Matsushita plans to sell World's largest 103-inch Plasma TV

Panasonic parent Matsushita Electric Industrial Co plans to start selling the world's largest plasma television by early next year.

The 103-inch panel, measuring 2.4 metres by 1.4 metres and weighing 215kg, is bigger than a double-sized mattress and almost as heavy as an upright piano.

The Kadoma, Osaka based Japanese electronics manufacturer, the maker of Panasonic brand electronics, has, however, yet to set the price but Matsushita's 65-inch plasma TVs, its largest available now, sell for about $ 7,500 in Japan.

The plasma panel used in the Matsushita TV will be just one-inch larger measured diagonally than a 102-inch model produced by the South Korean company, Samsung. Samsung has not introduced the model commercially.

The world's largest consumer electronics maker, Matsushita is the world's largest plasma TV maker competing with smaller rivals such as South Korea's LG Electronics Inc.

As liquid crystal display (LCD) TVs infringe on the market for 40-inch TVs and above - which had earlier seen as plasma TV's turf - developing even larger panels is significant for plasma TV makers to remain competitive.

Sharp, another Japanese electronics manufacturer plans to bring on stream the world's first plant that cuts LCD panels from eighth-generation glass in October.

Eighth-generation glass is bigger than seventh-generation glass presently used by Sony and Samsung in their joint venture, and lets LCD makers to develop large-sized panels economically.

Meanwhile, Matsushita had started taking orders for the 103-inch panels in the United States for business use, such as studio monitors at broadcasting companies and electronic billboards, and planned to deliver them from this autumn, as per company said.

Matsushita contemplates to sell 5000 units of the 103-inch panels a year, with TV demand accounting for little less than 20%, which can be calculated into annual sales of some 1000 103-inch TVs.

The novel panels will meet full high-definition specifications, meaning they can produce images at the highest standard of 1,920 by 1,080 pixels of resolution.

Matsushita possessed 21.6% of the global plasma TV market in the January-March quarter, followed by LG Electronics with 17.8%.