Matsushita to sell Web televisions

Matsushita Electric Industrial Co will sell televisions in the United States that can access Google Inc's YouTube, riding on the popularity of a site where more than 100 million videos are viewed daily.

The company will start sales of the Internet-connected televisions this spring, Osaka, Japan-based Matsushita, the world's biggest consumer electronics maker, said. Users can also access Picasa Web Albums, Google's online photo-sharing program, on the TV sets, Matsushita said.

The partnership may help bolster sales of Matsushita, the world's largest producer of plasma televisions, whose TVs face competition from liquid-crystal display models of Sony Corp and Samsung Electronics Co. YouTube is the world's most used video-sharing site, with 28 percent of the US market.

"It makes sense for Matsushita because the company also developed chips used in televisions to transmit data at a fast speed," Koya Tabata, an analyst at Credit Suisse in Tokyo, said. The plan is in line with Matsushita's business strategy to "add value" to television, said Tabata.

Matsushita will consider selling the new plasma televisions in Japan or Europe if there is demand, spokesman Akira Kadota said by telephone, without providing a timeframe. The company and Google have jointly developed equipment to show Internet video clips clearly on large TV screens, he said.

Separately, Sony Pictures Television, a unit of Tokyo-based Sony, on Monday introduced The Minisode Network, which will screen five-minute versions of popular television shows such as Married, With Children on YouTube.

Agencies

(China Daily 01/09/2008 page17)