Panasonic Experience Centre, Mumbai

On invitation from Panasonic, I made a quick visit to Mumbai last week, to visit Panasonic’s Experience Centre in Andheri West.

 

Our drive to Andheri west from Airport took us through several narrow lanes of Mumbai and I started wondering why Panasonic chose this location to set up their centre, as visitors may lose their high spirits by the time they reach the venue. Only later I learnt that the location has been strategically selected by Panasonic, because YeshRaj Studios was located closeby, besides a movie complex, Mercedes Benz and BMW facilities. Proximity to these business customers seemed to be primary reason for selection of venue.

We were about 10 invited bloggers, mostly tech bloggers, who were flown in from all parts of India. Mr Yoshihika Otomo, Sr. Manager, System Sales Division gave us an overview of the centre

 

Innovative Panasonic products

At present, Panasonic has world’s largest Plasma TV- all of 152 inches, featuring full HD and 3D, (cost not known. A 65 inch TV can cost about 3.5 lakhs+ INR, you can guess proportionate cost of 152 inch). (If only it came with a big room in which I can keep it, I would have bought one right away.) We saw bits of 3D movie in it and the experience was theater like. Mr Yoshihika Otomo, explained us that while viewing 3D, one should sit in front rows, closer to screen as possible for best experience. It is possible to toggle the TV between 3D and 2D.

 

Panasonic notebooks are not that known in the market. However Panasonic has several industrial grade notebooks, called toughbooks. These are heavy duty, dust proof, shockproof equipments costing 2-3 times regular notebooks. Army and industrial users are target for toughbook series. (Dell had a similar looking XPS range long back and Lenovo of late is advertising the toughness of its thinkpad series)

 

Panasonic has several equipments for audio video industry- recent one in its offerings is a camera which has 2 lens. With two lenses, it can instantly capture 3D (traditionally 3D is shot in 2 cameras and then merged). We experimented with it a bit and was nice. See the images below- of the camera and 3D videography

 

The concept of multiple split AC s is nice. You can have several split AC indoor units (of different sizes as needed for each room) and one common outdoor unit for all ACs put together.

 

Panasonic is not much known in Indian consumer electronics market, except for its plasma TVs and lumix cameras to some extent. But globally Panasonic is about 80 billion dollar, Fortune 100 company. We’re all familiar with Anchor, the makers of electrical equipments. Anchor brand is owned by Panasonic. Besides consumer electronics, Panasonic has products for various industries and office automation-security systems, handheld devices, video conferencing devices, education solutions, power solutions and so on. It will be relatively irrelevant for my readers and will sound too commercial if I elaborate on them. Refer to Panasonic website for details, if interested.

Sanyo was a company founded by brother in law of the person who founded Panasonic in 1918. Panasonic acquired Sanyo recently. Of late Panasonic is also into beauty care products, which I’m not sure if displayed in Experience centre. National Panasonic kitchen appliances are manufactured in a plant near Chennai.

Panasonic supplies lot of electronic components to BMW, Merc and other auto companies. Company officials didn’t elaborate on this due to confidentiality.

 

Panasonic is setting up a factory in Haryana and expect Panasonic to launch washing machines soon.

Though India has no tough norms w.r.t electronic products recycling, Panasonic products meet European standards for recycling.

About 10 years ago, Electrolux India CEO was reportedly quoted as saying “We can’t give same warranty period in India as we give elsewhere, because our goods suffer greater damage due to poor road and infrastructure” I asked if this is still valid. Panasonic officials stressed on the importance they give to packaging and destruction testings.

We were told Plasma TVs have a half life of 60000 hours (that is, if used for 12 hours a day, 13 years before the screen performance starts deteriorating). At entry level plasma TVs are expensive, but once crossing 46 inches, cost of a plasma TVs is at par or cheaper than similar sized LED/LCD TVs

If you ask for price of any product in innovation centre, you’ll be redirected to nearest showroom, since Experience Centre is not a sales shop.

It was a short trip but informative.
Read my reviews of Panasonic products: Lumix FT3 digicam * Toughbook * Camcorder *