Sony gives up on plasma
Sony
has announced plans to exit the plasma TV market. The
company has been facing increasing pressure in the market and it doesn't own
any plasma display panel (PDP) plants to support its business. Sales for Sony
PDPs for fiscal year 2005 were down 67% compared to the year before and the
company has failed to disclose its targets for the current fiscal year.
Coupled with the enormous amount of backing Sony has committed to LCD, the move
to exit the plasma market was almost inevitable.
With
PDPs now out of the picture, Sony can now focus its efforts entirely on LCD TV
production where it has seen much success. Back in February, DailyTech reported
that Sony was number one in global sales for LCD TVs for Q4 2005.
To keep up the momentum, Sony and Samsung invested $2 billion USD into the
expansion of their jointly owned 7G LCD facility. The investment increased
monthly production by 50,000 units per month. Sony is seeing large profit
margins for LCD TV panels of 40" and above so the company is focusing on
that sector of the market and is preparing for 8G. DigiTimes reports:
In
a bid to secure more panels with which to win the large-size TV battle, Sony
has signed a contract for the construction of an eighth-generation (8G) TFT-LCD
production line through S-LCD, a joint venture with Samsung in July. The new
plant is targeted to start production in fall 2007, with a monthly capacity of
50,000 glass substrates.
Earlier
this year, Sony had to issue a recall
for over 400,000 of its Bravia flat-screen and Grand Wega
rear-projection LCD televisions. It was found that affected models wouldn't
turn off after prolonged usage.
"If you look at the last five years, if you look at what major innovations have occurred in computing technology, every single one of them came from AMD. Not a single innovation came from Intel." -- AMD CEO Hector Ruiz in 2007
|
Most Popular ArticlesReport: Microsoft Eyes Return to "Dying" Windows 7 Path After Windows 8 Flop
May 13, 2013, 9:50 AM
Bill Gates Gets Teary-Eyed While Discussing Steve Jobs, Shows Off Life-Saving Tech on 60 Minutes
May 13, 2013, 12:30 PM
Windows 8.1 Will Be Free; Microsoft Holds Onto Struggling ARM Variant
May 14, 2013, 2:57 PM
Google Announces "Pure" Galaxy Nexus S4 for $649, Android Updates
May 15, 2013, 1:42 PM
U.S. Federal Traffic Board Wants to Make Drunk Driving Threshold Far Harsher
May 15, 2013, 11:32 AM
|
