Sony Corp. plans to start selling rear projection liquid crystal display (LCD) televisions in China early next year, a move it hopes will help it capture a quarter of the Chinese TV market next year, a spokeswoman said Wednesday.

The Japanese firm is betting that Chinese consumers interested in large-screen TVs will be attracted by the relatively low cost of rear-projection LCD TVs, which typically sell for around half the price of plasma display TVs.

Rear projection LCD TVs have sold well in North America, and Sony hopes for similar success in China. The company aims to get them to consumers in China in time for the country's traditional lunar new year holiday in February, she said.

"We would like to put them on the market by then," she said.

The company hasn't decided which models it will release in China or set the pricing, she added.

Sony estimates China's TV market — including cathode-ray tube TVs, and LCD, plasma display panel (PDP) and rear projection TVs — will total 900,000 units this year, of which the Japanese company expects to secure about a 15 percent share. It forecasts the market will grow to 1.2 million TVs next year, the spokeswoman said.

"We want to get more than 25 percent" of that, she said.

(Shenzhen Daily September 9, 2004)