Sony pulls out of joint LCD venture

Japanese electronics giant Sony said it would sell its 50 percent stake in a flat-screen TV joint venture with Samsung Electronics for $939 million. The firm said it would take a one-time $856 million loss for pulling out of the $2 billion state-of-the-art production facility in South Korea, as it turns more toward outsourcing in the television industry, where the firm was slow to move away from cathode ray tubes and embrace newer television technology, The New York Times reported Monday. Sony now "aims to secure a flexible and steady supply of LCD panels from Samsung, based on market prices and without the responsibility and costs of operating a manufacturing facility," the company said in the statement. Sony is currently losing billions of dollars in its television unit and overall lost $3 billion on revenue of $92 billion in its latest fiscal year. Samsung, in contrast, had revenues of $134 billion and profits of $14 billion in its latest fiscal year.