Panasonic, a leading maker of various consumer electronics products, plans to sell one million of stereoscopic 3D HDTV sets in its next fiscal year, when the firm starts to sell them. The claim seems rather bold considering the fact that apart from Panasonic there will be other companies selling stereo 3D television sets too.

At the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Nevada, Panasonic demonstrated its latest Viera HDTVs that support stereo 3D technology and also announced partnership with DirecTV satellite TV service in the U.S. to promote several stereo 3D channels that are set to begin operation in June. Besides, Panasonic announced partnership with RealD company to utilize the latter’s stereoscopic 3D format.

Yoshi Yamada, the chairman and chief executive officer of Panasonic of North America, said in an interview that the company planned to sell one million of stereo 3D televisions next fiscal year, which begins in March 2010, across the globe. The U.S. will be the biggest market for stereo 3D HDTVs in the short term, according to Mr. Yamada.

One million is a rather large number of premium televisions. For example, it took Toshiba about two years to sell a million of HD DVD players in the United States. Considering the fact that a lot of other consumer electronics companies, including JVC, Samsung Electronics, Sony, Toshiba, Mitsubishi and other will also offer stereo 3D HDTVs in 2010 – 2011 timeframe, the aim to sell one million clearly means very high expectations for the emerging stereo 3D market in general.

Panasonic will introduce 50” and larger full HD 3D plasma TVs this spring to explore the new market, the firm announced recently in its annual management policy. In fact, Panasonic will nurture Full HD 3D products as one of its new pillars of the flat-panel TV business, taking advantage of the total strengths of end-to-end solutions in 3D products and services, from 3D filming, editing and authoring systems to viewing at home.

Of the LCD TVs, LED-backlight LCD TVs will account for 30% of the Panasonic's total number of LCD TVs in fiscal 2011 ending in March 2011. To expand its presence among "volume zone" customers, the company will implement local market-oriented product plans, targeting mainly developing countries where consumers are trading CRT TVs and the United States where flat-panel TVs are replacing projection TVs.

While the company will ensure smooth operations of Panasonic Plasma Display's fifth plant in Amagasaki City and IPS Alpha plant in Himeji City in Hyogo Prefecture, it will shift module production and TV assembly work overseas at an accelerated pace.

Tags: Stereo 3D, Panasonic, Viera, RealD