Panasonic will stop producing televisions at its own factory in Pilsen, Czech Republic. There will still be new models from the Japanese manufacturer next year, but they will be produced by an unnamed external partner.
Panasonic has confirmed the plans to FlatpanelsHD website. It concerns the production of future TV models. They will still be released next year and product research and development in both Japan and Langen in Germany will also continue unchanged. Panasonic also says it will guarantee that it will continue to offer competing models with ‘the best picture quality’ and emphasizes that the only difference is that the future TVs will be assembled in a different, third-party factory.
The Japanese manufacturer started production in 1996 at the plant in Pilsen. In the beginning, the factory was used for CRT televisions, after which it switched to the production of plasma televisions. That too has been over for some time. The factory is currently used for the production of LCD screens and OLED TVs, and Blu-ray players and recording devices were added in 2015. The company also manufactures heat pumps in the factory. This may have something to do with outsourcing television production, so that there is more room to increase the production of heat pumps.
Panasonic has already transferred the production of some of its televisions to external partners, but the more expensive midrange and high-end models were still made in Pilsen. It is still unclear where the company will have its future televisions made. To date, Panasonic has claimed to have manufactured more than 37 million televisions in Pilsen.
Panasonic’s factory in Pilsen.