Japanese electronics giant Sony's ambitions in the Chinese LCD TV market suffered a blow as the company acknowledged five of its models had software faults.

 

Sony China issued a statement on its Web site last Thursday saying two LCD rear projection TV and three LCD TV models, all manufactured between August and November in its Shanghai factory, had a timing problem.

 

The problem leads to an inability to switch off power or turn it back on when it has been on standby, once the TV set has run for 1,200 hours.

 

The usual lifespan for a LCD TV set is 50,000 hours.

 

Sony promised to offer free software upgrade to consumers of the five models. About 18,000 such sets have been sold in the Chinese market, according to Sony China.

 

This is not the first problem to hit the Japanese giant: In the second half of last year, an LCD display problem lead to distribution suspension of six models of the Cybershot camera range

 

Sony, which refused to apologize and fix the problem when it first came to light, was forced to offer free repairs and make an apology to consumers in December.

 

Yu Liangchuan, a spokesman with the country's biggest electronics chain store Gome, said his company received notice from Sony last week and suspended sales of products involved.

 

He said that since Sony's share in the LCD TV set market was still quite small, the impact on his company would be minimal.

 

Domestic firms took 75 percent of the market in 2005, according to the National Information Centre, while Sony had less than 4 percent.

 

Sony China launched a series of products in December and said it would aim for 8 or 9 percent of the market.

 

However, the crisis could be a set back to the electronics giant.

 

Luo Qingqi, president of professional home appliance market consulting firm Puly, said Sony used to be the top brand in both digital cameras and TV sets, but frequent quality crises could hurt the company's image.

 

"This is a very sensitive and important period for Sony, as it must handle the situation carefully to avoid large-scale erosion of consumer trust and sales," said Luo.

 

(China Daily February 15, 2006)