|
A
Panasonic spokeswoman said the company will stop producing TV
screens at its plant in Himeji, western Japan, by the end of
September.
The plant, where production began in 2010, has never logged a
profit during years of heavy price competition with South Korean
and Chinese rivals.
The decision to close the business comes after Panasonic
scrapped a company-wide revenue target of 10 trillion yen ($90.1
billion) for the year through March 2019 to focus on
profitability.
Its Himeji plant will continue to produce screens for vehicle
dashboards and medical equipment, but output will drop to a
quarter of the current 810,000 units a month in terms of 32-inch
panels, Panasonic said.
Some of Panasonic's television sets already use panels from
rival manufacturers such as South Korea's LG Display Co Ltd.
The Nikkei business daily reported on the closure earlier in the
day, at the end of which Panasonic shares closed 3.6 percent
higher on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. By comparison, the benchmark
Nikkei index ended up 1.0 percent.
(Reporting by Makiko Yamazaki; Editing by Christopher Cushing)
[© 2016 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.] Copyright 2016 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
 |
|
