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Thin Projection TVs Heat Up Competition for Flat-Screen TVs

Posted on: Tuesday, 5 July 2005, 09:00 CDT

Jul. 4--TOKYO -- With rear-projection televisions making a full-scale entry into the market, competition is heating up among plasma TVs, liquid-crystal TVs, and rear-projection TV in the growing market for flat-screen televisions.

Industry observers say the competition would accelerate price declines and is likely to evolve into a war of attrition.

In early June, Seiko Epson Corp. stunned the industry by announcing a 47-inch rear-projection TV measuring about 40 centimeters deep and priced at 298,000 yen.

Epson said the new TV has achieved a price level of "10,000 yen per inch," the level below which sales of flat- and broad-screen TVs are expected to rise sharply.

Unlike cathode ray tube-based sets, the rear-projection TV uses liquid crystal technology, making it possible to shorten the projection distance, and consumes less power.

The company achieved this "by drastically reducing the cost of main components," said an Epson official.

Sony Corp. and Mitsubishi Electric Corp. are also expected to launch new rear-projection TVs in the Japanese market this summer.

Meanwhile, Sharp Corp. announced a plan to market 50-inch and 65-inch widescreen LCD televisions as early as this year.

Liquid crystal is widely regarded as unfit for flat-screen TVs of more than 40 inches.

However, a Sharp executive claimed that the company can manufacture flat-screen TVs by taking advantage of its state-of-the-art plant to produce large glass substrates.

Ironically, the advance of TV production technology has blurred the differences among plasma-, LCD- and rear projection-based models, said an official of an electric appliance retailer.

In the end, price will be the decisive factor in determining the winners of the competition.

Digital home electronics makers, therefore, are likely to see their earnings come under severe pressure, unable to reduce costs to catch up with fast price decline.

Still, they are focusing on the development of digital TVs, expecting replacement demand ahead of the scheduled shift from terrestrial analog TV to digital broadcasting in 2011.

According to the Japan Electronics and Information Technology Industries Association, digital flat-screen TVs are expected to displace CRT-based sets in terms of the penetration rate for households by the end of this year and account for most of the TVs in Japan in 2009.

Therefore, individual TV makers are out to get a leg up and capture a large market share.

Moreover, flat-screen television is "a cluster of advanced technologies, such as high-performance semiconductors." If a manufacturer can lead the sector, the company can enjoy "extensive ripple effects" in related products, said an industry observer.

With Toshiba Corp. and Canon Inc. planning to offer a fourth option in flat-screen TVs, or SED (Surface-conduction Electron-emitter Display) panels, further competition is expected.

However, none of the TV makers will withdraw from the competition, said Akio Sasaki, chief researcher at Fuji Chimera Research Institute Inc., as "there are few electric appliances like TVs that sell in units of 100 million a year in the world."

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Copyright (c) 2005, Kyodo News International, Tokyo

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Source: Kyodo News International, Tokyo

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