CHIBA, JAPAN -- Sharp unveiled a 65-inch LCD television at the opening of the Ceatec 2004 exhibition here this week. The company also said it will sell Aquos-brand TVs with LCD panels in size of 50 inches and larger in 2005.
The 65-inch model has a 6.22 million dot panel and is capable of displaying a full high-definition picture at 1920 pixels by 1080 pixels, according to Yasutaroh Tanno, a member of the Sharp's LCD digital systems division.
The company has hand-made only three prototype models so far and won't say when a TV based on the panel will go on sale, he says. The models are made on the company's sixth-generation LCD production line at Kameyama in central Japan.
So-called sixth-generation production lines can handle mother glass--the initial glass sheet onto which the LCDs are built--as large as 59 inches by 71 inches. The facility, which Sharp claims is the most advanced of its kind in the world, opened earlier this year.
"Sixty-five inches is the biggest we can make with our sixth-generation technology," Tanno says.
Tanno says that Sharp is studying the possibility of producing LCD TVs on a seventh-generation production line, which would enable even larger displays to be made, but the company has not announced plans.
Strong Sales
The 65-inch model, which Sharp says is the world's biggest LCD TV, comes on top of strong sales of the company's 45-inch models, according to Takashi Okuda, group general manager of Sharp's audio visual systems group.
"Since we launched our 45-inch models in August, we have sold more than 10,000 units," he says.
In the first eight months of this year shipments of LCD televisions in Japan totaled 1.4 million units, a rise of 70.2 percent compared to the same period last year, according to figures from the Japan Electronics and Information Technology Industries Association.
Okuda says that Sharp will launch a new series of LCD TVs that are 50-inches or bigger in 2005, although he declines to give more details.
Earlier this week, the company said it expects net sales and net profits to be substantially higher than those of last year based on large sales increases of LCD televisions. The company expects net profit for the first half to be $352 million.
Ceatec 2004, Japan's largest electronics trade show, runs Tuesday through Saturday.
