FEATURE STRATEGY
Saudi Arabia is particularly important. The Kingdom is Panasonic’ s largest regional market by revenue, while the UAE, Kuwait, Qatar and Oman also represent sizeable businesses. However, the composition of those businesses differs considerably from market to market.
Hardy said Panasonic’ s plans are structured around delivering significant double-digit regional growth through 2030, with ambitions extending considerably beyond growth of 10 or 11 %.
Making smart cities genuinely smart Smart infrastructure represents another long-term opportunity. Panasonic has decades of experience in this area. Hardy pointed to smart-town developments in Japan where the company has been involved in designing interconnected environments encompassing residential infrastructure, appliances, energy management, traffic systems and security.
That experience provides a foundation for addressing smart-city opportunities elsewhere, but Hardy rejects the idea that a successful model can simply be copied from one geography to another.
“ You could take that original smart city that was built by Panasonic in Japan and copypaste it into, say, Dubai or into Riyadh? No, because the environment’ s different,” he said.
Climate is only one factor. Consumer behaviour, infrastructure, regulations and the ways people use technology also differ.
“ I think that smart city application still requires a huge amount of localisation, which is where the value comes,” Hardy added.
For him, the challenge is not simply manufacturing connected products. The real value comes from integrating technologies in ways that solve specific local problems.
Growth across consumer and B2B Looking towards 2030, Hardy expects growth to come from virtually every part of Panasonic’ s regional portfolio.
Consumer electronics will remain important, supported by population growth, relatively young demographics, urbanisation and changing lifestyles across the GCC and Africa.
At the same time, connected living is creating opportunities for technologies spanning smart homes, security, energy management and automation.
The B2B opportunity could be equally significant. Investment in entertainment, tourism, sports and major events is creating demand for technologies ranging from biometric access and security systems to projection, broadcast and energy management.
Following the customer The channel will inevitably evolve alongside that growth. For Hardy, channel strategy ultimately follows how consumers choose to buy. The rapid expansion of e-commerce illustrates that shift.
Digital sales are expected to represent an increasingly significant share of consumer electronics purchases across the region by 2030. That growth will not come solely from digital-native platforms. Traditional retailers are also investing heavily in their online infrastructure as consumers move between physical and digital channels.
The result is a distribution environment that must continually adapt rather than rely on a fixed channel model.
After 40 years in the industry, Hardy has seen enough cycles to know that markets rarely remain static. What makes the Middle East and Africa particularly compelling, he believes, is the combination of demographics, economic ambition, infrastructure investment and changing lifestyles.
“ This region represents probably one of the best opportunities for manufacturers globally,” he said.“ The dynamic is very different, and it’ s not just driven by the young population. It’ s driven by that whole social change that’ s supporting and underpinning that.”
For Panasonic, converting that opportunity into sustained growth will require more than bringing global products into regional markets. It will depend on combining decades of manufacturing and technology expertise with local understanding, whether that means adapting smart-city technologies for Gulf environments, using AI across products and operations or responding to the rapidly changing ways consumers live, work and buy.
That ability to combine global capability with local relevance could ultimately define Panasonic’ s next chapter in the Middle East and Africa. •
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