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Panasonic to Produce LCDs in Kaliningrad
Matsushita Electronic has boosted production of Panasonic televisions in Russia, signing a deal with a Kaliningrad-based factory to output about 300,000 LCDs a year, which amounts to 10 percent of the Russian market. Samsung and LG have set up similar productions in the country while Sony is assembling LCDs at the same factory as Panasonic.
Panasonic said Thursday that the company had signed a deal with the Baltmikst factory in Kaliningrad Region for one year. The first Panasonic LCD TV is to be assembled at the factory this summer. Matsushita has become Baltmikst’s second foreign partner after the factory agreed to produce 300,000 Sony LCDs every year. Panasonic’s output will be “comparable” with this figure, Dmitry Nechaev from Panasonic told Kommersant.
Panasonic has so far been importing LCDs to Russia, assembling some dozen thousand a year at another facility in the country’s westernmost Kaliningrad Region. Matsushita hopes to increase its LCD production in Russia fivefold or tenfold and occupy up to 10 percent of the market.
As of the end of 2006, the LCD television market in Russia was worth $1.865 million, according to ITResearch.
The decision to transfer production will help the Japanese company to enlarge its share in the fast-growing LCD segment, says Anton Guskov from the Russian Association of Home Electronic and Computer Equipment Trading and Production Companies. The organization reports that LCD televisions occupied 17.4 percent of all television sales at the end of 2006. Experts predict this share to grow to 45 percent by the end of this year. All the more, prices on LCDs fell an average 19 percent in 2006, and a further 10-percent decline is expected this year.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of May 25, 2007
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