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Pioneer will focus on 50 inch Plasma Panels |
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Monday, 25 February 2008 |
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| Pioneer will focus on making Plasma Panels 50 inches or larger & won't produce 42-inch plasma panels anymore. |
Pioneer plans to buy 42 inch panels (and smaller) in the near future from Panasonic maker Matsushita Electric Industrial or Hitachi Ltd, Reuters reports.
Pioneer will end output of 42 inch panels at a plant in Kagoshima prefecture in southern Japan as early as by March 2009.
It would be Pioneer's latest step away from a vertically integrated business model, in which manufacturers conduct production of key parts as well as assembly of finished products, after its decision last year to buy liquid crystal display panels from Sharp Corp to start offering LCD TVs.
Pioneer's plasma business has been struggling to compete with larger rivals with better production efficiency such as Matsushita & LG Electronics Inc.
Pioneer has a target to sell 480,000 plasma TVs in this business year, ending on March 31, less than one-tenth of Matsushita's sales target of 5 million units.
Pioneer bought the Kagoshima plant from NEC Corp & now wants NEC to buy it back.
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