Sony Terminates Sales of Monitors in Europe

[malware]

Sony Corp., a major maker of consumer electronics, will quit the market of liquid crystal displays (LCDs) totally in several months time. After abandoning Japanese and North American LCD markets, the company has similar plans for the European markets due to low profit margins and general weakness of its LCD business among consumers. An official spokesman for Sony in Europe is reported to have told Heise Online web-site that the company would introduce several new G-series LCD models this year, but the last shipments would occur in December, 2006. Quitting LCD monitor business seems to be inline with the company’s strategy to withdraw from highly-competitive businesses the company does not have obvious success in. DisplaySearch, a market tracking agency, indicates that Sony had the tenth position in the global LCD monitor market in 2005 and supplied about 3.07 million LCDs. In Q4 2005, the sales volume of Sony’s LCD monitors totaled 347 thousand units in North America, which accounts for 40% of its worldwide quarterly shipments.

Source: X-bit labs (http://xbitlabs.com/news/multimedia/display/20061009234957.html)

[Pinchy]

lol i dont really care - i prefer Acer/LG monitors :)

[lemonadesoda]

I do mind. I'm sorry to see them go. The quality of SONY professional monitors (not the cheap consumer verions), has always been very high, even if they were expensive. Example of a good sony TFT is the SONY 23 SDM-P234B LCD. See http://www.misco.co.uk/productinformation/~93425~/SONY%2023%20%20SDM-P234B%20LCD.htm for a picture.

They have helped the market by creating a "price ceiling" and a design quality expectation (even though, perhaps the apple cinema display still looks better). To be competitive, other manufacturers have had to be under this price ceiling.

So even if you DIDNT buy SONY monitors in the past, their presence has helped to form the market.

I would have liked to see them develop a hi-res TFT screen, somewhere in the 4-9MP range, ie. 4 to 8 times the resolution of existing screens. The physical dimensions would be the same, only the resolution improved to increase screen quality and legibility. This experience would then help them develop an equally hi-res laptop screen.

[ex_reven]

Sony made LCDs :P?

[Pinchy]

lol altho they had good quality, it still wasnt worth their prices :p

[bornfree]

Sony seems very lost. Ya gotta wonder how long before they go tits up?

[jocksteeluk]

Sony monitors are good its just the fact they dont make a lot of them themselves so they lose uniqueness and the ridiculose prices charged for sony Brand monitors im comparisson to much better other brand monitors.

[bruins004]

I actually got a Sony monitor a year ago.
It is a very nice monitor that is very good for games.
I don't have any backlight bleeding, ghosting and no banding issues.
The monitor is very well designed and the picture has very good quality.
But I agree that Sony had outrageous prices.
The only reason I got it was bc it was on sale a while ago (around $250) and yes it has DVI and Analog (DVI all the way lol).
But I gotta say its picture quality seems a little more crisp then my Viewsonic VX2025WM.
Too bad its only a 17".

[Pinchy]

Yeah, youd think that if they could make them so good, that they would mass produce and sell em cheaper...but nooo they are sony :p

[newtekie1]

I am kind of sad to see them go. I personally own 2 Sony monitors at home, and 11 at my business. They are very nice monitors, and I have to say that for owning 13 of them, not a single one had a dead/stuck pixel. Their customer service is simply amazing, IMO. I love the fact that they used to pay return shipping(overnight return shipping at that) and then overnight you the item back when it is done(they have now switched to cross shipping the items, still overnighted). You won't see that with many companies. Also, the actual people you talk to are always very nice(even if they aren't the brightest, but what company has bright people answering the phones). I have never had a problem getting a replacement from them. At one point I had a monitor that I thought was going bad(it turned out to be the graphics card). I phoned Sony up, told them about the problem, told them I thought it was the monitor, but wasn't sure. They cross shipped me a new monitor which I recieve the next day with a pre-paid return label(they even upgraded me to the DVI model for free since they didn't have a standard VGA model available to ship to me at the time).

Yes, the prices might have been a little high compared to other monitors. But, IMO, they were worth it simply because of the quality of service Sony provides. I have never had a problem with Sony's service.

[Pinchy]

yeah, but sony monitors are VERY overpriced, not just a little. When you pay that much, you would expect that much service. Over here in AUS, when i got m Acer LCD, the sony one was double the price. So if this one died and Acer didnt want to replace mine for some stupid reason, i would buy a new one and it would be exactly the same :p

[Judas]

I am kind of sad to see them go. I personally own 2 Sony monitors at home, and 11 at my business. They are very nice monitors, and I have to say that for owning 13 of them, not a single one had a dead/stuck pixel. Their customer service is simply amazing, IMO. I love the fact that they used to pay return shipping(overnight return shipping at that) and then overnight you the item back when it is done(they have now switched to cross shipping the items, still overnighted). You won't see that with many companies. Also, the actual people you talk to are always very nice(even if they aren't the brightest, but what company has bright people answering the phones). I have never had a problem getting a replacement from them. At one point I had a monitor that I thought was going bad(it turned out to be the graphics card). I phoned Sony up, told them about the problem, told them I thought it was the monitor, but wasn't sure. They cross shipped me a new monitor which I recieve the next day with a pre-paid return label(they even upgraded me to the DVI model for free since they didn't have a standard VGA model available to ship to me at the time).

Yes, the prices might have been a little high compared to other monitors. But, IMO, they were worth it simply because of the quality of service Sony provides. I have never had a problem with Sony's service.

Sounds like excellent service too me ... sony do make some very good stuff

[Pinchy]

yeah i guess i cant complain about their service...