TOKYO: Japan's Hitachi Ltd said on Wednesday it will outsource all television production as early as this business year as it expects demand to shrink in an increasingly price-competitive market.
It expects the domestic TV market to shrivel to 7 million units in 2012, after ballooning ahead of the switch to digital terrestrial broadcasting this year. The market was about 25.7 million units size in 2010.
Hitachi had just 0.5 percent of the global flat panel TV market by revenues in the first quarter of this year, according to DisplaySearch.
The news helped Hitachi shares recover much of their morning losses to trade down 0.4 percent at 465 yen, outperforming a 2.1 percent fall in the benchmark Nikkei 225 .
Hitachi said its first quarter profit fell 41 percent on quake-related supply disruptions, and it kept its annual forecast slightly below expectations amid fears of power outages at home and frailty in consumer and corporate demand in the United States and Europe.
Copyright Reuters, 2011
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