Television Interference

LG-Philips could close up to 15 of its 36 colour television display tube factories world-wide in another sign of growing competition to the technology from TFT liquid crystal displays. Its rival, Samsung SDI, closed two tube lines in Korea last year and moved a third to China, leaving six in Korea, and is reported to be considering further cuts and transfers. Toshiba has cut one of its three lines and is to merge its CRT production with that of Matsushita. More than 114M tubes were sold in 2000, 85M in 2003 and the market is expected to dip to 59M in 2005. (whole item)