Pioneer is retreating from the global television market after the mighty reign as king display makers for long span. Plasma Televisions, the slender, stylish and smart displays are now back into boxes in UK followed by the plasma TV ban. Pioneer has always been reputed for the unending pursuit for the best displays, and no wonder why they have debuted KURO series. Pioneer KURO series was treated as the benchmark for plasma televisions with its pristine quality, wicked blacks and ace audio quality. Later on Pioneer unveiled the ace displays which set new standards for Plasma televisions – Pioneer KURO Elite series, and later on to unbox Pioneer KURO Signature Series. With the never-ending toil of skilled engineers and crafty designers, Pioneer is a brand who sticks to “Kaizen”, the Japanese methodology for continuous improvement.

Despite of all these hard work and adept products, what made Pioneer pull out from the global display market? There is only one single elucidation for this query, and that is nothing other than economic loss. Inferior  marketing intelligence is a root cause for the decline of these crowned display makers. In the current scenario, world is cautious about the environmental adversities, and majority if not all are going for “green products”, which means eco-friendly ones. Plasma TV, the power hungry gadget was never enrolled in the Green Gadget list, and hence most of the techno-freaks predicted the grim reap of Plasma screens. Pioneer intensified their research and designs only in plasma televisions, and was not ready to be a competent brand in LCD domain, the hot display domain much reputed for the stifled competition. This was the first step for the decline of a leader.

Pioneer was once the unrivalled brand in audio systems and car accessories, which reaped the major revenue for the company. With the launch of plasma displays, Pioneer drained most of the revenue for the R&D of KURO and its advanced versions, and they never bothered to give emphasise for other products. Sony, Kenwood, Blaupunkt and many other brands much reputed for the flexibiltiy according to the current market demand exploited this scenario and gained popularity in the market. Majority of the customers needed fairly good quality products for reasonable price, and Pioneer failed to meet the purpose. Pioneer products are good performers with immaculate quality, but equally expensive too, which was totally obsolete market trend.

KURO displays were always too tempting to stop adding into the wish list, but many burned their fingers attempting to own it! According to the forecasts, Pioneer is expected to have a loss of ¥130bn till march 2009, which forced them desert the plasma display domain. This could have forestalled if Pioneer was ready to accept the changing industrial demands. KURO would have been one of the hot selling displays if sold in a lower price tag, with its matchless quality and unsurpassed looks. KURO was never competitive to the leading LCD televisions, which are available in almost half the price of a similar sized KURO. Moreover LCD televisions are smart beauties with lower power consumptions, and hence managed to enter in the good books of environmentalists too.

With the pull out of Pioneer Corp, the display giant, almost 10,000 employees will be jobless, and many industrial plants in UK will be locked out. Never have a misconception that economic loss and mass layoff is the grim fate of Pioneer alone. Almost all leading brands in plasma display domain like Panasonic, Samsung, Vizio, etc are also facing the same crisis. But they are managing the economic melt down with the revenue from LCD TV market and other products. With the official announcement from Vizio to end Plasma TV manufacturing, it is made clear that all leading brands are planning for a gradual pull back from the plasma display domain.