Panasonic is back in profit after shutting down the plasma TV and smartphone divisions. Panasonic expects profits to rise in the coming year as they will start focusing on 4K LCD TVs and later OLED TVs.

Goodbye plasma, hello profits
Panasonic produced great plasma TVs, but struggled to make the TV division profitable. So last year they decided to shut down plasma production by the end of December 2013.

From an economic view point this was probably the right decision as Panasonic has reported 120.4 billion yen ($1.17 billion) in profits for the fiscal year ending March 2014, compared with 754 billion yen losses last year.


This also marks the first time in three years that Panasonic has been profitable and they expect profits to rise to around 140 billion yen next year. A weaker yen and job cuts has also helped boost sales.

In the coming months and years Panasonic will focus on 4K and OLED. Panasonic currently has no mass-scale OLED production, but is rumored to be interested in buying OLED panels from LG.