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Although Panasonic doesn’t breakout the former Sanyo PV module sales, the company said in its first quarter financial results for the 2013 reporting year that sales had increased, primarily in Japan, compared to the prior year period. This was despite sales in its Energy segment, declining 2% to ¥142.6 billion from ¥145.1 billion a year ago.
The company said that the Japanese market experienced a slow recovery with an increasing number of housing starts due to growing reconstruction demand following the Great East Japan Earthquake, as well as due to the Japanese government's eco-housing subsidy.
In its full-year report, Panasonic guided Energy segment sales to increase 7% in FY2013, while the operating profit was forecast to return into the black as a result of continuing profitability within its solar module business.
Panasonic is depending on its HIT high-performance modules to grow sales within the Japanese residential PV market, targeting 450MW of sales in FY2013, approximately 1.6 times greater than that achieved in the previous year, due to the introduction of an attractive feed-in tariff.
