It looks like the end could be nigh for rear projection televisions, with the recent announcement that yet another class A manufacturer has abandoned the product. Sony has joined Philips, Toshiba and Hitachi in stopping all manufacturing of the TVs in favour of both LCD and Plasma.

This announcement came as a bit of a surprise because Sony has been doing god business on their rear projection models, second only to Samsung in the US of late.

After several months of study, it seems that Sony determined the market is moving away from rear projection, and LCD and Plasma are what consumers are really after.

The current range of Sony rear projection TVs will remain on sale until all back orders are complete, at which point, the company will cease production.

A Sony spokesman told Twice:

“We are moving our resources more toward LCD TV, because that’s what people really want.”

Rear projection has been getting increasingly less popular in the last few months, as sales have gone down compared to LCD and Plasma. This is despite the fact that the picture quality of one can be vastly superior to alternatives in the same pricing bracket.

According to DisplaySearch, sales of rear projection were 3.1 million in 2006, while being on course for 1.6 million in 2007. Next year the forecast looks even more dire, with the NPD Group predicting just 670,000 units sold throughout the 12 month period.

Samsung, Mitsubishi, RCA, Panasonic and JVC are now the main players left in the rear projection sector of the television hardware market. Sony meanwhile will be able to focus more on new technologies, and expand their LCD and Plasma ranges.

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Entry was posted on Sunday, December 23rd, 2007 at 1:48 pm under Technology.

Read more entries by Dave Parrack.
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