Quake impact less severe than feared, says Panasonic

Panasonic’s chief executive has said the impact on sales from March’s earthquake is looking less severe than was first feared, in the latest sign that Japanese industry is recovering more quickly than expected from its disaster-related supply-chain problems.

In April, the world’s largest maker of plasma TV sets said it might lose several hundred billion yen in revenues in the current quarter as a result of the quake and tsunami, which damaged factories all along Japan’s north-eastern coast.

But on Thursday, Fumio Ohtsubo said the actual impact was likely to be only 33-50 per cent of that figure, as suppliers have repaired their plants and resumed production more quickly than Panasonic’s worst-case scenarios had assumed.

However, he said that while the sales decline might be smaller than feared, it was likely to persist into the next quarter. “The impact in the first half will still be severe.”

Several other Japanese groups have also shown signs of a faster-than-expected recovery. Toyota, which shut down all its Japanese factories for several weeks after the quake, now says production of many models will be back to 70 per cent of normal levels by June or July.

Renesas, a producer of automotive microcontrollers whose production problems have hit the global motor industry, has also moved up its timetables for restarting production.

Mr Ohtsubo said worries about electricity supplies stemming from the destruction of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant would create new business opportunities.

The government has said it would encourage the adoption of more renewable energy and power-saving technologies – areas in which Panasonic was already investing heavily.

Mr Ohtsubo cited solar panels, hydrogen fuel cells, lithium-ion batteries and low-energy LED lighting as examples where demand might rise. Panasonic is aiming to increase sales of lithium-ion batteries by 20 per cent to Y360bn ($4.4bn) by fiscal 2013, and double them by 2016.