Toshiba shelves plan to sell OLED TVs in 2009/10

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan's Toshiba Corp said on Tuesday it had shelved plans to sell ultra-thin TVs with organic light-emitting diode (OLED) displays in 2009/10 because of the cost of mass production.

Toshiba will stick to its plans to commercialise smaller OLED displays for cellphones next year, and will watch markets and technological developments to see whether making OLED TVs is commercially viable later, Toshiba spokesman Keisuke Ohmori said.

Home electronics rival Sony Corp began sales of 11-inch OLED TVs in November, but the development costs have limited its shipments to 2,000 units per month.

Display and TV makers see OLED displays as a possible growth driver, as they produce brighter images, use less power, and are thinner because they do not need the backlights used in liquid crystal displays.

In April, Toshiba had said it aimed to market 30-inch OLED TVs in the business year to March 2010.

Shares of Toshiba were up 0.6 percent at 0029 GMT, while the electrical machinery subindex was up 0.7 percent.