Central Europe top in LCD manufacturing

Matsushita Electric Industrial, Sony, Hitachi, Samsung, LG, Foxconn and Royal Philips all maintain manufacturing facilities in Central and Eastern Europe – Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic. The majority of the production is designed for export. A report by the market researcher DisplaySearch states that only 12 million of the 29 million sets that are estimated to be produced in Central and Eastern Europe will be sold in Central and Eastern Europe, Russia and Turkey combined, CBW reports. Many big players in the industry plan to step up production and it is estimated that 35 million sets will be produced in 2011. While demand for LCD and plasma television sets is rising, demand for CRT sets will fall rapidly, according to DisplaySearch. In 2007, more than 6.3 million CRT sets were sold in Eastern Europe, but in 2012 the demand is estimated to fall to 1.7 million.