Fuijitsu General claims that we were wrong when we recently indicated that the plasma panels inside a Fujitsu Plasma screen were OEM manufactured. But instead of coming back to SmartHouse, Fujitsu marketing chose to issue a statement to Appliance Reseller.
In response to claims that SmartHouse News was not accurate in a story we wrote about Fuijitsu General and the plasma market we would like to point out the following facts.
Fujitsu General Australia marketing manager, Milton Kaloudis, has not once written to or approached Smarthouse News to say that our story was not accurate. To say that Fujitsu is not using OEM panel is a total untruth as the panels are manufactured by Hitachi via a company that Fujitsu has a small share in.
They are still the same panels that are put into a Hitachi Plasma TV.
Fujitsu did pull out of the CEDIA trade show and when SmartHouse News approached Fujitsu General Manager Philip Perham some weeks ago on this subject he told SmartHouse News that marketing budgets were tight and that Fujitsu General, like most plasma manufacturers, was suffering from declining sales of their plasma TVs along with margin erosion. He also said that Fujitsu had no new models to show at the CEDIA event.
As a manufacturer of plasma screens, Fujitsu, which was once a premium brand in the plasma market is now suffering from lousy marketing. Why? Because they have failed to achieve enough sales in the market to fund a marketing campaign to take on the likes of Sony.
Sony came in late to the large screen market in Australia but what it has done is a great job of convincing consumers that LCD is better than plasma. Using TV, print, web and billboards, Sony has invested in its brand something that Fujitsu has not done for plasma.
Fujitsu has also been forced to sell its crown jewels; the patents to plasma TV. These were sold to Hitachi two years ago when Fujitsu General found that it could not manufacture plasma panels competively up against the likes of Hitachi, Samsung and Pioneer.
On the question of the power usage by Fujitsu plasma screens the original story we wrote on this subject appeared on the SmartHouse web site at http://www.smarthouse.com.au/TVs_And_Large_Display/Plasma/E8G8H4X3 we clearly stated that the power issue was a European issue and that the Fujitsu plasma screen tested was a European screen. In addition this story got extensive coverage in both the European and US media in January of 2007. Not two years ago when the plasma TV in question was first manufactured.
On the issue of Fujitsu Ltd., this company does not manufacture plasma panels but does make notebooks, semiconductors and LCD TVs with media centres attached. Fujitsu Ltd recently reported $2.3 billion loss after accounting for a decline in the value of overseas holdings. The company has also said that it will cut investment in semiconductors by about 30 percent this fiscal year because of slowing demand for chips. While we were wrong to link it to Fujitsu General it does reveal that Fujitsu is not tracking well generally.
