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Coming: Eco-friendly TVs
08/01/2008 11:31 - (SA)
Tokyo - Sharp's president said on Tuesday the Japanese electronics maker will fight global warming by making environmentally friendly TV displays and solar energy products - its two core businesses.
Sharp President Mikio Katayama said the company will strive to develop the world's "No 1" liquid crystal displays for flat-panel TVs. He said one of the key benefits of LCD TVs is that they consume less electricity than fatter conventional TVs.
Sharp Corp is one of the world's biggest manufacturers of liquid crystal display TVs along with Japanese rival Sony Corp and Samsung Electronics Co of South Korea. It is also a leading maker of solar cells, which generate electricity using sunlight.
"We plan to contribute to preventing global warming through clean energy," Katayama told reporters at a Tokyo hotel.
Sharp said it will boost production of LCD panels for the manufacture of its own TVs and other brands.
Sharp had been planning to raise production at its LCD plant from 60 000 sheets a month to 90 000 a month this year. It will now start that in July, earlier than originally planned, to meet growing demand for flat panel TVs, Katayama said. That will also help cut costs, he said.
Competition has been intensifying among TV producers, with various makers vying to show ever larger and ever thinner panels to woo consumers with elegant TVs that can be hung on walls or placed on thin poles.
LCD TVs will account for about 45% of overall worldwide demand for televisions this year, Katayama said in a New Year's news conference that laid out the company's strategy for the year.
He said LCD TVs consume about 60% of the energy used by picture tube TVs, and Sharp is developing new LCD TVs that will trim that to about 50%.
Sharp has already shown a 52-inch prototype LCD panel just 29mm thick that consumes less energy than today's LCD or plasma display panel sets.
- AP
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