Hitachi, Ltd. will pull the plug on TV production before the current fiscal year ends next March as it has suffered deteriorating profitability amid intensifying price competition with South Korean and other foreign rivals, the company said Wednesday.
The firm said it would continue to develop new TV models but outsource production to makers overseas, including in Taiwan.
Hitachi will keep selling TVs bearing its own brand name, the company said.
Hitachi has been making TVs since 1956. Its departure from the market will leave five domestic TV makers, including Panasonic Corp., Sharp Corp. and Sony Corp.
Hitachi manufactures LCD and plasma TVs under the Wooo brand. It held just 4.6 percent of the domestic market in 2010, ranking fifth among the six makers.
To trim production costs, Hitachi pulled out of a joint venture producing liquid crystal panels for TVs in 2008. Hitachi also halted production of plasma TV panels later that year. The company had stopped TV production overseas by autumn last year.
Hitachi's only domestic TV production plant is in Minokamo, Gifu Prefecture. After TVs stop rolling off the lines, the plant will make other products, and all workers will be kept on.
Among other major electrical appliance makers, Pioneer Corp. pulled out of plasma TV production, and JVC Kenwood Holdings, Inc. stopped making TVs after its subsidiary, Victor Co. of Japan, halted LCD TV production at a Thai factory.
Sony and Panasonic suffered losses in their TV production business in the April-June quarter of this year. Some observers believe domestic electrical appliance makers will continue to review their TV production operations.
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