It is said that “every cloud has a silver lining”. For Japanese electronic giants Panasonic and Sharp, more appropriate might be, “every pollutant is a sales opportunity”.
Ever since pollution levels in China became a worldwide focus of media attention last year, sales of air purifiers for both Panasonic and Sharp have been on the rise. In January, Panasonic’s production of air purifiers for the Chinese market was 50 percent above the average monthly level. For Sharp, sales of their units have tripled during the same period over that of a year ago.
As revealed here on Nanjing Expat, China is home to seven of the world’s most polluted cities. A more recent report by the World Bank states that it now has 16 of the world’s 20 most-polluted cities. While number 1 on the list is Linfen City in Shanxi Province, where residents claim that they literally choke on coal dust in the evenings, it is our nation’s capital that has caught the world’s attention. In Beijing, official measurements of PM2.5, airborne particulates that pose the greatest health risk, rose as high as 993 micrograms per cubic metre on 12th January, compared with World Health Organisation guidelines of no more than 25.
Sales of air-purifier sales for Sharp in China doubled over the course of 2012 as people grew more conscious about the environment, constituting approximately 30 percent of the company’s sales of household electrical appliances nationwide. It is one of the few success stories of late at the controversy embroiled loss-maker, while political tensions hurt Panasonic late last year during anti-Japan protests that saw fire damage a Panasonic factory in Qingdao.
The pollution problem is certainly not going to go away any time soon. Spikes in PM2.5 levels in areas of Japan last month have been attributed to pollution drifting across from China to southern cities such as Fukuoka and Kagoshima, prompting the Japanese government to call for talks with China to exchange information and discuss possible cooperation.
As Sharp and Panasonic battle with record losses; Sharp is forecasting a US$4.8 billion net loss in the year ending 31st March, while for Panasonic the news is even more depressing with a forecast US$8.2 billion loss in their fiscal year, air pollution wherever it may be might ironically be just the silver lining the two giants need to see their firms back on the road to a return to profit.
