The cumulative sales of Panasonic Corp.'s home-use bread baking machines reached a milestone of 4 million units at the end of August, after they first hit the market in February 1987.
The company said Monday it plans to produce 750,000 bread bakers for the business year through next March, up from a record 570,000 last year, including the Gopan machine manufactured by its subsidiary, Sanyo Electric Co., that bakes bread from rice.
"There is great room for further market expansion if we introduce even more user-friendly models," a Panasonic representative said, pointing out that the percentage of households owning bread bakers stands at just around 22 percent.