Pioneer quits plasma screen business
Too many losses
AFTER MAKING A LOSS for the fourth year running, Japanese consumer electronics outfit Pioneer Corp said it would give up making plasma displays.
Pioneer is the currently the world's fifth-biggest plasma TV maker, but can't seem to make much money at it.
The firm, said it expects to post a group net loss of 15 billion yen ($145 million) for the year to March 31. It had thought it would make a six billion yen profit.
Dropping plasma, "will allow us to transform our business model for displays from vertically integrated, capital-intensive operations to a leaner business model geared to making value-added product proposals," Pioneer said in a statement.
The decision will cost the firm a charge of 19 billion yen ($185 million), but it reckons it'll help it make a profit again by 2010. µ
See Also
Plasma
prices set to plummet
Comments
Slighlty misleading
Pioneer have not quit the Plasma business at all, they have decided to outsource the manufacture of their panels to Panasonic and Hitachi but WILL still be selling plasma screens with the Pioneer brand on them.I think this article needs re-phrasing slightly.
This is a misleading headline
From what I've read they're going to stop manufacturing the panels, not plasmas alltogether. They'll buy panels from Panasonic since it'll be cheaper, but everything else will be Pioneer's engineering.-NOT- misleading
Pioneer is closing their in-house manufacturing plant/s. ie. they will stop making, MAKING stuff.
Merely reselling someone else's hardware does not make everything even-steven.
I think the article title is right on target.
The triumph of crapiness
Shame. Pioneer made some of the best plasma screens out there. Unfortunately most people can't even tell an 8-bit panel from a 6-bit one, so the cheaper, crappy models dominate the market.crap is king
Of course pioneer quit manufacturing.The quality of the cheapest TV's outperform the expectations of the average viewer... if you need quality in anything these days you are officially a member of a very tiny minority group, unfortunately, one not worth producing for on a mass scale.
You'll still get your quality TV's, they'll just be harder to find and cost you an arm and both legs.
Of course, you could make one yourself for less money, but isn't that they way with nearly everything now?
outsource with same quality?
They are going to start selling LCDs by getting Sharp to make their LCD panels. They CLAIM they are going to supply Sharp with their "Kuro" techonology that made their plasmas so famous. IF Sharp can make "Pioneer" LCDs with "Kuro" quality, won't Sharp also be selling the same LCDs? Why not just see who has the cheapest LCD?Nooooo! What about the "Kuro Concept"?
Any word what will happen to their 9mm thick Kuro Concept design?????It is such a shame for them to stop production on these!