sold online as per its strategy.

"Sanyo is an exclusive online brand. The strategy, which are wanting to execute is that we would create a niche for Sanyo, which is present only in the online space," Sharma added.
As per its marketing strategy, Panasonic has placed brand Sanyo a notch below it.
"I believe that Sanyo would be positioned a bit below than Panasonic and bit above brands in the tier 2 space," he said.

The company had started online sales of Sanyo exclusively with Amazon and subsequently moved to Flipkart and other platforms and it is doing very well, he said.
"Value proposition of Sanyo brand is targeting the youth of the country and the consumer segmentation is 22 to 35 for these products. In that sense, the language the product would speak is very trendy. Design would be focus and I believe that features which will go behind these products will be very focused to the youth of the country," Sharma said.
Besides, the company is looking to tap the tenders and other opportunities by the government institutions.

"We are looking at the large opportunities to serve the government tenders," he added.
Panasonic sells over a million unit of ACs here.
In December, 2009, Panasonic had acquired 50.2 per cent stake in Sanyo, making Sanyo a subsidiary of Panasonic and in 2011, Sanyo became a wholly-owned subsidiary of Panasonic Corporation.