sony lcd panel manufacturer
Sony started out in Japan, and as such, the company’s own factories were established there first. In 1959, the company built the world’s first all-transistor TV, the TV8-301.
The TVs Sony made in Japan are usually for domestic sale only. The Sony TV production in Japan is located in Inazawa near Nagoya. From here, the production of Sony televisions spread to many countries.
Sonyused to haveanother plant in Penang, Malaysia that produced Sony products like home audio, network Walkman, headphones, and battery products, butthey moved itto Selangor in 2021. This plant produces Sony TVs for sale to Asian countries.
According to the deal, Foxconn will manufacture Sony TVs for the American market on their behalf.Since they don’t make the designs, this deal makes Foxconn a third-party OEM, not among ODM companies.
The principal designs for Sony televisions are also done at the Sony Europe facility in Nitra, Slovakia.There used to bean assembler production line in Trnava, but it was moved to the larger Nitra facility, consolidating the two TV plants.
This Sony TV plant in China produces 30 million panels annually. Sony TVs produced here are sold mostly in China, so you’ll mostly see Malaysia or the other countries here as the country of origin.
In India, Sony partnered with Foxconn in 2015 to produce Sony TVs in their facility. As their 4th largest consumer market in India, Sony has to establish this partnership to reduce costs by avoiding high importation taxes imposed by the Indian government.
As part of their corporate social responsibility, Sony India has numerous humanitarian and conservation efforts, especially for India, with a whole site dedicated to their initiatives. Sony India provides support to the elderly, orphans, schools, cultural sites, and environmental groups, among others.
Sony has previously established a TV plant in Barcelona, Spain for the production of CRT TVs. Eventually, LCD TVs overtook CRT TVs in sales, so the plant shifted its production to LCD TVs.
The plant continued Sony TV production wholly under Sony until, in 2010, it was acquired by Spanish companies Ficosa International and COMSA EMTE. The joint venture between the three will supply European markets with TVs under the Sony brand name.
After thorough research, our experts agree that Sony TVs are definitely worth it. Consumers worldwide trust the brand, considering Sony TVs as one of the most recognizable TV brands. Reports also state that a Sony TV should last 7-10 years, given proper use and maintenance.
The most recent Sony TVs use Google’s Android TV platform, letting viewers enjoy their favorite movies and series from several streaming media partners such as Netflix, Amazon, and Disney, among others.
With a near infinite contrast ratio[1], this Sony TV produces perfect blacks, real-life depth, and excellent details that are not eclipsed by shadows or highlights. It has excellent ratings for most usages but shines best if you watch a lot of movies and series.
The audio quality of this Sony TV is also considered among the best in TV sound systems. It is quite pricey for its size, though, compared to other Sony TVs.
According to our professionals, the Sony X750H is a decent entry-level 4k TV. It can handle most usage scenarios. When you’re not watching movies or shows, you can use the Sony X750H TV for gaming, courtesy of its low input lag.
Flat-panel displays are thin panels of glass or plastic used for electronically displaying text, images, or video. Liquid crystal displays (LCD), OLED (organic light emitting diode) and microLED displays are not quite the same; since LCD uses a liquid crystal that reacts to an electric current blocking light or allowing it to pass through the panel, whereas OLED/microLED displays consist of electroluminescent organic/inorganic materials that generate light when a current is passed through the material. LCD, OLED and microLED displays are driven using LTPS, IGZO, LTPO, and A-Si TFT transistor technologies as their backplane using ITO to supply current to the transistors and in turn to the liquid crystal or electroluminescent material. Segment and passive OLED and LCD displays do not use a backplane but use indium tin oxide (ITO), a transparent conductive material, to pass current to the electroluminescent material or liquid crystal. In LCDs, there is an even layer of liquid crystal throughout the panel whereas an OLED display has the electroluminescent material only where it is meant to light up. OLEDs, LCDs and microLEDs can be made flexible and transparent, but LCDs require a backlight because they cannot emit light on their own like OLEDs and microLEDs.
Liquid-crystal display (or LCD) is a thin, flat panel used for electronically displaying information such as text, images, and moving pictures. They are usually made of glass but they can also be made out of plastic. Some manufacturers make transparent LCD panels and special sequential color segment LCDs that have higher than usual refresh rates and an RGB backlight. The backlight is synchronized with the display so that the colors will show up as needed. The list of LCD manufacturers:
Organic light emitting diode (or OLED displays) is a thin, flat panel made of glass or plastic used for electronically displaying information such as text, images, and moving pictures. OLED panels can also take the shape of a light panel, where red, green and blue light emitting materials are stacked to create a white light panel. OLED displays can also be made transparent and/or flexible and these transparent panels are available on the market and are widely used in smartphones with under-display optical fingerprint sensors. LCD and OLED displays are available in different shapes, the most prominent of which is a circular display, which is used in smartwatches. The list of OLED display manufacturers:
MicroLED displays is an emerging flat-panel display technology consisting of arrays of microscopic LEDs forming the individual pixel elements. Like OLED, microLED offers infinite contrast ratio, but unlike OLED, microLED is immune to screen burn-in, and consumes less power while having higher light output, as it uses LEDs instead of organic electroluminescent materials, The list of MicroLED display manufacturers:
Sony produces and sells commercial MicroLED displays called CLEDIS (Crystal-LED Integrated Displays, also called Canvas-LED) in small quantities.video walls.
LCDs are made in a glass substrate. For OLED, the substrate can also be plastic. The size of the substrates are specified in generations, with each generation using a larger substrate. For example, a 4th generation substrate is larger in size than a 3rd generation substrate. A larger substrate allows for more panels to be cut from a single substrate, or for larger panels to be made, akin to increasing wafer sizes in the semiconductor industry.
"Samsung Display has halted local Gen-8 LCD lines: sources". THE ELEC, Korea Electronics Industry Media. August 16, 2019. Archived from the original on April 3, 2020. Retrieved December 18, 2019.
"TCL to Build World"s Largest Gen 11 LCD Panel Factory". www.businesswire.com. May 19, 2016. Archived from the original on April 2, 2018. Retrieved April 1, 2018.
"Panel Manufacturers Start to Operate Their New 8th Generation LCD Lines". 대한민국 IT포털의 중심! 이티뉴스. June 19, 2017. Archived from the original on June 30, 2019. Retrieved June 30, 2019.
"TCL"s Panel Manufacturer CSOT Commences Production of High Generation Panel Modules". www.businesswire.com. June 14, 2018. Archived from the original on June 30, 2019. Retrieved June 30, 2019.
"Samsung Display Considering Halting Some LCD Production Lines". 비즈니스코리아 - BusinessKorea. August 16, 2019. Archived from the original on April 5, 2020. Retrieved December 19, 2019.
Herald, The Korea (July 6, 2016). "Samsung Display accelerates transition from LCD to OLED". www.koreaherald.com. Archived from the original on April 1, 2018. Retrieved April 1, 2018.
"China"s BOE to have world"s largest TFT-LCD+AMOLED capacity in 2019". ihsmarkit.com. 2017-03-22. Archived from the original on 2019-08-16. Retrieved 2019-08-17.
OLED (Organic Light Emitting Diodes) is a new technology that enables brighter, more efficient, thinner, faster and better looking displays. OLED panels feature better refresh rates and contrast than either LCD or Plasma - and can be made flexible and transparent.
Sony has been involved with OLED research, development and production for years, and can claim several OLED firsts: in 2004 they launched the world"s first PDA with an OLED display (the 3.8" Clie PEG-VZ90), the world"s first OLED TV in 2007 (the 11" XEL-1) and for a while they offered the largest OLED displays (the 24.5" BVM-F250 professional OLED monitors). Today Sony produces OLED TVs - using panels produced by LG Display.
In 2017 Sony introduced its first OLED TV, the XBR-A1E. These 55" and 65" used LG"s WRGB OLED panels, and were very successful. In 2018 Sony introduced its 2nd-generation OLED TV, the AF8.
Back in 2007, Sony launched the "world"s first OLED TV" (the XEL-1), although at 11-inch, it should not really be considered a TV - maybe not even a monitor. It was only made in small quantities and the price ($2,500) was very high. In February 2010 Sony stopped producing the XEL-1.
Sony offers several professional OLED monitors for the film and broadcasting industries, including the PVM 740 (7.4 inch), PVM 1741 (17 inch), and the PVM 2541 (25 inch) and the premium BVM F170 (17 inch) and BVM F250 (25 inch). Sony also offers OLED monitors for the medical market. In September 2012 Sony announced that they have sold over 15,000 professional OLED monitors, and in fact their Nagoya OLED production fab is running at "full capacity".
In past years, Sony released several mobile devices that adopted OLED displays. The original portable Vita gaming console is one example. Sony sold over 2 million Vita consoles. The Vita featured a 5" touch Samsung-Made OLED display (960x544), but Sony switched to an LCD in the newer Vita as they wanted to reduce the cost of the device.
In January 2009, Sony unveiled their "X" series OLED walkman. They claimed it was the best sounding walkman ever, and it"s got the best display, too: a 3-inch 432x240 touch AMOLED. Sony has also used a large AMOLED in their NW-A840 walkman.
In October 2016 Sony launched its PlayStation VR HMD. Sony"s VR HMD uses a 5.7" FHD (1920x1080) AMOLED display (produced by Samsung Display), 360-degree tracking and 3D audio. Sony enjoyed strong sales of this VR headset.
Sony are also producing OLED microdisplays, and have several such displays on the market, including a 0.5" XGA (1024x768) panel for digital camera EVFs and a 0.7" 1280x720 microdisplay used in Sony"s HMD products.
Sony is setting some pretty grand expectations with its 2022 TV lineup — led by the introduction of the world’s first consumer QD-OLED TV. The company’s current and well-regarded OLED sets use panels from LG Display that are tuned with Sony’s own processing. But the new flagship Bravia XR A95K TV will include a QD-OLED (quantum dot organic light emitting diode) panel manufactured by none other than Samsung Display. It’ll come in 65-inch and 55-inch sizes, with both coming in at 4K resolution.
It was rumored that Samsung Electronics might announce a QD-OLED 4K TV at CES 2022, but that hasn’t panned out so far. So it’s Sony that gets the prime spotlight instead. Samsung Display has been developing QD-OLED for a number of years, and the display technology could become something of a middle step between standard OLED and the MicroLED displays that only Samsung is selling right now — for ungodly sums of money.
QD-OLED screens differ from the traditional OLED panels that’ve long been manufactured by LG Display in the way they produce an image. LG’s displays are considered WRGB OLED because they use blue and yellow OLED compound to generate white-ish light pixels that are passed through color filters to produce red, green, and blue sub-pixels. More recent OLED TVs also have a fourth unfiltered / white sub-pixel meant to enhance brightness — especially for HDR content.
They should also be able to maintain vivid quantum dot color reproduction even at peak brightness levels, whereas WRGB OLED can sometimes exhibit some desaturation when pushed that far. In Sony’s case, the company is claiming that QD-OLED “boosts color brightness by up to 200 percent compared to conventional TVs.” The already superb viewing angles of OLED are claimed to be even better on QD-OLED since there’s more diffusion happening without the color filter in the way.
The possibility of burn-in isn’t eliminated by QD-OLED, but the hope is that these panels could exhibit a longer overall life span than existing OLED TVs since the pixels aren’t working as hard. Samsung Display is using three layers of blue OLED material for each pixel, and that could preserve their longevity.
Sony is still sourcing from LG Display for its other 2022 OLEDs, the A90K and A80K, so that business relationship isn’t going anywhere. But the company now finds itself in the unique position of having two different types of OLED TVs. It’ll be very interesting to see the head-to-head comparisons between QD-OLED and the best “normal” OLED sets from LG and Sony once they all start shipping to consumers this spring.
Aside from its one-of-a-kind panel, the A95K comes with a unique stand that can either put the TV in a “front position” style, where the display is in front of the stand, or a “back position” if you want to position the pricey TV right up against a wall. The back of the TV also has a funky look to it that I can appreciate with built-in cable management. Even the step-down A90K OLED’s stand has a trick where it can raise the display enough for a soundbar to rest on it without obstructing the view.
The A95K will have four HDMI inputs, with two of them having full HDMI 2.1 capabilities. All of Sony’s latest OLEDs will support 4K gaming at 120Hz, auto HDR tone mapping when connected to a PS5, and auto low latency mode. And these TVs will finally ship with the option for variable refresh rate out of the box instead of making buyers wait for a software update like past models. Hopefully that’s a sign that VRR is coming closer to arriving on the PlayStation 5 itself.
Google TV remains Sony’s software of choice for 2022, and the lineup continues to feature the company’s word salad of branded features like XR OLED Contrast Pro, XR Triluminos Max (for the A95K) or Pro (for the rest), and Acoustic Surface Audio Plus. Sony really does get some fantastic audio performance from its premium TVs, and its in-house processing also slightly bests LG’s OLED lineup in picture quality, so the names are probably here to stay.
Sony also announced its first line of Micro LED TVs, which I’ve covered separately. Pricing and specific release dates for all the TVs will be announced in the coming months.
One of the highlights of CES for us this year was Sony’s move to finally embrace OLED technology for its flagship line of Bravia TVs. Not only that, the Japanese company doubled down on the innovation by also featuring an integrated audio system that turned the display into the speaker — the new Bravia OLED literally vibrates the screen back and forth to generate sound. But a great deal of that hot new tech bearing the Sony name actually comes from Korea’s LG Display.
If you’ve ever wondered why LG Electronics and LG Display are two separate entities, it is precisely so that the latter can develop and sell its technology, on a white-label basis, to other device manufacturers without being in direct competition with them. The grand LG competes with Sony for big TV sales, while the more focused LG Display only sells the displays and components necessary to drive them. That’s how it’s possible for LG technology to be winning one of The Verge’s Best of CES awards under the Sony banner.
I attended LG Display’s CES 2017 exhibition during the same week that Sony launched the Bravia OLED screen, and I happened upon the former company’s Crystal Sound OLED TV. This was being demonstrated in two orientations: the vertical TV was used to play back music and show off the clarity and volume of the display functioning as a speaker, while the horizontal TV had two piles of beads on top of it, to show that it is indeed moving while playing back audio. I put a hand on both the edge and middle of the panel, and it was apparent that the vibration was substantially stronger in the middle — which is where the "exciters," motors used to drive the panel back and forth, were positioned. But, try as I might, I couldn’t notice any distortion in the picture as a result of the uneven vibration. On both panels, the OLED TV image retained its integrity perfectly.
Sony’s taken a leaf out of LG Display’s book by developing its own variant of Crystal Sound, which it calls Acoustic Surface. It sounds and performs almost the exact same way.
There’s no shame in Sony rebranding or copying what is evidently very good technology, and there’s still plenty of design and engineering that needs to happen behind the OLED scenes to make a great TV that will last for a long time. But the fact that LG Display can recreate all the hotness of the new Sony Bravia should mean that we’ll soon be able to have our pick from a variety of OLED TVs that double up as a good speaker system.
Correction: This article initially hypothesized that Sony was using LG Display’s Crystal Sound technology for its OLED TV speaker system, however the Japanese company has gotten in touch to clarify that it has developed its own system. Sony’s Acoustic Surface works on the same principles as Crystal Sound — and, having heard it during CES, sounds just as good — but apparently "has nothing to do with LG Display." The article has been amended to take that into account.
Sony’s new 4K Bravia XR A95K TV panel is made by none other than Samsung Display. The display is unique in that it uses three layers of blue OLED material for each pixel, which, according to the brand, provides a longer life span than traditional sets. Sony also claims that the TV’s quantum dot technology “boosts color brightness by up to 200 percent compared to conventional TV’s.”
The partnership is an intriguing twist for Sony, in particular. After all, the brand’s current OLED sets use panelsfrom Samsung rival LG Display. LG’s panels typically use blue and yellow OLED compounds to create white-ish light pixels that are passed through color filters to produce red, green, and blue sub-pixels. In contrast, QD-OLED technology emits blue light through quantum dots to convert some of the blue pixels into red and green without the need for a color filter. Thanks to this, the Bravia XR A95K, which will come in 55- and 65-inch sizes, should be capable of emitting greater light energy efficiency.
Samsung Electronics was rumored to announce a QD-OLED 4K TV at this year’s CES event, but it has yet to happen—leaving Sony with the spotlight. However, QD display panels were first announced in 2019 by Samsung Display. The tech is considered a combination of standard OLED and MicroLED displays that are sold exclusively by the manufacturer. Fortunately for Sony, the panels could be sold not just to Samsung but to other brands.
Notably, Sony will continue using LG Display panels for a few of its other 2022 OLEDs. Two new releases that will be manufactured by the company include Sony’s A90K and A80K displays. All of Sony’s forthcoming OLEDs with support 4K gaming to 120Hz, auto HDR tone mapping when connected to a PS5, and auto low latency mode.
Sony’s 2022 TV sets from both LG Display and Samsung Display are expected to start shipping to customers this spring. Check out the website for more information.
TOKYO --Falling behind rivals in flat-panel development for TVs, Sony is teaming with Japanese rival Sharp in procuring liquid crystal displays, a company official said Tuesday.
A Sony official, speaking on customary condition of anonymity, said a news conference will be held later Tuesday in Tokyo to give details, but would not elaborate.
Demand for slimmer TVs is growing around the world. Although the televisions use various panel technologies, LCD is the leading technology so far along with plasma.
Osaka-based Sharp, which is struggling to gain overseas brand recognition, still trails Samsung and Sony. Sharp"s Aquos brand of LCD TVs is extremely popular in Japan.
Sony management failed to recognize how quickly slimmer TVs would take off, partly because of the huge success it enjoyed in developing and selling high-quality old-style televisions.
Its failure in flat TVs was a major reason for its faltering earnings several years ago. But Sony has staged a comeback recently under the helm of Howard Stringer, the Welsh-born American who took over as chief executive in 2005, becoming the first foreigner to lead the maker of the Walkman portable player.
Last month, Sony warned that it would lose money for its fourth consecutive fiscal year, which ends next March. Sony’s television unit alone accounts for billions of yen in losses.
The company said it would report a further write-down of 66 billion yen, or about $845 million, for the final three months of 2011 because of its exit from the Samsung joint venture. But it expected to cut costs in its LCD business by 50 billion yen a year as a result of the departure, Sony said.
Sony “aims to secure a flexible and steady supply of LCD panels from Samsung, based on market prices and without the responsibility and costs of operating a manufacturing facility,” it said in the statement.
Meanwhile, Samsung Electronics, the world leader in flat-panel televisions, would gain freer rein in producing its next-generation displays by taking control of S-LCD. Samsung said in a regulatory filing that its board had approved the plan Monday.
The roots of the Sony-Samsung alliance date from the late 1990s, when Samsung emerged from the Asian financial crisis as a powerhouse because of relentless cost-cutting and aggressive overseas marketing.
Sony’s new 4K Bravia XR A95K TV panel is made by none other than Samsung Display. The display is unique in that it uses three layers of blue OLED material for each pixel, which, according to the brand, provides a longer life span than traditional sets. Sony also claims that the TV’s quantum dot technology “boosts color brightness by up to 200 percent compared to conventional TV’s.”
The partnership is an intriguing twist for Sony, in particular. After all, the brand’s current OLED sets use panelsfrom Samsung rival LG Display. LG’s panels typically use blue and yellow OLED compounds to create white-ish light pixels that are passed through color filters to produce red, green, and blue sub-pixels. In contrast, QD-OLED technology emits blue light through quantum dots to convert some of the blue pixels into red and green without the need for a color filter. Thanks to this, the Bravia XR A95K, which will come in 55- and 65-inch sizes, should be capable of emitting greater light energy efficiency.
Samsung Electronics was rumored to announce a QD-OLED 4K TV at this year’s CES event, but it has yet to happen—leaving Sony with the spotlight. However, QD display panels were first announced in 2019 by Samsung Display. The tech is considered a combination of standard OLED and MicroLED displays that are sold exclusively by the manufacturer. Fortunately for Sony, the panels could be sold not just to Samsung but to other brands.
Notably, Sony will continue using LG Display panels for a few of its other 2022 OLEDs. Two new releases that will be manufactured by the company include Sony’s A90K and A80K displays. All of Sony’s forthcoming OLEDs with support 4K gaming to 120Hz, auto HDR tone mapping when connected to a PS5, and auto low latency mode.
Sony’s 2022 TV sets from both LG Display and Samsung Display are expected to start shipping to customers this spring. Check out the website for more information.
Sony said Monday it will sell off its entire stake in an LCD (liquid crystal display) manufacturing joint venture with Samsung Electronics for 1.08 trillion won (US$934 million).
The two companies signed a contract under which Samsung will turn the company, S-LCD, into a fully-owned subsidiary that will still provide panels for Sony televisions. The Korean-based LCD manufacturer was established in April of 2004, with Sony holding just below a 50 percent share.
The move comes as Sony faces deep losses in televisions and faces questions as to whether it can revive the once-core business. The Tokyo-based company said in November it expected to lose over a billion dollars in the current fiscal year through April, though it is currently recalculating its forecast in light of the sale.
"This deal will allow Sony to acquire LCD panels from Samsung Electronics in a stable way based on market prices, without the responsibility or costs that come with operating a factory," Sony said in a press release.
Like domestic peers, Sony has long struggled to make its TV business profitable against foreign rivals like Samsung and Vizio in the U.S., but executives have repeatedly said they won"t abandon the product. The firm"s latest plan calls for a focus on profitability over the number of units sold, and shifting to acquiring panels from outside manufacturers.
The iconic Japanese company has said it is focused on a "four-screen strategy," which aims to offer content and interconnect smartphones, laptops, tablets, and televisions. It announced in October it would acquire Ericsson"s 50 percent stake in their Sony Ericsson mobile phone joint venture, allowing it to better integrate smartphones into its overall product lineup.
Japanese electronics giant Sony has increased its dependence on liquid crystal display (LCD) screens from Korean company LG, following a split from a previous partnership with Samsung Electronics in October last year.
It added that the partnership indicated Sony"s switch from relying on Samsung, and its battery-powered 3D technology, to LG which is pushing its cheaper film-based 3D technology, undercutting its Korean rival Samsung.
Sony terminated its previous LCD joint venture with Samsung in a bid to boost its loss-making TV business, as prices of LCDs dropped due to Japan"s move to digital terrestrial broadcast which stifled demand for TV sets. Sony sold back its stake to Samsung in October last year, ending the partnership.
According to The Korean Times report, LG is doubling production to fulfil Sony"s LCD panel needs. "Considering Sony"s aggressive drive for outsourcing in flat screens, LG will likely receive more orders," an unnamed LG source told the Korean newspaper. "It is better-positioned for product commitment, on-time delivery and pricing, than Taiwanese flat-screen suppliers."
LG Display said it expects global demand for 3D televisions to surpass 40 million by the end of this year and is increasing investment to boost the output of its premium flat screens, buoyed by its business partnership with Sony. The company"s panels have been adopted by Toshiba, Philips, Vizio and leading Chinese TV manufacturers, it added. The LG executive was quoted to say: "Major Japanese TV companies such as Panasonic displayed their latest 3D TVs, using LG"s film-based 3D technology at the recent technology exhibition in Las Vegas [Consumer Electronics Show]."
He also revealed that organic-light-emitting diode (OLED) panels were the next major revenue source. LG Display will invest some 400 billion won (US$356 million) this year to mass-produce OLED displays to replace the current industry mainstay LCDs, which is likely commence from 2014, he said.
"As Sony has already put LG Display on a list of key suppliers, future talks will cover its OLED panel outsourcing from the latter half of this year," said the executive who, however, declined to comment on whether LG would supply OLED panels to Sony.
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sony tv screen (Liquid crystal display) are made of liquid crystals that form digital images made visible through ambient light or through LED backlight. LCDs are used in the place of other displays that are less efficient such as cathode ray tubes (CRTs) and have become the most popular display type on the market.
Explore the extensive selection of wholesale sony tv screen LCD displays, TFT, and HMI that can be used across a range of industries, including domestic, medical, industrial, automotive, and many others. You can choose from a number of standard industry sizes and find the sony television screen that are applicable to your required use. If you would like options that allow a smaller environmental footprint due to low power consumption, you can browse the Chip-on-Glass (COG) LCDs. COGs are designed without PCBs so have a slimmer profile.
"Television is a key product category for Sony," Ken Kutaragi, executive deputy president of Sony, said in a statement. "S-LCD panels will be at the core of our flat-panel TV strategy, further strengthening our overall vision for television."
LCD technology allows for thinner and lighter televisions and monitors than traditional cathode-ray tube products. The market for LCD televisions is particularly promising, according to research firm iSuppli. The share of worldwide TV shipments that are LCD models will grow from 5 percent this year to 18 percent in 2008, iSuppli said. The total TV market is expected to jump from about 168 million units to roughly 203 million units during that period.
The new S-LCD plant is optimized for big panels that can fit into televisions, said iSuppli analyst Riddhi Patel. "It"s going to make the large-size LCDs available at a more reasonable rate," she said. Partly because of the new factory, the average price for LCD televisions that are 40 inches or larger should fall from about $8,000 to $1,500 by 2008, Patel said.
Sony and Samsung are vying with other LCD panel manufacturers such as LG.Philips LCD, a joint venture between Royal Philips Electronics of the Netherlands and Korea"s LG Electronics.
LCD technology is competing against plasma display technology, which also allows for thin televisions. Other display methods are emerging, including so-called liquid crystal on silicon rear-projection technology, which has been championed by
Sony and Samsung inked their joint venture in April, with each company contributing roughly half of $1.8 billion in capital. The deal, which places a Samsung executive as the CEO of the joint venture, is a sign of Samsung"s growing strength and
TOKYO - In a bid to streamline its money-losing television business, Sony said Monday it would sell its stake in its flat-panel joint venture with Samsung Electronics, letting go of more of its production capacity at a time when outsourcing has become the norm in the world of manufacturing.
Sony, the Tokyo-based technology and entertainment giant, which makes the Bravia liquid-crystal display televisions, said in a statement that it would sell its nearly 50 percent stake in the jointly owned manufacturer, S-LCD, to Samsung of South Korea for $939 million.
Sony"s exit from the joint venture, set up in Tanjeong, South Korea, in 2004, would allow it to switch to less expensive outsourcing options that might allow it to resuscitate its struggling TV business. The only other LCD panels Sony manufactures are at its joint venture with Sharp, in which Sony owns a 7 percent stake.
Cutthroat competition in a peaking market is squeezing margins for TV manufacturers, especially Sony, which analysts have long criticized for high production costs. A strong yen has also weighed on Sony"s bottom line by eroding the value of its overseas earnings when repatriated into the home currency. Last month, Sony warned that it would lose money for the fourth year in a row.