According to industry sources and confirmed by a Nikkei News report (Link) Pioneer Corp. is ending production of its highly rated plasma HDTVs and will be exiting the TV business. Pioneer has been losing money on its HDTV plasma operation for quite some time.
Last year Pioneer announced the closing of its plasma panel factory and a plan to outsource its panels to Panasonic, while stating its intention to continue to sell Pioneer branded HDTVs with design and assembly at its own facilities.
This week, due to the current economic climate, Panasonic announced a six-month delay in the opening of its latest and largest plasma panel factory to early 2010. This delay may have been a factor in Pioneer’s decision to abandon TV production.
According to Nikkei, Pioneer also plans to shift its DVD player operations to a new joint venture with Sharp Corp.
Pioneer Electronics USA’s Comments:
“As a matter of policy, we cannot comment on rumors or speculation. As you know, we have publicly announced that we are actively evaluating our business. We started announcing changes in March, 2008 to increase efficiencies of our business operations. We are still in that process but do not have any further announcements at this time.”
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