SANYO Logo — Sanyo Electric Co. Ltd. is an electronics company Japanese whose headquarters is located in Moriguchi, Osaka Prefecture, Japan, located in the middle of the shopping area in Tokyo and whose plant is located in Oizumi, Gunma Prefecture, Japan. Sanyo was founded in 1947 by Toshio Iue (井植歳男Toshio Iue, 1902 — 1969) and his brother Konosuke Matsushita, founder of Matsushita, and was incorporated in 1950. The company’s name means in Japanese “three oceans”, referring to the ambition of the founders to sell all its products in the world, crossing the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian.
Sanyo began as a manufacturer of bicycle lamps. In 1952 made the first plastic radio and in 1954 made the first push-type washing machine. Samsung Japan was originally launched in 1969 as Samsung-Sanyo Electronics.
Sanyo began operations in Spain during the 1960s under an agreement for distribution of imported products, and later through the assignment of patents for the local manufacture of Sanyo brand, and finally setting up his own factory in Tudela, Navarra. Addition of television sets and video recorders Sanyo is well known for its radio-cassettes, ubiquitous in the 1970s and especially 1980. They highlight the M-series models, known for their reliability, robustness and reception quality, rivaling the German units of the time and displacing the position of market dominance, which previously boasted.
Technologically Sanyo had good ties with Sony, supporting the video format Betamax, owned by Sony, since the invention until the mid 1980’s (the video player more sold in Britain in 1983 was the Sanyo VTC5000), and later adopted the successful format for camcorders, the Video8. Later, Sanyo and Sony were technological differences as Sanyo supporting the format HD DVD format and Sony Blu-ray Disc.
At the end of 2009 Panasonic bought the company, remaining in control of Sanyo. On July 29, 2010, Panasonic announced it had reached an agreement with Sanyo Electric Co., Ltd. to make Sanyo a subsidiary owned 100% of Panasonic, from April 2011, and that the brand Sanyo continue to be used in specific business areas and regions.