Pioneer will no longer manufacture televisions and plans to spin off its DVD-player business into a joint venture with Sharp, according to a report in Japan's Nikkei newspaper.
The company is reportedly exiting the TV business rather than continue to incur losses in that division. This latest report comes a few months after Pioneer announced it anticipated huge losses at the end of its fiscal year in March, and plans to lay off 2,000 workers.
Pioneer has built itself into a widely respected maker of plasma televisions, but, last March, said it would not make the plasma panels anymore because of skyrocketing costs and mounting losses in its TV division. Pioneer made a deal with Panasonic to provide the panels instead, but that deal now appears short-lived. Pioneer showed no specific TV models at CES 2009 last month.
Pioneer is not alone among TV makers in losing money. Companies from Panasonic to Samsung to Sony are facing layoffs and large quarterly losses.
Pioneer said it wouldn't comment on the rumour, but released this statement: "We have publicly announced that we are actively evaluating our business. We started announcing changes in March 2008 to increase efficiencies of our business operations. We are still in that process but do not have any further announcements at this time."
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