Bangkok--24 Jan--Kanokrat & Friends Panasonic today announces to penetrate Thailand’s air-conditioner and refrigerator markets with the launch of its latest energy-saving and environmental-friendly innovations. Panasonic A.P. Sales (Thailand) Ltd, a market leader for electrical appliances under the “ Panasonic ” brand, has reinforced its “Ideas for Life” slogan with the press conference to be held today to introduce its latest technology for life so called “Intelligent Inverter”. The new energy saving -driven technology has been created by Panasonic to penetrate the electrical appliance market at any lifestyle. Mr. Motoyuki Shigemori, Deputy Managing Director of Panasonic A.P. Sales (Thailand), reveals that today consumers have been challenged with economic difficulty raised by uncontrolled factors, such as the increase in petrol price, which have impacted to their puchasing behaviors include higher electricity bills payment and living costs. The company as a result has focused on developing new innovations designed to meet new demand and lifestyle of consumers, who have highly concerned on energy-saving and environmental-friendly issues. “The energy-saving and environmental-friendly trend is fitting very well with the company’s “Ideas for Life” slogan. From the beginning of this year, Panasonic has rolled out its latest innovative compressor technology entitled “Intelligent Inverter” providing in its air-conditioner as well as refrigerator products for the first time. This new technology has been launched to deal with the current ‘Global Warming’ situation by creating new innovative products that help reduce global heat. The new products have targeted at consumers who have modern lifestyle and always looking for products with great innovative value and energy-saving,” says Shigemori. He adds that the company has set its target to achieve 7,700 million baht in this fiscal year sales ( March 2007 — April 2008 ) and to expand its distribution channels to cover all leading department stores and dealership network throughout the country. Mr. Banlue Tiragarn, General Manager for air conditioner Department , says that Panasonic has set its target to become the number one player in local air-conditioner market this year. The company’s latest innovative technology to be launched in Thailand this year will help individual customers to reduce their electricity bills up to 50 per cent compared to general air-conditioners currently existed on the market. In addition, the new model of Panasonic air-conditioners has features special function, which can cool the room 1.5 times faster than the normal. It also has the ‘e-ion’ air-purifier feature, which can inhibit bacteria and fungal in the air by up to 99 % even though the air-conditioner was turned off. The Panasonic air-conditioner utilizes the ozone-friendly R410A refrigerant and that make the product different and one step ahead of its competitors. The new innovative product can cater the current demand of consumers, who want to buy products, which are value for money and suit with current economic slowdown. Panasonic expects that the new innovations will receive good feedbacks from its customers. Ms. Pernpis Charoenpanichsanti, Product Manager for refrigerators, marketing department, says that Panasonic is also confident to take the first seat in refrigerator market this year and this intelligent innovation for the future will be the first stepping stone of Panasonic towards the developer of refrigerators, which are most efficient in this era. For better function, Panasonic refrigerator is the first in the market, which positions its freezer at the bottom and cooler at the top. The refrigerator is embedded with the temperature detection microprocessor as well as inverter compressor system set to control the temperature balance inside the refrigerator for energy saving. It utilizes the environmental-friendly R134A refrigerant and provide adequate temperature stability and with modern design and good functionality. Panasonic refrigerators have received many international licenses for great efficiency warranty including from Japan, the USA, Europe and Singapore. Mr. Shigemori finally says that with outstanding feature of intelligent air-conditioners and refrigerators, which have been continuously developed, the company believes that these new Panasonic products will receive a great demand from the Thai consumers and definitely become the market leader in a short period of time. Although Panasonic has offered many energy-saving appliances, but concerning on buying behavior of today consumers will be more important factor concerned by the company. To encourage consumer’s awareness on buying of energy-saving products, Panasonic has prepared marketing communications plan by using Mr. Poramee Sawangruj as a presenter of intelligent inverter function. He is well known in “ New Explorer ” tv program which enhances environment protection. He will convey the message of energy saving through various media, including TV Scoop, newspaper, magazine, radio, and point-of-purchase activity. Valuable knowledge on environmental preservation will be disclosed together with product information. Panasonic is quite confident that delivering this kind of marketing message will help individual consumers to understand and recognize the use of quality products, and join together in caring this world and its environment. For More Information Please Contact: Direct Solution Baranee Uppala 089 477 1903