Pioneer will close its long-standing flat-screen television business by March 2010 as it struggles with huge losses amid plunging consumer sales. Despite being an early player in the flat screen arena, the Japanese company always struggled to grasp a large share of the market and recently began making a loss in this area.

On February 12, 2009 a small announcement appeared on the Pioneer website stating that the company would “concentrate its investments and commercial efforts” on car electronics, navigation, audio AV and pro-DJ products.

Michiko Kadoi, Pioneer spokeswoman, was quoted on the BBC website as saying: “Since the US financial crisis and ensuring global downturn, our sales of car electronics products and flat-screen TVs plunged worldwide”.

“We were severely hit by battered consumer sentiment.”

Pioneer also announced it is to cut a further 10,000 jobs and warned it expected to report an annual loss of 130 billion yen (€1.1 billion).

Pure has announced that its "Highway" product, an in-car DAB adaptor, was the second best selling car audio product overall in 2008.

Citing data from Gfk, Pure says the little gizmo "transformed" the 2008 in-car DAB market by increasing it by over 300% in comparison to 2007.

"We are delighted that Highway has had such an impact on the car audio market in 2008, and all this through our traditional electrical retail channels and independents, not using any major specialist car accessory retailer", says Paul Smith, general manager of Pure.

"These positive sales show that there is clear consumer demand for DAB in the car and we encourage car manufacturers to offer the technology as standard to meet that demand".

Pure's Highway is available now at a retail price of £79.99.

Japanese electronics giant Panasonic has announced it is to cut 15,000 jobs by March 2010. Half of the job losses will come in Japan, with the rest from international workforce reductions. Panasonic expects to make a net loss of 380bn yen (£2.9bn) for the financial year to 31 March. The company has been hit by a stronger yen and falling sales during the worldwide economic downturn.