Sharp to Start Selling 3D TVs

Call it a gimmick if you will, but as far as hardware manufacturers are concerned, the 3D craze is better described as a cash cow. Enter Sharp, who announced plans to milk the market starting with Japan when the company begins selling 3D-capable LCD TVs later this summer.

"We are now one step closer to such things as 3D displays with the world's best quality or the ultimate display," Sharp Executive Vice President Masafumi Matsumoto said during a news conference today.


Following the launch in Japan, Sharp will follow suit in China, Europe, and the United States by December, presumably in time for the holiday shopping spree. According to Sharp, the upcoming displays will be the world's first 3D TVs using four-primary-color technology. To the layman, this consists of slapping the color yellow on top of red, green, and blue, the end result of which is supposed to be brighter and more vivid images.

Sharp has high expectations for this relatively new market segment and predicts that 3D TVs will account for 5-10 percent of its total LCD TV sales by March 2011.