Samsung on Tuesday announced that it is about to shut down its plasma TV production by November 30 this year.
According to the Reuters report, the Korean giant quoted the decline in the demand for plasma TVs to be the main reason for the shut down and added that the resources will be used to focus on its energy and materials business.
Rumours about the South Korean company ceasing plasma TV production have surfaced at several instances this year after Samsung’s VP of Visual Display R&D office, John Ryu said in a statement in January that he didn’t think that the plasma displays will have a life beyond 2014. Ryu said that it is difficult to make cost effective 4K versions and that could be the reason why Panasonic wrapped up its plasma business.
The latest and last model of plasma TV from the company is the Samsung PNF8500 which debuted last year. Although there were rumours about new models, the company reportedly decided to take it slow and not to release any new model as it was deliberating on a complete wrap-up of the business.
After Panasonic closed down its plasma TV business last year, the only two players left in the field were LG and Samsung. Now that Samsung has announced that it will no longer produce plasma TVs, rumours that LG will also abandon its plasma business very soon, have started surfacing, point to LG converting one of its PDP production facilities to make solar batteries.
