Panasonic

Panasonic Holdings Corporation is the Japanese holding company of the Panasonic Group, whose operating companies make consumer electronics and home appliances, electrical and air-conditioning equipment, rechargeable batteries, electronic components and business solutions. Kōnosuke Matsushita founded it on March 7, 1918, in Ohiraki-cho, Osaka, as Matsushita Electric Housewares Manufacturing Works. It was incorporated in 1935 as Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd., renamed Panasonic Corporation in 2008 after the brand it had used for exports since 1955, and became Panasonic Holdings Corporation in 2022.

Since April 2026, the group's consumer electronics, including LUMIX cameras, have been run by a new Panasonic Corporation, the renamed Panasonic Entertainment & Communication, which had absorbed the professional AV business from Panasonic Connect in 2024.

Panasonic launched the LUMIX line of digital cameras in 2001. The LUMIX G1 of 2008 was the first mirrorless interchangeable-lens camera built to the Micro Four Thirds standard, and the GH1 of 2009 was the first Micro Four Thirds camera to record HD video. In 2018 Panasonic became a founding member of the L-Mount Alliance, and its first full-frame mirrorless cameras, the LUMIX S1 and S1R, followed in 2019.