LG announces exit from plasma TV market, to cease production and sales by end of next month

[Himanshu Arora]

Nearly a year after Panasonic left the plasma TV market, LG has also announced that it will cease production and sales of plasma display panel (PDP) televisions and will focus on LCD and OLED televisions instead.

In a regulatory filing yesterday, the South Korean company said that the decision to exit the market is a direct result of the decline in demand for plasma TVs, with the business accounting for only 2.4 percent of the company's annual revenue last year.

"We wanted to keep it going as long as we could", said an LG spokesperson, noting that the company has been making its own plasma panels. "No matter how much we try to keep it going it's just not a business anymore". All production and sales of PDP TVs is expected to end by 30th November.

The move shouldn't come as a surprise, primarily because plasma is an old technology past its prime -- plasma displays consume more power and generate more heat compared to technically superior liquid crystal displays, which have become both ubiquitous and indispensable these days.

A report released by market research firm NPD DisplaySearch earlier this year estimated that the global PDP TV shipments next year would fall to 500,000, compared to 5.2 million this year.

Earlier this year, Samsung SDI, the sister company of Samsung Electronics, also announced that it will shut down its plasma panel production business by November 30, citing fall in overall demand. Samsung, however, says it will continue making plasma TVs.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/58602-lg-announces-exit-plasma-tv-market-cease-production.html

 

[Scshadow]

LCDs are technically superior? Last I checked plasma screens still had an huge advantage in picture quality. You have to go with super expensive OLED TVs to get better picture quality then a plasma puts out. Last I checked LCD, even with the fancy things they do with their backlighting in their more expensive models, struggles to create true blacks. Plasmas have naturally black blacks. They have high refresh rates which make them superior for watching sports and fast action. Plasma has always suffered from negative public opinion and early adopter problems. Don't get me wrong, Plasmas have some drawbacks but to claim it is simply inferior in every way compared to LCDs is ignorant. Its actually pretty sad to see Plasma production being thrown out the window. There is a niche group of people that actually feel the same.

 

[yRaz]

The only display technology that has a chance of replacing plasma's quality is amoled. The industry is switching to high resolutions instead of high quality picture. I'd take 23" 1080p amoled monitor over any other type of display. However, everyone is forgetting about image quality in favor or 4k and 8k. It's like the megapixel wars for digital cameras.

 

[slamscaper]

It's a shame because Plasma trumps LCD in all the things that truly matter, like image quality, color reproduction, viewing angles, contrast, and response time. The only reason demand has waned for Plasma TV's is due to the large amount of people who are simply uneducated in regards to the technology. Everyone assumes "LED" is the best now. Those are the same people that don't even realize that "LED" is actually LCD with different backlighting.

I was sad to see Pioneer end it's Kuro line and I'll also be sad when the last manufacturer calls it quits in the Plasma market. Pioneer's Kuro sets are still better than 95% of the LCD's in the market today.

 

[avioza]

LG must respond to the market...

On comparison, I can see the black depth differences and some of the other commented on benefits but in the end I prefer lighter, thinner and less power consumption.

 

[Guest]

Same old nonsense spouted by the same crt v LCD brigade.
Refresh rate and resolution changes, yeah. The rest is all b*ll*cks that came from some people that made the mistake of buying a poor quality 70ms LCD.
Or maybe it's those rose tinted glasses?

 

[Guest]

Good, replace the Plasma factory with an OLED one and ill finally have a reason to buy a new TV.