Se retrasa la tecnologia SED.

TOKYO, March 8 (Reuters) - Toshiba Corp. (6502.T: Quote, Profile, Research) and Canon Inc. (7751.T: Quote, Profile, Research) will delay the launch of a new type of flat television by more than a year to improve cost competitiveness, casting a shadow over the product's commercial feasibility.

The companies said on Wednesday they now plan to launch surface-conduction electron-emitter display (SED) TVs in the last quarter of 2007, compared to their original plan for this spring.

Toshiba and Canon formed a joint venture in 2004 to develop and make SED panels, which are thinner and consume less energy than liquid crystal display (LCD) and plasma display panels, currently the main technologies used for flat panel TVs.

"Price falls in flat TVs have been much steeper than we had anticipated," a Toshiba spokeswoman said.

"We would like to work further on rationalisation of production and cost cuts before an actual launch," she said.

In 2005, the 40-inch LCD panel price dropped 36 percent, faster than a 31 percent fall for 42-inch plasma screens.

Research firm DisplaySearch expects panel prices to decline at a similar pace this year, with 40-inch LCDs and 42-inch plasmas both falling by about 25 percent.

"I cannot but get the impression that the latest development raise uncertainty about the commercialisation (of SED TVs)," Mizuho Securities analyst Koichi Hariya said.

"By the time of the launch, flat TVs from such companies as Matsushita (6752.T: Quote, Profile, Research), Sony (6758.T: Quote, Profile, Research), Samsung (005930.KS: Quote, Profile, Research) and Sharp (6753.T: Quote, Profile, Research) will have been on store shelves for quite a few years."

Toshiba and Canon have said they would invest a total of 200 billion yen ($1.70 billion) to develop and make SED panels.

The amount, however, is dwarfed by a combined investments by LCD and plasma display makers.

Sharp alone plans to invest 200 billion yen to boost output at a new LCD plant while Matsushita, the maker of Panasonic brand electronics, said in January it would invest about 180 billion yen to build the world's largest plasma display factory.

Both plants will be built in western Japan.

Larger production capacity helps TV makers cut production costs and offer competitively priced products.

"I personally think that there won't be any more delays in the launch. It will be either they go ahead and offer the products in the fourth quarter of 2007 or they will just give up," Daiwa Institute of Research analyst Kazuharu Miura said.

Prior to the SED TV launch, Toshiba and Canon plan to start the first stage of mass production of SED panels in July 2007