Pioneer mulling release of 46-inch LCD HDTV during fiscal 2008

Shortly after wiping away tears from a relatively unspectacular last quarter, Tamihiko Sudo, president and representative director of Pioneer, has announced plans to get serious about the LCD biz. We'd already heard that the firm was aiming to release KURO LCDs, but Sudo gave a little direction by noting that the outfit "hoped to release 40-inch class LCD TVs within fiscal 2008." He also affirmed that the panels for said sets would indeed be supplied by Sharp, and while it has yet to actually carve these plans in stone, it's likely to be a 46-incher that gets released first. As expected, the Europeans will probably be the first to see these forthcoming units, with about 60,000 scheduled to ship between August 2008 and March 2009. Unfortunately, he failed to touch on Pioneer's sub-50-inch plasma plans, but he did note that discussions were ongoing to jointly develop a new LCD module with Sharp.