Pioneer announced on October 31 that it has stopped operations on two of its six plasma display production lines in Japan in October, as prices for plasma display panels have gone down with competition from LCD products, harming the company's profitability. Pioneer has revised its forecast for its plasma display panel shipments in Japan for the fiscal year 2005, which ends in March 2006, to 640,000 units, down from the initial forecast of 800,000 units.

As it closes factories in Japan, the company is partnering with Chinese Irico to jointly build a US$500 million PDP factory in Shanghai, because production costs in China are lower and because it gives more direct access to the Chinese market.

Furthermore, the company is also encountering problems in its DVD recorder business, and it is now expecting to ship 1.5 million units in the fiscal year 2005, 150,000 units fewer than the original forecast. Also, Pioneer's car navigation system shipment forecast has been lowered to 500,000 from the original 530,000.