Will thin be in, or will Sony be out?
CULVER CITY, Calif. -- About $2,500 will buy a 50-inch, high-end Panasonic flat-panel TV, large enough for almost any living room.
Sound crazy? When this tiny television makes its U.S. debut Monday at the Consumer Electronics trade show in Las Vegas, people are expected to line up to see it. That's because it may be the thinnest, brightest and most striking mainstream TV ever sold.
"It's beautiful," says electronics analyst Rosemary Abowd with researcher Pacific Media Associates. "It has a crystal-clear picture," agrees tech analyst Tim Bajarin with researcher Creative Strategies.
Sony uses a new flat-panel technology, called organic light-emitting diode (OLED), to produce a brilliant picture on a screen only 3 millimeters thick. The technology is so new that Sony is barely breaking even on the pricey sets. And the company could lose millions if OLED flounders, as some analysts say it might.
That's the risk of coming to a market early, says independent tech analyst Rob Enderle. It can be worse than arriving too late, because it allows a company's rivals to learn from its mistakes.
Bajarin and other analysts who are more optimistic about OLED's potential say it is always risky to bring out a new technology. "OLED is on track to become the next major flat-panel technology," he says. "It gives them a jump-start on their competitors."
CEO Howard Stringer says his company isn't being premature. "If we didn't release cutting-edge technology early, people would ask, 'Why isn't Sony more innovative?' " he says. "It's in the nature of Sony to raise the game."
Sony has a lot to lose. The Japanese electronics giant has invested more than $78 million in OLED, which it thinks may eventually replace plasma and liquid crystal display (LCD) as the dominant TV technology. The set, the first of its kind on the market, will be available at Sony Style stores in the next few days. If all goes as expected over the next five years, 2.8 million OLED TVs will be sold in 2013, says tech analyst Paul Semenza at researcher iSuppli. That's a promising opportunity for Sony, which has lost market share in music players, video game systems and other types of TVs in recent years. "Sony desperately needs a new (television) technology," Semenza says. "They haven't had a blockbuster since the Trinitron" cathode ray tube (CRT) televisions of the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, he says.
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