Japan's Panasonic to Hand European, North American TV Business Over to China's Skyworth, Insider Says

(Yicai) Feb. 25 -- Chinese consumer electronics giant Skyworth Group will take over Japanese peer Panasonic Holdings' television business in Europe and North America to accelerate its global expansion, according to an insider.Panasonic will hand over its European and North American TV sales operations to Skyworth from April as part of the Osaka-based company's structural reform, an insider from Panasonic told Yicai yesterday, adding that the deal will not result in any new layoffs or plant downsizing.Panasonic has been under financial pressure in recent years. It launched a structural reform last year, planning to exit under-performing businesses, such as the TV one, and lay off 10,000 employees worldwide, equal to about 4 percent of its total workforce. Earlier this month, it unveiled plans to expand the layoffs to 12,000 staffers.Panasonic failed to make it into the top 10 TV manufacturers ranking by shipments last year, while Skyworth was sixth with 8.2 million shipments, occupying a 3.7 percent share of the market, according to data from Sigmaintell Consulting.Panasonic's annual TV shipments are about two million units, with those from Europe and North America accounting for less than half, Zhang Hong, deputy general manager of Sigmaintell's large-size display division, told Yicai. Skyworth's annual shipments are expected to reach about nine million TVs after incorporating Panasonic's European and North American TV business, boosting its global market share to 4 percent, he added.Skyworth is promoting a low-cost expansion in the global TV market, having already acquired the operating rights for the Philips TV brand in North America last year, founder Huang Hongsheng said in a public speech in January.The development of the global TV market has been sluggish in recent years and the competition has intensified, Wang Xianming, research director of the TV supply chain department of market research firm Runto Technology, told Yicai. As a result, many electronics companies have chosen to divest their TV business, triggering a series of integrations, he added.Major Chinese manufacturers have strong resource integration capabilities, and their market shares have grown quickly, Wang noted.In fact, in addition to Skyworth, other Chinese TV makers have chosen to acquire Japanese peers. TCL Electronics, the world's second-largest TV manufacturer by shipments, announced on Jan. 20 that it will partner with Sony to take a majority stake in a new joint venture that will control the Japanese firm's home entertainment business. Third-ranked Hisense Group acquired Toshiba's TV business in 2017.Editors: Dou Shicong, Futura Costaglione