Konosuke Matsushita “Believe in Yourself and Others”—Stories Behind Panasonic History Episode 07

Here, we share episodes about Konosuke Matsushita, the founder of the Panasonic Group, from our company’s historical records. In this episode, we look at Panasonic’s earliest days with the founding of its predecessor, Matsushita Electric Housewares Manufacturing Works.

On March 7, 1918, the then 23-year-old Konosuke, his 22-year-old wife Mumeno, and her 15-year-old brother Toshio Iue^*1 together founded Matsushita Electric Housewares Manufacturing Works. Konosuke had quit his job at the Osaka Electric Light Company^*2 and developed an improved light socket but sales were poor. However, they managed to overcome their financial difficulties, severe enough to necessitate repeated trips to the pawnshop, and establish the company.

*1 Iue later founded SANYO Electric Co., Ltd.
*2 A forerunner to today’s Kansai Electric Power

The company was founded in Ohiraki-cho, in Osaka, when Konosuke turned the downstairs of their rental home into a workshop and began work.

Pivoting from other businesses to sell direct to general consumers, Konosuke embarked on the development of other electrical fixtures, and took on the challenge of an improved attachment plug.

At that time, home electrics usually only extended to one or two ceiling sockets for electrical lights. These were the house’s only power supplies, and so to use any other electrical appliance required connecting an attachment plug to the end of a power cord, and then screwing the plug into the socket provided the electricity.

With his experience of working at the Osaka Electric Light Company, Konosuke had faith that if he could produce electrical fixtures at an affordable price, they would definitely sell, with no end to the demand for them. From the very core of his being, he believed that the age of electricity had dawned and it would transform people’s lives. His business, he knew, would be sure to succeed.

The issue was the necessary processing accuracy of the metal component that would screw into the socket. Through repeated trial and error, Konosuke finally came up with the idea of reusing the metal screw-in sections of used light bulbs.

The metal screw-in section from the light bulbs were designed to fit exactly into the socket, and since they were waste they were also very cheap. This was Konosuke’s trump card, resulting in innovative, improved attachment plugs^*3 of an exceptional quality that were 30% cheaper than those available at the time. This was Panasonic’s first product.

*3 These plugs are still manufactured today with an almost unchanged structure, and are used for lighting and similar for applications such as festival stalls and fishing boats.

Matsushita Electric gained renown as a manufacturer of new items at reasonable prices and orders for the improved attachment plug came flooding in.

Three people could not manage everything, though, and Konosuke needed to recruit more workers. The first person to come along was a woman who was pregnant but could do light work and lived nearby, so she was immediately welcomed into the company. This made her Panasonic’s first hired employee.

Surprisingly, her surname was “Hanjo,” which literally translates as “prosperity.” The company was founded in Ohiraki (lit. “big opening”) and its first hired employee was “prosperity,” and with the birth of the baby, Konosuke felt that prosperity would be doubled. Overjoyed by the coincidence, he believed it to be fate.

Following on from 1918’s improved attachment plug, the double cluster socket^*4 was developed in 1920. Next came the bullet-shaped bicycle lamp in 1923, the super iron and square bicycle lamp in 1927, and an electric kotatsu (under-table) heater^*5 in 1929. Innovative products like these came one after another. These products made a significant contribution to electrified life for ordinary households and laid the foundation for Matsushita Electric’s future.

The company operated for 15 years in Ohiraki-cho, and even after moving the company’s head office to Kadoma in 1933, Konosuke remained fond of Ohiraki-cho for the rest of his life. This is where the history of Panasonic began.

*4 These sockets split a single ceiling socket into two sockets, so that a electrical fixture such as an iron or electric kotatsu heater could be used at the same time as an electric light.
*5 To ensure that the kotatsu could be easily used under a blanket, it was given a smoothed, rounded shape and utilized processing technologies developed for wooden beer storage containers.