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Akihabaranews: Since Panasonic has full control over Sanyo it is not “strange” to see Sanyo’s products now re-branded as Panasonic ones, like for example today’s new Gorilla’s SSD GPS.Gorilla SSD GPS with AV and Panasonic’s Strada technology.
The first models, introduced by Panasonic today are high-end GPS available in four different flavors with the CN-SP710VL, CN-SP710VD and CN-SP510VL, CN-SP510VD which are respectively featuring a 7” Wide VGA LED Backlight screen and 5” Wide VGA LED Backlight one.
All models are technically similar and features the same function as well as the same amount of memory with an internal 16GB SSD, with free map update for three years and improved data/GPS collection information for more accurate locating and guidance.

Gorilla SSD GPS with AV and G Appli technology.
Here you are there another Sanyo’s only technology now under the Panasonic name, G Appli was Sanyo’s way to let customers upload personal Data, Google Map POI and other personal information or Tour Guide data related to travels and personal preference from your computer to your GPS via an SD card.
These G Appli Gorilla SSD GPS are available in 9 different version with the :
CN-SP707FVL, CN-SP707FVD, CN-SP605FVL, CN-SP605FVD, CN-SL305L, CN-SP705L, CN-SP505VL, CN-GL300D, and CN-GL410D.
The first four models the CN-SP707FVL, CN-SP707FVD, CN-SP605FVL, CN-SP605FVD comes with a 7” and 6.2” screen, 8 or 16GB of SSD, Digital TV Tuner, VICS while the other models comes with either a 5 ot 7” screen 4 or 8GB of SSD and with a 1Seg TV Tuner and optional VICS.

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Engadget: Congratulations, Panasonic, you’re now the adoptive father of two companies, Sanyo and Panasonic Electric Works. We know, the plan’s been all but confirmed since July, but it’s nice to see the deal go through and all the necessary paperwork signed. Both now-wholly-owned subsidiaries (through a share exchange that commenced today) are scheduled to be de-listed from the Tokyo Stock Exchange on March 29th, 2011, and after that… well, independence was fun while it lasted, eh chaps?

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Engadget: It sure took awhile, but Panasonic now has controlling interest of Japan’s beleaguered Sanyo Corporation.

After shareholders approved the deal last year, the partnership became mired in anti-trust concerns across the globe.

That was then — today the company founded by Konosuke Matsushita is the proud owner of 50.19% of Sanyo for the bargain price of ¥404 billion ($4.6 billion).

That gives Panny access to Sanyo’s battery (some of which was sold off to appease regulators) and solar technology as well as its unsurpassed ability for making dull and matronly consumer electronics. Everybody wins!

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Bloomberg: Panasonic Corp., the world’s biggest plasma-TV maker, will invest $1 billion by 2012 in a plan to make its principal business equipping homes and buildings with solar power and energy-saving technologies, the president said.The move focuses on solar-panel and energy-storage technology that Panasonic will gain from its purchase of Sanyo Electric Co., coupled with systems that Panasonic has invented, President Fumio Ohtsubo said yesterday in a New York interview.

Panasonic is shifting focus as growth slows in its main consumer-electronics and appliances businesses, where it competes against Samsung Electronics Co. The change coincides with a worldwide move toward more energy-efficient technologies, a goal that’s leading more than 190 countries to meet in Copenhagen next week to discuss cutting greenhouse-gas emissions.

“This is what Panasonic has to do,” said Osamu Hirose, an analyst at Tokai Tokyo Securities with an “above average” rating on the stock. “Wherever you look, consumers in developed and developing markets are interested in environmental products.”

The company hasn’t determined how much the energy- management systems will cost or how they will be distributed, Ohtsubo, 64, said. The Osaka, Japan-based company also doesn’t know what percentage of its overall sales can come from the new business by the end of its current medium-term business plan in 2012, he said.

‘Fighting Ring’

“Our growth is not enough compared to Samsung,” Ohtsubo said. “So we want to change our fighting ring from our current categories to a different field.”

The new technology will let consumers monitor their own electricity use and display the data on television sets, Ohtsubo said. The system will be able to connect and monitor all of the appliances in a house, and the solar panels may produce enough clean power to offset any carbon dioxide created from other power the appliances use, he said.

“Our products in consumer electronics and our appliances will benefit from the new core business” as people buy more energy-efficient gear, Ohtsubo said. “The future is not 20 to 30 years out. Within two to three years, Panasonic can realize this kind of concept.”

He said consumers can achieve energy savings of 30 percent to 50 percent with the new technology.

Shares Rose

Panasonic rose 1.9 percent to close at 1,156 yen on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, compared with a 0.4 percent decline by the benchmark Nikkei 225 Stock Average. The company’s stock has advanced 3.9 percent this year.

The new plan is a departure from focusing on selling plasma TVs, which are less energy-efficient than other television models.

Most of Panasonic’s plasma TVs with 42-inch screens that display full high-definition images consume at least 173 watts, higher than the 146 watts used by comparable LCD TVs, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Energy Star TV product list.

Panasonic is offering to buy control of Sanyo, the world’s largest maker of rechargeable batteries, for 403 billion yen ($4.6 billion) to boost its share of the battery market and gain access to Sanyo’s solar-cell technology.

The company also is entering the market for lithium-ion batteries used in electric cars, Ohtsubo said.

Panasonic, which generated 47 percent of its revenue overseas in the past fiscal year, said last year that it aims to raise that share to 60 percent, mostly by boosting sales in emerging markets.

Narrowed Loss

Panasonic narrowed its full-year loss forecast in October by 28 percent to 140 billion yen, citing cost reductions. The company, which also raised its operating profit forecast for the year to 120 billion yen from 75 billion yen, posted a net loss of 379 billion yen in the year ended March 31.

The company, which cut 29,155 jobs in the 12 months ended Sept. 30, may pare more than 300 billion yen in costs this fiscal year, compared with its original estimate of 260 billion yen, Chief Financial Officer Makoto Uenoyama said Oct. 30.

Ohtsubo said that Panasonic will cut costs at Sanyo after the transaction closes, though he didn’t say whether the moves would involve more job reductions.

Samsung, the Suwon, South Korea-based company that’s Asia’s biggest maker of chips, flat screens and mobile phones, said third-quarter profit tripled to a record 3.72 trillion won ($3.2 billion) on rising demand for consumer electronics and appliances.

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Guardian: Panasonic today began its long-awaited bid to take over rival Sanyo in a deal that is set to form one of the world’s biggest electronics makers.

Panasonic, the world’s biggest maker of plasma TVs, is offering ¥402bn (£2.7bn) to secure a majority stake in Sanyo and take advantage of its expertise in rapidly expanding “green” businesses such as solar panels and rechargeable batteries.

Sanyo is the leading global supplier of rechargeable batteries for laptops, camera and other gadgets and its clients in the car industry include Honda, Ford and Peugeot Citroen.

Panasonic, meanwhile, is jointly developing batteries for hybrid and electric cars with Toyota. By combining their prowess in solar and fuel cells, the Panasonic-Sanyo alliance is expected to tap into the growing market for green energy storage and production. Panasonic said the tender offer would last until 7 December at the price of ¥131 per share, nearly half Sanyo’s current share price.

Sanyo shares plummeted more than 20% to ¥172 in Tokyo today, a day after Panasonic formally announced the tender.

The bid is expected to be successful because Sanyo’s three major shareholders – Goldman Sachs, Daiwa Securities SMBC and Sumitomo Mitsui Banking – have already agreed to sell their combined shares at the offered price.

In 2006 Sanyo was forced to issue ¥300bn in preferred shares, each of which can be exchanged for 10 common shares, to the three financial institutions at ¥700 a share to help it restructure after a sharp downturn in earnings.

The proposed takeover would give Panasonic a 70% stake in Sanyo, although it is unlikely to realise its aim of a 100% stake, as other smaller shareholders may not be tempted to sell their shares at a vastly reduced price. Panasonic has had to wait almost a year while anti-monopoly authorities in China and the EU examined the bid.

The US’s anti-trust watchdog is expected to give its approval soon. Sanyo has struggled to perform in Japan’s highly competitive electronics sector, although part of the blame lies with a 2004 earthquake that crippled its main chip plant – a key factor in the subsequent rescue bid by Goldman and the Japanese banks. In 2007 an accounting scandal forced the Osaka-based firm to appoint its first president from outside the company’s founding family.

Panasonic crept back into profit in the second quarter of this year – its first profit for a year – but still forecast full-year losses of ¥140bn.

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iPodNN: Sanyo has introduced two new products made to work with Apple’s docking iPods and iPhones, with its cube alarm clock radio, the DMP-P1, along with the dual dock music system, the DMP-692.

Both can charge and play the audio content of the connected Apple devices.

Either system has an AM/FM tuner, and users can choose to wake up to a preset station, the music from their Apple device or a buzzer. A sleep and snooze mode is also integrated.

The dual dock can accommodate two iPhones, two docking iPods, or a combination of both. There is also an aux-in port for adding other sources with a headphone jack. The DMP-692 also has a rear-mounted, passive subwoofer and includes a 20-function remote conveniently controls the iPod/iPhone or AM/FM radio.

The DMP-P1 will play and charge one iPod or iPhone, and there is also an aux input. While there is no subwoofer, Sanyo’s BassXpander technology simulates a fuller frequency range.

Either new Sanyo docking system will be available late in October, with the cube alarm clock priced at $40 (€27) while the dual dock music system will cost $90 (€60).

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NaviGadget: According to WSJ TomTom and Sanyo are joining their forces to sell their devices to car makers.

Japanese Sanyo announced yesterday that it will team up with Dutch TomTom to grab more market share in North America and Europe where the auto industry is supposedly picking up.

The collaboration between Sanyo and TomTom will supply auto makers with customized in-dash GPS navigation systems as early as 2010.

Sanyo has been making GPS navigation systems in Japan since 1993 where factory fitted sat nav system are more common place. On the other hand North Americans and Europeans are more into after market, windshield mounted, unsightly, portable systems.

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Electronista: Japan’s Sanyo recently announced it would bring a DVR device to market that relies on slot-in hard drives that comply with the iVR (Information Versatile Disk) standard shared with Hitachi.

The Repoch will include an integrated tuner for receiving digital terrestrial TV broadcasts to enable viewing recordings on analog broadcast-compatible TVs.

This will allow users to keep their outdated analog TVs even though these broadcasts have been discontinued.

Connections on the Repoch include an Ethernet connection, HDMI output, component audio and video inputs as well as two antenna posts. The Repoch, bundled with a 160GB iVR disk, will cost the equivalent of $668 (€477) when it launches in Japan on September 1st. Pricing of additional iVRs, also available in 320GB capacities, is unknown.

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Engadget: While not high definition like the company’s most recent projectors, Sanyo’s PLC-XF71 manages to compensate with 10,000 lumens for some serious brightness.

By comparison, the recently-unveiled PDG-DHT100JL sports 6,500 lumens and its PLV-1080HD just 1,200.

Beyond that, it’s got a 1024 x 768 picture and a 3000:1 contrast ratio.

The inputs provided are RGB (D-Sub-15), Pb/Cb, Pr/Cr (BNCx5) and S-Video. DVI-D and other input configurations are available with optional accessories. An USB service port is provided, along with a RS-232 communications port for use with external control systems.

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TrustedReviews: We already heard the rumours that Panasonic was set to buy Sanyo.

Then confirmation was supposed to come on the 7th so it’s a couple of days late but, as predicted, the deal is indeed going through.

The deal will cost Panasonic in the region of ¥560 billion which is a lot of money, especially in this current financial market.

In return for that investment Panasonic gains some 70 per cent of Sanyo’s shares, giving it pretty conclusive control of the company.

The combined force will comprise Japan’s largest electronics maker, which is pretty impressive.

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Electronista: Panasonic friday said it would buy fellow Japanese electronics maker Sanyo. The deal will make Panasonic the single largest company of its type in Japan and is described as a move to secure Sanyo’s well-known battery business, which includes lithium-ion batteries for cellphones, notebooks, portable media players and other devices as well as its automotive, eneloop, and solar power technology.

Neither company has named the terms of the tentative deal, which would create significant overlap in products and research. Most observers believe Panasonic is likely to scale back, sell or shut down significant components of Sanyo that most closely resemble Panasonic’s own business.

A completed deal would heat up competition in Japan, where Panasonic has had to compete with not just Sanyo but also Hitachi, JVC-Victor, Sony, Toshiba and many other firms involved in frequently identical business.

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CrunchGear: The latest must-have spec in high-end projectors are dual lamps.

They offer better brightness control, longer lamp life, but are somewhat hard to find.

The latest from Sanyo does, however, sport the dual-lamp goodness and features the standard set of large venue projector features: 5,000 ANSI lumens, 1,100 contrast ratio, 1024 x 768 resolution, and because of the dual lamps, up to 6,000 hours of lamp life.

The LP-XTC50 is going to bow at CES ‘09 with availability starting January 9, 2009.

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