The news out of Japan is that Pioneer Electronics is abandoning consumer electronics entirely.  The company forecasts losses of almost 850 million dollars through March of this year.  Of this, 40% is from the home electronics division.

This does not mean people should not purchase Pioneer.  The company is not insolvent, but plans to restructure around its car audio business, which accounts for the majority of its sales.  On the contrary, people looking to buy a plasma should snap up what Pioneer still has out there!  Pioneer, hands down, manufactured the highest quality plasma display panels and televisions in the industry.  Nothing holds a candle to their plasma product.  Nothing.  Take it from someone who has seen almost all of them.

When I worked at AVDeals (plasma.com), I sold literally hundreds of Pioneer panels.  They were generally the most expensive panels out there, but they were also the highest quality panels on the market.  For the most part, they sold themselves.  However, given the economic downturn, and the improved quality of the competition (noteably Panasonic, with whom Pioneer had a deal to manufacture their panels prior to this most recent turn), consumer choice has shifted to a price-based model vs. the quality-based model that Pioneer products preach.

Pioneer will continue to manufacture DVD players, however they will do so under the Sharp brand.  Sharp and Pioneer have been close for many years, often building complementary products to one another.

Pioneer has called a press conference for Thursday to discuss these matters when it releases their earnings statement.