Panasonic Exiting TV?

TechRadar is reporting "Panasonic dropping TVs for iPad screens". Although TV is a tough business, this would be surprising. Panasonic was one of the few old-line brands to make the Tech Top 20, and one of even fewer brands in the Tech Top 20 who's brand value was growing apace with the top 20 average growth as distorted by Apple's 129% growth. Further, the market seems to have been going Panasonic's way of late. Consumer Reports recent review of flat panel TVs "Cheaper off-brand TVs aren't always a great deal" implied that buying anything other than one of the top TV brands was taking a risk on set Reliability. Panasonic was one of the 5 top brands mentioned and the Consumer Reports set rankings appropriately showed many Panasonic models with high rankings. Panasonic also has a thriving complementary business in digital signage. Their digital signage business has been growing at well above the average rate for the industry as they have taken share from some of the larger players.

Panasonic is one of the few remaining Plasma set makers and dimming prospects for Plasma may have played a part. Although Plasma had been written off as a declining technology some years ago, the re-emergence of 3D sparked something of a revival. Due to the fact that 3D trades temporal resolution (response time) in order to get 3D, with its much faster response time, Plasma was a better fit for modification to 3D. Panasonic jumped on this and launched a line of studio production equipment to enable wider adoption of 3D. However, although 3D remains an inevitability, much of the initial enthusiasm for it has dampened with disappointing sales.

The TechRadar post indicates that Panasonic will convert its LCD making capacity over to smaller screen sizes and specifically mentions Apple as a potential customer. Slow production rates for the new in-cell touch screens for the iPhone 5 may have provided an opening for a new supplier. Even if such is the case, it still takes huge volumes of 4" smartphone screens to make up for a 55" TV in terms of LCD production capacity. Although top brands have left the TV market before, I do not think that Panasonic will be one of them until they make the announcement themselves. As some stability comes to the mobile device market, TV seems poised for some excitement as the battles between competing OS owners spills over into new territory. As a top brand overall and a top TV brand, Panasonic would seem to be poised for some excitement as well. The latest reports indicate that Panasonic is denying these rumors of its exit.