Japanese conglomerate Panasonic has been a very active player in the Asian lighting market in 2014, having ventured into the Indian market and signing onto a World Heritage Site program with the Indonesian government in late December that year.

The company’s markedly growing ambition in the ASEAN lighting market is affirmed by a recent report by Malaysian media The Star.

According to the report Panasonic has already proposed customized LED technology solutions to Thailand and Vietnam, and is now vying the Malaysian market. The report offered few details about the proposed LED solutions.

Panasonic’s LED research picked up considerably after the 2011 Fukushima earthquake and tsunami, which led to a national blackout in Japan, said Panasonic Eco Solutions Company general manager Yuji Toshimitsu.

Since the tragedy, the Japanese government has been trying to reduce energy consumption.

Convenience stores in Japan served as a test bed for the company to try out new LED technologies.

“We used a convenience store as a test bed for our lighting and marketing solutions because convenience stores - numbering about 50,000 throughout Japan - became a meeting point for the community during the 2011 tragedy,” said Toshimitsu.

A convenience store in Okegawa in Saitama prefecture, Japan, about 50 kilometers from Tokyo recently upgraded to Panasonic’s LED lighting system.

The company currently supplies 30% of lighting solutions to Japanese convenience stores.