"In Australia Plasma panels have been in short supply from all vendors, as a result retailers have been hyping up LCD simply to get a sale because this is what they have in their warehouse" said Paul Read the Director of Consumer Electronics at Panasonic.
"This will change in coming weeks as we roll out our new range of plasma panels" said Read.
From a product evolution prospective, all the manufacturers left in the plasma market believe that the technical upside for Plasma still has a long way to go. They believe, and I have to agree, that plasma is still the superior display technology.
The vendors also believe that the flexibility and the fact that they already have plasma manufacturing plants in place will allow them to not only compete on price but deliver very thin energy efficient TV display screens going forward that could even dominate in the over 50" TV market.
Bob Perry, a senior US executive with Panasonic, told me at the last CES show that he was confident that Panasonic - who are currently building new plasma manufacturing plants - will be able to deliver a new generation of plasma display technology by 2010. This will be achieved due to Panasonic's recent aquisition of the entire Pioneer R&D team that were responsible for the Pioneer Kuro plasma panel (described as the best in the world).
There is also speculation that Panasonic has acquired the Pioneer Kuro display patents and related technology, but not the Kuro brand name which is still going to be used by Pioneer for a new range of sound gear.
