Hitachi has announced that it will suspend sales of Rear Projection TVs in North America. Although disappointing to RPTV enthusiasts such as myself, at this point, the news can not be considered much of a surprise. During the summer, the company suspended production of RPTVs at its Mexican factory. The current announcement is the equivalent of the other shoe dropping in that it states that the company will stop selling RPTVs in the North American market once inventory runs out.

Art Berman
Insight Media Consultant

The firm’s sales of rear-projection TVs in North America peaked at more than 400,000 units in fiscal 2002 but have since declined.

Hitachi also stated that it intends to gradually scale back production of rear-projection TVs at its plant in China’s Fujian Province as well. It is easy to imagine that Hitachi will eventually withdraw completely from the RPTV marketplace. It is especially easy to see this happening when the decision to partially withdraw from the RPTV marketplace is put into the context of other recent Hitachi corporate statements.

The first of these other statements is that the decline in sales of RPTVs is attributed to the growing popularity and affordability of flat-screen LCD and Plasma sets. The company has stated that it will now focus these products and, indeed, seems to be doing so quite decisively.

This week Hitachi unveiled three new plasma HDTVs that use the company’s "Reel60" 60Hz frame-rate technology.

In addition, consumers won’t have to wait long for Hitachi’s new thin LCDs. The company announced they will make their U.S. debut in 2008. There are currently no details on the price for the 32-inch 720p HDTVs due in the first quarter of next year or the 42- and 37-inch Ultra Thin 1080p HDTVs coming in the second quarter. With Hitachi’s latest 120Hz anti-judder technology and image processing stuffed into 1.5-inch thick frames, these Ultra Thin screens may not be quite as thin as LCDs announced by Sharp, Samsung, and LG.Philips, but the Hitachi sets are scheduled to be the first into mass production and onto the shelves of your neighborhood stores.

Although circumstances are different at every company, a natural speculation is to wonder the extent to which Hitachi’s decision process will be paralleled by rival RPTV makers such as Sony and JVC. I do not envision a world without RPTVs, at least at the larger end of the direct view HDTV size range. None-the-less, it is easy to envision that other manufacturers may choose to pull the plug on RPTVs as customers flock to the not only thin but to really hot LCD and plasma display products.

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