From two of its most recent announcements, Sharp might be mistaken for an aging LCD manufacturer more concerned with squeezing the most out of its older investments than a firm on the cutting edge of LCD production and branding.  As one of the earliest proponents of using large-area LCD beyond notebook monitors, Sharp is now designing new applications for its panels in industries well beyond the television market.

Ken Tompkins
Insight Media Analyst

The first of these is the announcement of a 65-inch LCD display that operates in portrait mode.  Television viewing is best done in landscape mode because 16:9 widescreen at a certain viewing distance most closely matches the human viewing experience.  Televisions are all about losing yourself in the content; so the vertical orientation of Sharp’s portrait mode display makes the product anything but a consumer TV product - and that is the whole idea.

Sharp’s new product, the PN-655RU, is based on a size that followers of the brand should recognize.  Like the consumer-oriented, 65-inch LC-65D90U, the new portrait-mode LCD display features a 1920 x 1080 resolution and a full complement of inputs.  Airflow design and other modifications allow for always-on, long-term, and unattended operation.

The model has clearly been designed for digital-signage applications such as airport flight scheduling and retail POS advertising.  Sharp claims that the SKU is also ideal for medical imaging.  

Another example of Sharp’s entry into new LCD product design is its recently announced foray into electronic pricing systems.  Sharp will apparently supply not only the shelf displays, but an entire point-of-sales network that can update prices on product shelves within a 40-meter radius and change pricing on a per-shelf basis.  Sharp is going to market the system to drugstores, supermarkets and other retailers.

What these announcements have in common is their departure from consumer-electronics manufacturing and branding.  Their contrast from the world of CE electronics is made starker by how closely they come on the heels of Sharp’s more consumer-oriented product announcements at CES earlier this month.

Sharp has been a display supplier to industrial markets for some time, but the announcements emphasize the need for Sharp and other manufacturers to find new applications that can garner healthy profit margins.  Panel manufacturing itself no longer provides these margins for high-cost producers, such as Sharp.  Even the Korean producers are facing squeezed profits in the face of new supply from Greater China. 

As commoditization begins in the TV industry, suppliers must find new frontiers for higher margin products.  The industrial and retail markets look ripe, and players like Sharp are already going there.