Flip through the latest issue of Gulf Weekly.
Japanese electronics giants Sony and Panasonic said this week they would team up to develop televisions with advanced technology, in a bid to claw back market share from overseas rivals.
Despite a long-standing rivalry, the firms said they would aim to establish mass-production technology for organic light-emitting diode (OLED) television panels next year, as they try to recover from multi-billion-dollar losses.
The technology lets producers make TVs that consume less power while offering a sharper picture than conventional flat panels, and is expected to be one of the dominant technologies in next-generation televisions.
However, the industry has struggled to find an economical way to develop larger screens equipped with the technology. The partnership marks the first time the two firms have teamed up in a core business, a major turning point for Japan’s hard-hit electronics industry.
“Each company plans to utilise its own strengths to develop and commercialise its own competitive, high-performance, next-generation OLED televisions and large-sized displays,” the firms said in a joint statement.
The move comes as South Korean rivals Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics reportedly plan to separately release 55-inch (140 centimetre) televisions with the advanced OLED technology this year.
