14 DAY TRIAL // The display industry has been going through some pretty unexpected shocks lately, most of them being caused by the major shift in the consumers' preferences from plasma displays to LCDs in the high-end HDTVs' segment. And after Sharp and Toshiba, as well as Hitachi, Matsushita and Canon, decided to join forces in order to be able to provide a better response to today's market challenges, Fujitsu made its own announcement. Surprisingly, the company has decided to leave the market altogether.
As the company's announcement reads, "the Visual Display Division of Fujitsu General Limited has focused its efforts in the PDP category primarily in overseas markets. The focus of our marketing was high-end value added products, and our marketing direction was to concentrate on the Custom AV market specializing in advanced AV systems and high end custom installations in North America and the United Kingdom."
However (and this is where the bad things start for the Japanese company), "During the past several years, the pricing and profitability of this segment has compressed beyond the point which our company could realize a satisfactory return on investment. We expect that this market situation will continue in the future."
The solution? Well, rather than invest in an area with poor chances of revenue, Fujitsu has decided to cut its losses. "In light of these conditions and the business structure of our company, we have decided that we will discontinue participation in the visual display business at the end of March, 2008 and concentrate our operating resources on our core business of heating and ventilation equipment instead" the company representatives continue.
Nevertheless, this move is restricted solely to the Western markets, because, as Fujitsu declares, "We will, as a system integrator, continue the visual display business for the domestic business route in Japan and continue to provide after sale service for visual display products after the March 2008 business closure."
As mentioned earlier, this is yet another proof of the major changes the display market is going through and of the fact that 2008 will most likely bring about some pretty big surprises in this area as well.
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