Galactus
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Matsu****a: Our plasma TV is bigger
The new set will measure 103 inches diagonally and weigh almost 500 pounds.
July 10 2006: 7:04 AM EDT
TOKYO (Reuters) -- Matsu****a Electric Industrial Co. Ltd., the maker of Panasonic brand electronics, said Monday it hoped to start selling the world's largest plasma television by early next year.
Measuring 7 feet 8 inches by 4 and a half feet and weighing 473 pounds, the 103-inch panel is bigger than a double-sized mattress and almost as heavy as an upright piano.
The world's largest consumer electronics maker has yet to set the price but Matsu****a's 65-inch plasma TVs, its largest available now, sell for about $7,500 in Japan.
The plasma panel used in the Matsu****a TV will be just one-inch larger measured diagonally than a 102-inch model developed by Samsung SDI Co. Ltd. The South Korean company has not launched the model commercially.
Matsu****a is the world's largest plasma TV maker competing with smaller rivals such as South Korea's LG Electronics Inc.
As liquid crystal display (LCD) TVs encroach on the market for 40-inch TVs and above - which had previously seen as plasma TV's turf - developing even larger-sized panels is important for plasma TV makers to remain competitive.
Sharp Corp. plans to bring on stream the world's first plant that cuts LCD panels from eighth-generation glass in October.
Eighth-generation glass is bigger than seventh-generation glass now used by Sony Corp. and Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. in their joint venture, and allows LCD makers to produce large-sized panels economically.
Matsu****a also said it had started taking orders for the 103-inch panels in the United States for business use, such as studio monitors at broadcasting companies and electronic billboards, and planned to deliver them starting this autumn.
Matsu****a aims to sell 5,000 units of the 103-inch panels a year, with TV demand accounting for little less than 20 percent, which can be calculated into annual sales of some 1,000 103-inch TVs.
The new panels will meet full high-definition specifications, meaning they can produce images at the highest standard of 1,920 by 1,080 pixels of resolution.
Osaka-based Matsu****a controlled 21.6 percent of the global plasma TV market in the January-March quarter, followed by LG Electronics with 17.8 percent, according to DisplaySearch.
Shares of Matsu****a closed up 1.5 percent at ¥2,390, outstripping the Tokyo stock market's electrical machinery index IELEC, which gained 1.2 percent.
