Medical practitioners that rely on Panasonic’s LCD monitors will have to look elsewhere for replacements. The Japanese electronics giant has announced that it will stop manufacturing such panels by 2021 due to increasing competition from its Chinese and South Korean rivals. The plants will be re-purposed to produce automotive batteries instead.
The factory launched mass production of flat-screen TV displays in 2010, but losses forced the company to pull out of the television panel business in 2016. Since then, the plant has built monitors for medical equipment and other products.