Panasonic To Spend $1.1 Billion On Solar Technology

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Panasonic bought tech competitor Sanyo for $4.4 billion last year, not just for their camcorders or their lithium-ion batteries (Sanyo being the world’s #1 producer of lithium-ion batteries) but for Sanyo’s experience in green technology. Sanyo’s eneloop brand of gadgets is marketed as Earth-friendly, low-power consumption models, but Sanyo also produces a wide variety of solar panels and other solar technology.

Panasonic is pledging to become one of the world’s biggest producers of solar panels. They are planning to invest $1.1 billion in solar technology over the next five years. When they’re done – they hope to be in the top #3 of total solar panel sales worldwide. Surely, a big goal. More specifically, they want to be #1 in Japan before 2012.

Panasonic isn’t just doing all this for the good of the Earth – they expect to make big money on providing solar panels. President Fumio Otsubo said that his company fully expects to make $33 billion in revenue by 2018 from solar panel sales. By comparison, they made $77 billion in revenue from all of their markets in 2009 – so they expect solar panels to be a new large market for them.

Despite their new focus on solar technology, Panasonic isn’t going to give up on their other, consumer products.

“I think the most significant factor will be 3D TV. With 3D TV and its related products, including camera recorders and editing tools, we will strengthen our television operations to make it one of factors to go against Samsung,” Panasonic president Otsubo said at a press conference, mentioning the recent 3D craze and Panasonic’s rivalry with South Korea’s Samsung.

At any rate, it looks like Panasonic is moving heavily into green technology in this new decade.