2015 likely the end for cathode ray tube TVs

BANGKOK — All production of cathode ray tube TVs is likely to end as early as next year, as Sharp Corp. and two companies in India will withdraw from the business due to the spread of high-definition liquid crystal TVs.

This means cathode ray tube TVs, an icon for decades in Japan, will disappear from the market.

Sharp currently manufactures and sells cathode ray tube TVs in the Philippines, but the company has announced it will end production by spring next year.

A U.S. company began the world's first mass production of cathode ray tube TVs in the late 1940s.

In 2004, the number of cathode ray tube TVs shipped worldwide was 165.93 million, about 19 times the number of liquid crystal TVs, according to research company DisplaySearch.

After that, manufacturers began full-scale production of liquid crystal TVs, and the shipment number of such models rose to 106.41 million in 2008.

The number of cathode ray tube TVs shipped that year was 86.43 million.

Cathode ray tube TVs were an icon of postwar reconstruction in Japan, as people enthusiastically watched the matches of famed professional wrestler Rikidozan on black-and-white TVs from the 1950s through the early 1960s.