Sony TV sets soon will have 3-D features
A third to a half of the Sony TV sets sold annually will be packed with 3-D features by the year ending March 2013, a senior executive has said.
But Sony Executive Deputy President Hiroshi Yoshioka acknowledged that what Sony may really need for its money-losing TV business is its own display technology and the ability to make its own TV displays.
Sony has fallen behind in flat-panel TV technology to rivals like Samsung Electronics of South Korea.
Mr Yoshioka acknowledged that having to buy panels from Samsung was one reason why his Tokyo-based company lags in flat-panel TVs that use a new kind of backlight called LED - an innovation that can produce super-slim TVs and clearer images.
Samsung has scored success with its LED backlight TVs.
Mr Yoshioka said in hindsight the panel joint venture with Samsung produced difficulties despite some of the benefits.
"They were a competitor," he said of Samsung, while declining to give details on when Sony may have its own displays.
Mr Yoshioka hinted Sony was planning an upgrade of a different kind of technology called organic light-emitting diodes, or OLEDs, which are different from LED TVs, and generate light on the display's surface and don't have to be illuminated from behind.
Sony already sells an 11-inch OLED TV. But Mr Yoshioka said engineers were encountering technological hurdles for making bigger sizes.
The electronics giant will have a unique product if it beats rivals in delivering a bigger TV with that technology.
