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Canon delays TV sales a second time

Canon Inc, which in January bought out Toshiba Corp's stake in a venture developing new flat-panel televisions, delayed sales of the TVs a second time because of production costs and a legal dispute with a US company.

In March last year Canon pushed back a plan to start selling surface-conduction electron-emitter displays (SED) TVs in Japan to the fourth quarter of this year.

The Tokyo-based company didn't announce a new date in its faxed statement yesterday.

"It's become pretty clear that Canon is giving up on SED, which is actually a positive, because they should find better use for their research budgets," said Tetsuya Wadaki, a Tokyo-based analyst with Nomura Securities Co.

Pushed back

Canon's entry into the US$86 billion market has been pushed back by price declines in flat panels and a legal dispute with Nano-Proprietary Inc.

The new TVs would challenge LCD and plasma sets made by companies such as Sharp Corp and Matsushita Electric Industrial Co, which have spent billions of dollars on facilities to boost production and cut prices.

"The rapid fall of LCD and plasma prices means that we need to ensure our SED mass production technology is competitive," Canon's spokesman Bunji Yano said.

The company will make a further announcement when market conditions change, he said.

Toshiba, which depends on Canon for SED panels, said it would also delay sales.

The so-called SED technology produces clearer images and consumes less power than plasma and liquid-crystal displays.

Canon originally planned to start selling SED TVs last spring.

Since 1999

Canon and Toshiba, which have been working on the technology since 1999, in 2005 said they plan to invest ?180 billion (US$1.5 billion) in the business over two years.

Texas-based Nano-Proprietary, which licensed its display technology to Canon, filed a case against the company in 2005.

Nano-Proprietary said the technology didn't extend to the venture Canon had with Toshiba.
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