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Panasonic Will No Longer Make Its Own TVs (arstechnica.com) 36

Posted by BeauHD from the former-plasma-king dept.
Panasonic is handing over the manufacturing, marketing, and sales of its TVs to Shenzhen-based Skyworth, effectively exiting in-house TV production. Ars Technica reports: Skyworth is a Shenzhen-headquartered TV brand. The company claims to be "a top three global provider of the Android TV platform." In July, research firm Omdia reported that Skyworth was one of the top-five TV brands by sales revenue in Q1 2025; however, Skyworth hasn't been able to maintain that position regularly. Panasonic made its announcement at a "launch event," FlatpanelsHD reported today. During the event, a Panasonic representative reportedly said: "Under the agreement the new partner will lead sales, marketing, and logistics across the region, while Panasonic provide expertise and quality assurance to uphold its renowned audiovisual standards with full joint development on top-end OLED models."

Panasonic also said that it will provide support "for all Panasonic TVs sold up to March 2026 and all those available from April." Skyworth-made Panasonic TVs will be sold in the US and Europe. In the latter geography, the companies are aiming for double-digit market share. [...] The news means there's virtually no TV production happening in Japan anymore, as other Japanese companies, like Sharp, Toshiba, Hitachi, and Pioneer, have already exited TV production. Earlier this year, Sony announced that it was ceding control of its TV hardware business to TCL.
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Panasonic Will No Longer Make Its Own TVs

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  • It's basically impossible to stand out (Score:4, Interesting)

    by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Monday February 23, 2026 @06:53PM (#66006498)
    For a computer monitor there are features people want like adaptive sync and super high resolutions but when you're talking a TV there just isn't a big enough difference between one model and another anymore. There is a difference especially if you have really good color vision, for the record I don't, but it's not enough that you can command a premium off your brand anymore.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Many TVs support adaptive sync now, for gaming. Latency differs between brands too.

      The image processing of each band is discernible. Panasonic are pretty good when it comes to motion smoothing, for example. Little haloing, subtle so it doesn't look like a soap operate but does enhance clarity. Then there is the OS that the TV runs, and the Panasonic one is okay.

      What I find sad is that Chinese brands feel the need to buy up the names of these established brands. They often have good products, but fear consum

  • Thank goodness it doesn't run AI. Was pricing small TVs to use as an auxiliary monitor today. It's hard to imagine how they make this work financially.

  • Chinese law, specifically Article 7 of the National Intelligence Law [grokipedia.com] compels all citizens and organizations to act as covert arms of state security on demand, even if overseas. There is no saying no. There is no even admitting it’s happened. Chinese owned technology companies can deny this as much as they like, in fact they have to, but the law is clear.

  • "capable of mutual substitution" - Merriam Webster. I.E. more and more one tv looks like any other tv, all that matters is price and margins are next to zero. So sure, sell the unprofitable product division, who'd want it.

    • LG, maybe...

      Probably not for long. You may as well buy that no-name TV made in Vietnam now, because name brands have ceased to mean anything in this space. Just about everyone followed RCA and GE and Philco, who all stopped making sets in the 80's, and made all their TV money licensing their names to cheap Asian third parties. There hasn't been a real RCA TV since 1986.

    • LG, maybe...

      I have a LG TV and while I have no complaints about the picture (except for the time when the screensaver had a memory leak or something and it was drawing all the pictures heavily corrupted) it is shit in every other way so yes, your theory checks out. Lucky Goldstar is probably still making their own TVs, and that's why they are crap.

      • Lucky Goldstar is probably still making their own TVs, and that's why they are crap.

        No, that's not true at all, some of LG's OLED panels are considered top-tier in the home entertainment enthusiast market and LG makes some of the highest quality panels around. For every panel I've purchased in my home their panels were on a short list of companies that were verified as offering true chroma 4:4:4 panels. Where some LG branded screens can be 'crap' is if the panels are made from AU Optronics (or AUO) or BOE Technology with the LG name stamped on the outside. Many of LG's own panels are the b

    • LG and Samsung fab their own panels. They survived unlike Sony/Panasonic because they have scaled production to account for other devices (see smartphones, monitors, watches, etc) which has more turn over in product. A TV may sit 10+ years in a house before a consumer needs a new one and 4+ people can watch the same TV. The eyeballs on small screens make TV's less used today vs 10 years ago. The move from 1080p to 4k HDR was a huge leap in picture quality, I doubt the move to 8k whenever that comes, pro

  • Once China owns all of the TV manufacturing, they can charge the world whatever prices they want for their TVs and we will pay it. It's really expensive to re-shore this type of manufacturing once you let it go for too long.

    Not to mention what these "smart TVs" are phoning home and reporting about you to the mothership.

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