Pioneer to cease production of below-42-inch plasmas, invest in LCD
Over the weekend, Pioneer announced that they would no longer be making sub-42-inch plasma panels, instead buying them in from Matsushita (Panasonic) and Hitachi, with the change coming as soon as March next year.
They'll continue to manufacture 50-inch and larger plasma panels, and are expected to introduce an 80-inch plasma TV later in the year, though that's expected to be manufactured by Panasonic.
Additionally, they're looking at entering the LCD TV market, with news that Sharp will manufacture a 42-inch LCD TV, to replace the phased out plasma TV of the same size, for Pioneer to brand. Pioneer will also introduce a 50-inch LCD TV.
There had been speculation about an official announcement from Pioneer in the Japanese newspapers last weekend, with Smarthouse claiming to have exclusively revealed that Pioneer will make these announcements on 7th March, to coincide with the company's 4th quarter financial results.
A senior Pioneer executive in Japan told SmartHouse today that without the LCD TV deal Pioneer would not have survived in the flat panel TV market. "The arrangement with Sharp will allow us to offer plasma at the high end and LCD, while also allowing us to compete in the popular sized LCD TV market where we were unable to compete in the past with plasma due to manufacturing problems and cost of development".
Pioneer had pushed its TV business hard, particularly extolling its new Kuro line of advanced plasma TVs. However, that doesn't appear to have gone down well with the public, and while other major companies who make plasma TVs have seen an increase in sales, Pioneer saw significant decline.
Whether these new deals are enough to save Pioneer's TV business remains to be seen.
(Via Tech Digest and Smarthouse News)
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