No more Pioneer TVs due to world economic crisis!

[rex]

Pioneer exits TV market completely?
Japan's Nikkei paper today warned (subscription required) that Pioneer is likely to exit the TV business. While the company has already said it would end plasma production and enter into LCDs, the new report has the electronics giant ending its TV efforts entirely and entering into a joint venture with Sharp for its DVD movie player business. Pioneer has been suffering losses despite the critical success of its Kuro plasma TVs and is also at least indirectly threatened by the current world economic crisis.
A spokeswoman for Pioneer's American division tells Gearlog that the company declines comment on the accuracy of the story but does acknowledge that her firm has been "actively evaluating" its businesses since March of last year to save money. Significantly, Pioneer's CES presence saw it launching mostly home theater equipment like Blu-ray players while its familiar TVs were absent.

http://www.electronista.com/articles....may.exit.tvs/

[TheMoose]

From Gizmodo,

Our favorite plasma maker and TV tech innovator is exiting the TV business for good, says HD Guru.

We've known Pioneer's been having a hard time of things lately, especially when they confirmed they were leaving the plasma manufacturing business. They hitched their wagon to Panasonic, the leading plasma manufacturer, but apparently Panny just delayed the opening of a new factory, citing economic strains. So you can see how the #2 would get shoved aside, if all of Panasonic's capacity is tied up with its own product.

As for its DVD and Blu-ray group, the Nikkei says it plans to merge that with a division from Sharp as some sort of new business venture.

Gary Merson at HDGuru had been sniffing around this story, and today, Nikkei confirmed it with a report of its own. [HDGuru]

UPDATE: Here's Pioneer's official non-response to the news:

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.

Lets hope they license their Kuro technology to someone if indeed they do exit the TV business.

[rex]

Originally Posted by TheMoose

Lets hope they license their Kuro technology to someone if indeed they do exit the TV business.

Panasonic's new plasma technology seems to be better than Kuro.
With other manufacturers pulling out, Panasonic will be the only game left in town for quality plasmas.

[wes]

Originally Posted by rex

Panasonic's new plasma technology seems to be better than Kuro. With other manufacturers pulling out, Panasonic will be the only game left in town for quality plasmas.

Yes Sony will have a blast with OLED

[YoniX50@gmail.com]

I have to say I would like to hear the official announcement from Pioneer regarding this before I officially start to get upset. It is possible that Panasonic will get their technology, or Samsung might make an aggressive bid towards buying it, or they may just start a new company called Kuro and take it from there. Who knows? its all speculation at this point. I want to hear this news straight from the horse's mouth before anything else.