Hitachi To Stop TV Production By Year-End

It's been a tough year for TV manufacturers, with the sector reporting major losses across the board, especially among the Japanese TV manufacturers. Sony recently announced restructuring its money-losing TV business, and now just a day after, Hitachi has announced that it, too, will be making some changes, which include shutting down its TV production operations in Japan before the end of the year.

Margins have dropped tremendously for Japanese TV manufacturers who not only experienced hurdles during the earthquake and tsunami disaster earlier this year, but also face a now ever strengthening Japanese Yen that eats away at export profits. Its currency strength has been a result of investor reactions to the slowing down of the US economic recovery and the continued debt crisis in Europe.

Hitachi reported an 86 percent drop in year-over-year first quarter net profits, and wants to transition to manufacturing more profitable products. Perhaps mobile related? The company did just show off a 4.5-inch 3D glasses-free display recently. However, Hitachi isn't pulling out of the TV sector completely. The company assures that it will continue to sell TVs but that the production will be outsourced to other Asian countries.

[via TechCrunch]