Main Page | See live article | Alphabetical index Logo for the Panasonic brand Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd. (松下電器産業株式会社) is an electronics manufacturer based in Kadoma, Osaka prefecture, Japan. Its brands include Panasonic, National, Nais, Quasar and Technics, and they are the controlling stockholder of the Japan Victor Company (JVC). It was founded by Konosuke Matsushita in 1918, with its first product being a bicycle lamp. Since then, it has became the largest Japanese electronics producer and competes mainly with Sony, Toshiba and Philips. In addition to electronics Matsushita offers non-electronic products and services such as home renovation services. Timeline: 1918: Company founding 1951: First use of the Panasonic brand for export 1953: Becomes majority stockholder of Japan Victor Company 1959: Matsushita Electronic Corp. of America established 1986: Buys the TV division of Motorola and gains ownership of the Quasar brand. 1989: Death of Konosuke Matsushita 1989: Acquires MCA-Universal 1991: Announces MSX-3, the final version of the popular Japanese home computer 1995: Sells MCA-Universal to Edgar Bronfman Jr. of Seagram's due to management conflicts. See also: Panasonic CD interface, List of Japanese companies. This article is from Wikipedia. All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.