Panasonic is said to pull out of the OLED TV business. According to sources, Panasonic has found that production costs are too high to make TV products profitable for now. Panasonic is the third TV maker to change plans regarding OLED.

Update: Nikkei has added details, saying that Panasonic will postpone OLED production to "2016 or later".

 third producer in a short time
Following several reports saying that Samsung has put OLED TVs on hold and rumors that Sony is pulling out of the OLED business, it is now reported that Panasonic is also putting OLED production on hold.

Panasonic and Sony formed a partnership to develop OLED technology, but the cooperation ended in mid-2013. Since then, the two TV makers have been developing OLED separately and Panasonic has on several occasions talked optimistically about the possibilities of producing OLED TVs via an inkjet printing method. They also showcased the world’s first 4k OLED TV.


But Panasonic no longer believes that the high production costs will make OLED TVs profitable in the near term. OLED is extremely difficult to produce and only LG has cracked the nut so far. Panasonic has not commented on the rumor, but according to Kyodo News’ sources, Panasonic has already taken the decision.

Panasonic will sell all OLED research and technology to Japan Display; a joint venture between Sony, Toshiba, Hitachi and the Japanese government. However, Japan Display is mostly focused on producing displays for small handheld devices.

Panasonic will instead focus on LCD technology, such as 4K LCD TVs.

- Source: Kyodo News