Japan's Pioneer to quit flat-panel TV business: Report

TOKYO: Japan's Pioneer Corp is to quit its loss-making flat-screen television business in a sweeping overhaul of its operations, the Nikkei business daily reported on Saturday.

The company had planned to end in-house production of plasma panels by the end of March and fit TVs with Panasonic Corp. panels instead.

But, faced with worsening profit margins amid the global economic downturn and a stronger yen, which hurts exports, it has decided to end TV production altogether, the Nikkei newspaper said, without naming sources.

Pioneer had been restructuring its troubled plasma television operations, shedding hundreds of jobs and shutting a domestic plant last year.

Pioneer will also spin off its loss-making DVD player operations to a new company to be set up with Sharp Corp. this year, the Nikkei said.

It plans to shed several thousand jobs from its 40,000-strong workforce by March 2010, the paper added.

Pioneer is expected to post a consolidated net loss of more than 100 billion yen (1.09 billion dollars) for the current year to March, up from the 78 billion yen loss it had earlier forecast, the report said.

AFP could not reach immediately reach the company for comment.