Last year it was consistently rumored that Sony and Panasonic will partner up to work on OLED HDTV technology, and that rumor ended up turning out to be true. Both companies did start working on OLED technology, they decided to utilize the core and printing technologies developed by each company to commercialize their own HDTVs. However, it appears that technological hurdles stood in the way of commercial production which is why both Sony and Panasonic have decided to end this partnership, this according to the latest by Nikkei.
Apparently they have given up on the partnership to individually focus more on 4K instead, the high demand technology is expected to be prominently showcased at the upcoming Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. It is also believed that uncertainty in the OLED market might have led to the end of this effort, with South Korean rivals LG and Samsung both struggling with sales of their OLED HDTVs, which were released earlier this year. On the other hand, demand for 4K TVs is likely to increase in the coming year, which is why it makes sense that Sony and Panasonic now want to divert as much time and resources as they can towards the next big thing. According to DisplaySearch, 4K TV shipments are expected to top 60 million units per year by 2017.