TOKYO, Mar. 7, 2008 (Thomson Financial delivered by Newstex) -- Japan's Pioneer Corp said Friday it will stop making plasma panels amid intense competition and will instead outsource the production of plasma panels for its television sets.
Tokyo — Sharp and Pioneer have agreed to form capital and business ties, with plans to join forces on the development of next-generation consumer electronics products.Pioneer said it will issue 30 million new shares to Sharp for $357.3 million on Dec. 20. The private placement will make Sharp the top shareholder of Pioneer, with a 14.28 percent
stake. Sharp will sell 10 million, or 0.9 percent, of its outstanding shares from its treasury stock to Pioneer for $172.3 million that month.
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The two companies said they will combine their expertise to jointly develop products in next-generation DVDs, audio, car electronics and displays.
TWICE: Sony, Pioneer To Delay Earnings Reports
Tokyo — Sony and Pioneer will reportedly delay their annual earnings reports by a few weeks due to the extra paperwork needed to comply with tougher U.S. accounting rules, according to a Reuters report this morning.
This is the first year that foreign companies have to comply with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, which calls for a number of changes in corporate governance and the way financial results are reported.
Sony said it would report on May 16; Pioneer indicated it would be in mid-May instead of late April, according to the Reuters story. The end of the fiscal year for both Sony and Pioneer ends March 31.
Hitachi and TDK have previously said they would postpone their results until mid-May. Reuters said that Canon and Matsushita, makers of the Panasonic brand, have no plans to delay their earnings announcements.
Bottom line: We're all going to have to wait longer to find out a) how costly the battle to be the biggest loser in the tv business was, and b) how much of a haircut Sony took on Playstation 3.
Pioneer denies plans for Combo Blu-ray/HD DVD
Hope amongst industry insiders and consumers for unification of the rival High Definition disc formats was further dashed when Pioneer distanced itself from loose talk at last week's IFA event in Berlin that they planned to produce a hybrid Blu-ray/HD-DVD drive.
This brief flurry of wishful thinking follows on the heels of other media non-events, such as last July 30th, when LG backed away from their stated intention of bringing a hybrid player to market, or the surprising announcement July 15th that Ricoh was going to offer a hybrid sometime in 2007. Ricoh's press release has been followed up over the past six weeks with a thunderous silence.
At this point, regardless of any ambitious manufacturer's desires, I don't expect to see a hybrid unit see the light of day in the short term. I was told point blank by a source at a well-regarded Japanese HiFi company that Sony is playing hardball with the licensing for Blu-ray. Representatives for the HiFi company were informed by Sony in no uncertain terms that if they pursued a hybrid Blu-ray/HD-DVD player, Sony would cancel their licence agreement to use Blu-ray technology. This company, by the way, has yet to debut an HD player. They have one of each, Blu-ray and HD-DVD ready to roll, but are patiently waiting to see which way the wind is blowing before they wade into the fray. Since right now the winds are blowing omens of consumer apathy and aversion to being on the wrong side of a format war, I think that is a sensible plan.
http://www.twice.com/article/CA6368354.html
Long Beach, Calif – Pioneer Electronics (USA) announced plans to spend more than
$20 million on a new national advertising campaign highlighting the company's
Pioneer and Elite PureVision high-definition plasma display lines.
The developing ad agency, RPA, will also implement a
collection of online tactics including search engine optimization and “point
roll” interactive banner ads that consumers can click through to learn more
about Pioneer plasma technology, the company said.
