Just last month, Sony announced that it was leaving the TV business, having passed its home entertainment business over to TCL. Now, it looks like it’s the turn of Panasonic, which announced that the making and marketing of its TVs will be done by Skyworth.
FlatpanelsHD reports that the two companies announced the strategic partnership at a launch event. As a result, Panasonic will still continue to provide expertise and quality assurance, while Skyworth takes over sales, marketing and logistics, in addition to manufacturing.
According to Ars Technica, things have been brewing in the background that ultimately led to this decision. In 2021, Panasonic announced that it would be outsourcing TV production to an unidentified third party. Then in February last year, company president Yuki Kusumi said it was “prepared to sell” its TV business “if necessary”. Now that it’s happened, it means that the company will drastically reduce the amount of resources put into the TV business, while still making some money off of its branding.
End Of Japan-Made TVs
In its heyday, Panasonic was a popular choice for plasma TVs – remember those? The latter report cites research by DisplaySearch as noting that the brand had 40.7% of the plasma TV market share in 2010. It would cease production of those types of TVs by March 2014. But before that, the company had released the ZT60 series, the flagship of the time, as well as the VT60 nd ST60 range.
Panasonic was also the last holdout when it came to Japanese TV brands still making their own. But that, too, has come to an end. As mentioned, Sony sold its own off to TCL. Pioneer has done the same, selling its TV business to TCL as well back in 2018. Earlier, Toshiba sold off its TV business, including the REGZA brand, off to Hisense in 2017. One year earlier, Sharp as a whole became a Foxconn subsidiary in 2016.
(Source: FlatpanelsHD, Ars Technica)
