Monday, November 19, 2007

Samsung Might Go For Smaller Plasma Displays

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It would seem that LCDs are a lot more popular than plasma displays nowadays, especially due to the fact that they're also available in smaller sizes that come at some pretty affordable price tags. And this is exactly the reason why the people over at Samsung SDI are actually taking very seriously into consideration the possibility of rolling out a smaller-sized PDP,
as for example a 32-inch version.

Thus, according to Max Wang and Esther Lam for Digitimes, it seems that the Korean company has been strongly influenced by the recent moves on the LCD panels market. Thus, as the worldwide demand for LCD panels has seriously increased, the most important names on the market have begun to take into consideration certain alternative solutions. And the first such alternative solution came from LG Electronics (LGE), which has announced that it plans to roll out in the near future a 32-inch plasma TV.

On the other hand, although Samsung would be ready (and willing) to start production on a new 32-inch PDP of its own, sources close to the subject at hand quoted by the two aforementioned journalists have confirmed the fact this won't happen very soon, due to the fact that the company simply doesn't have the spare production capacity.

Hence, PDP TV panel capacity is tight due to demands from Samsung Electronics (Samsung SDI's parent company), Philips and some China-based customers, the sources explained. As Samsung SDI has no spare capacity to produce the 32-inch PDP TV panels, it has no plans to start volume production in the near term, although production is already ready, it concluded.

Of course, as expected, the heat is on Samsung SDI, especially now that the Christmas shopping spree is approaching and most of the major vendors around the world are struggling to meet their yearly deadlines. However, taking into consideration the company's increased interest for PDPs, we might actually see one of these things hit the shelves early next year, when the production capacities will be freed up.

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