CRT Down Tube: Panasonic

Panasonic Japan has announced it will cease producing new analogue CRT TVs from 1 February 2006.

The move comes in view of a 2011 analogue broadcast termination deadline in Japan. Digital broadcasting coverage is forecast to be over 80 percent of domestic households by year’s end.

Panasonic (Matsushita Electric Industrial Co) will, however, continue production and sales of existing CRT models, especially entry-level models, and will continue to produce new analogue CRT models for overseas markets.

Matsushita forecasts its domestic TV sales to be 2.3 million units through 31 March 2006 and that analogue TVs will account for 30 percent of this.