Changhong Electric, the last significant manufacturer of plasma display panels for TV use, continued to halt trading in its stock this week, leading to speculation that the company may finally have decided to end PDP production. The company suspended training on the Shanghai Bourse on 15th September and in a regulatory filing last weekend said that the suspension would continue, pending a decision about the future of its PDP unit.
NPD DisplaySearch’s most recent forecast for the global PDP TV market predicts just 500,000 PDP TV shipments next year, down from 5.2 million in 2014 and 10.3 million last year (Display Monitor Vol 21 No 28). Panasonic was the first major manufaturer to withdraw from the market at the end of 2013 (Display Monitor Vol 20 No 42), followed by Samsung Display in July of this year (Display Monitor Vol 21 No 27) and the announcement last month that LG Display is now considering when to abandon the technology (Display Monitor Vol 21 No 35).
In the first half of this year, Changhong recorded a net loss of $19.5 million, an almost 180% fall from the first of 2013. Its subsidiary, Sichuan COC Display Devices Co, which is mainly involved in PDP production, suffered the greatest loss of $20.7 million, accounting for 70.7% of Changhong’s total net loss.
