Panasonic Exits TV Production, Skyworth Takes Over
With this new agreement, Panasonic aims to further reduce its direct industrial commitment.
An era closes for Panasonic: the Japanese brand will no longer directly produce its own televisions. The management of production, distribution, and marketing of Panasonic-branded TVs will pass to the Chinese group Skyworth, headquartered in Shenzhen, already one of the main global players in the Android TV segment.
The agreement stipulates that Panasonic will maintain a role in quality supervision and the development of high-end OLED models, while the new partner will lead commercial operations in Europe and the United States. The stated goal is ambitious: to gain double-digit market share in the Old Continent.
The decision comes at the end of a long downsizing process. After dominating the plasma era – with shares exceeding 40% in 2010 – Panasonic abandoned that segment in 2014, due to the decline of the technology and a complex economic context. In subsequent years, the brand progressively reduced its presence in the United States until exiting, only to re-enter in 2024 with OLED and Mini LED models designed in Japan. Sales in Italy have also been struggling.
End of a Production Era
With this new agreement, Panasonic aims to further reduce its direct industrial commitment, focusing on enhancing the brand without bearing production costs. This scenario reflects a broader transformation, as confirmed by the partnership that Sony has initiated with Asian company TCL.
Essentially, Panasonic will continue to maintain its brand on televisions, provide technical support and after-sales assistance, and collaborate on the development and quality control of high-end models such as OLEDs. Moreover, in a recent meeting held in Munich, attended by the European press, Panasonic itself did not openly declare the cessation of its own production everywhere, but the trend is clear: the company is gradually withdrawing from direct television manufacturing, entrusting it to an external partner, while retaining key expertise and supervision.
The brand remains, but Japanese TV manufacturing will unfortunately become a memory.