Sony exits government flat-panel project
Kyoko Suzuki and Naoko Fujimura Bloomberg
Back to Start of Article Sony, the world's No. 2 maker of consumer electronics, on Sunday said it had withdrawn from a government-led liquid-crystal display project after setting up a similar venture with Samsung Electronics of South Korea.
The company left because "the government's initiative for this project is to domestically research and develop technology," said a Sony spokesman, Yoshikazu Ochiai. The company in January 2003 joined the program, which has more than two dozen members, including Tohoku University, according to Ochiai.
The Japanese government asked Sony to withdraw from the project because of a risk of leaking information, the state-run NHK television station reported Sunday.
Sony said in October that it would revamp its television business by entering into a venture with Samsung, the world's second-largest maker of semiconductors, to produce liquid-crystal displays by the first quarter of next year. The combination is intended to give Sony a stronger presence in the market for flat-screen televisions.
Sony and Samsung plan to build a flat-panel factory in South Korea that will be capable of making tens of thousands of panels a year by the summer of 2005.
The venture coincides with decisions by computer companies such as Hewlett-Packard, Dell and Gateway to enter the market for products such as slim televisions, digital cameras and portable music players.
Flat-screen TV's, which use either LCD or plasma display panels, are among the best-selling consumer-electronics products for companies including Sharp, Sony and Samsung. Sharp this month said it expected LCD sales to rise 40 percent to ?30 billion, or $6.9 billion, in the year ending March 2005.
Bloomberg News
