Panasonic is set to get deadly serious about the digital camera market. At the launch today in Singapore of several new products the Company that last week reported billions in losses took out 8 back to back full page advertisements in the local Straits Times.
And in the same way that Sony built the Bravia brand for LCD TV’s Panasonic is set to build the Lumix brand in an effort to take on digital camera market leaders Nikon, Canon and Pentax.
Also in their sights is Sony who has carved out significant market share in Australia.
Panasonic have said that they wanted to grab 10% of the Australian market with a new range of Lumix Camcorders and digital still. Key to the range is a new generation of SD XC Flash memory cards that have allowed Panasonic to eliminate moving parts while increasing the recording capacity of their range they have also introduced new automatic functions such as face recognition for children.
Another big plus for the Company is the marriage of their TV range with their digital cameras and camcorders.
“Panasonic was late coming into the digital camera market however we are making up for this by marrying state of the art information technology with traditional camera technology from Leica a Company that has had more than 100 years of experience in the traditional camera market” said Mr Mamora Yoshhida the Vice President of Panasonic’s AVC Network.
He added “Consumer today want HD content, they want it to work seamlessly with their TV display and what we have over the likes of Canon and Nikon is display system knowledge and the ability to deliver content from an SDX card to a screen and shortly via wireless direct from the camcorder or digital still camera. We have the Viera Link that makes connectivity a lot easier with Panasonic cameras” he said.
Steve Rust the Managing Director of Panasonic Australia said that he was determined to grow his share of the Australian camera market “We will continue to invest in marketing and new retail programs” he said.
More to follow.
