Sharp is giving very serious thought to phasing out mainstream LCD monitor business, outside of Japan at any rate. The company wants to focus on high-end monitors and LCD TVs since most of the monitors it produces are for high-end applications and the monitors all have TV functions and are categorized as TVs instead of monitors.
According to DisplaySearch, in the first quarter of this year, Sharp was the world's top LCD TV vendor with shipments of nearly 659,000 units, and took 23% of the market in terms of revenues, up from 21% in the fourth quarter of 2004.