Sony Corp. is saying goodbye to its money-losing rear-projection TV business worldwide and hello to liquid display and organic light-emitting diode flat panel technologies.
Sales of rear-projection TVs had been declining recently as LCD TVs gain in popularity and get bigger, spokesman Shinji Obana said.
In October, Sony lowered its global sales forecast for rear-projection TVs — which uses a projector to create images on large screens — to 400,000 from 700,000, which is down from 1.1 million the previous fiscal year.
Sony expects to sell 10 million LCD TVs this fiscal year through March, up from 6.3 million the previous year.
Sony sells 85 percent of its rear-projection TVs in the United States, and about 10 percent in Europe, according to Obana. Production at the three plants that make the rear-projection TVs in Japan, Mexico and Malaysia, will be halted, Obana said.
The decision to abandon rear-projection TVs underlines Sony's strategy of focusing on LCDs and OLEDs at a time when competition is heating up in flat TVs.
In the fiscal half-year through September, Sony lost 526.3 million U.S. dollars in its TV operations, partly because of losses tied to rear-projection TVs. Diving prices of LCD TVs also contributed to the red ink, Obana said.
Sony began selling a small 11-inch TV in December that uses a relatively new but expensive flat-panel technology called OLED. Sony's XEL-1 measures just 3 millimeters, or 0.12 inches, thick and delivers clear, vivid images.
Source:Xinhua/Agencies
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