Masaaki Osumi, Toshiba’s head of TV operations, unveils the world’s first glasses-free 3-D television at a trade show in Tokyo in October. Twelve-inch versions of the TV will go on sale this week, to be followed later by 20-inch models.
As Toshiba Corp. prepares to start selling the world’s first glasses-free 3-D televisions in Japan this week, the Japanese electronics and industrial conglomerate says it plans to go global with a larger model of over 40 inches in the coming fiscal year.
Head of Toshiba’s TV operations Masaaki Osumi said the new TV, due sometime in the coming fiscal year starting in April, may offer the option of watching 3-D with or without glasses. The company plans to reveal more details on the new glasses-free TV at the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in early January, he said.
Tokyo-based Toshiba continues to push ahead with glasses-free, or “autostereoscopic,” TV development even as the company and its competitors plow money into marketing 3-D televisions requiring glasses. Competitors have said the technology is still several years from being market-ready for TVs, but Toshiba’s efforts could deter consumers from switching to 3-D sets immediately, based on expectations for glasses-free models to come soon.
Mr. Osumi said Toshiba is concentrating 3-D development efforts on the glasses-free technology, which he said he sees as a way for Toshiba and other Japanese firms to reclaim the technological advantage lost to South Korean TV manufacturers such as Samsung Electronics Co. and LG Electronics Inc.
“Nobody thinks that we will be wearing glasses forever to watch 3-D TV,” Mr. Osumi said. “It will have to become stress-free, without the hassle of putting on glasses every time. That’s the way it should be.”
Toshiba, the world’s sixth largest flat-panel TV maker by units sold, will start selling 12-inch glasses-free TVs in Japan on Wednesday and then will offer the larger 20-inch model Saturday.
B.K. Yoon, president of the visual-display unit at Samsung, the world’s largest TV maker, said in October that while 3-D without glasses is possible on phones and other small mobile devices, technical hurdles remained for 3-D TVs that would prevent the technology from becoming mainstream in the next five to 10 years.
Creating the illusion of depth without special glasses is difficult: The effect can be created from only a limited number of viewing angles, and stepping outside those viewing zones can cause images to be blurred or fuzzy.
“The glasses-free 3-D TVs Toshiba showed reminded us why we need the special glasses,” said Ichiro Michikoshi, an analyst at Tokyo-based market research firm BCN. “Those TVs certainly set the direction for 3-D’s future, but it will take a while.”
While other 3-D TVs on the market require glasses to create the illusion of depth, some small gadgets have glasses-free 3-D displays, including Nintendo Co.’s new 3DS hand-held game system due to launch Feb. 26 and Sharp Corp.’s smartphones released earlier this month.
Mr. Osumi also said the company’s development of a new Internet-enabled TV running Google Inc. software is taking longer than expected. He said the company won’t demonstrate the new television at CES but aims to debut it sometime next year.
He declined to elaborate on the reason for the delays facing the Internet TV, which will use the Google TV platform, a version of its Android operating system already widely used in smartphones and tablet computers. Sony Corp. released Internet TVs running Google’s software in October.
In the current fiscal year through March 2011, Toshiba has targeted sales of 15 million TVs world-wide. It aims to boost that figure to 20 million units next fiscal year.
But poor domestic demand could pose a challenge. Japan sales are falling after the government curtailed a subsidy program this month aimed at encouraging consumers to buy energy-efficient appliances, and the program will end in March.
Toshiba’s TV business has been profitable for the past two fiscal years, but Mr. Osumi said a challenging environment will make it difficult to remain profitable next fiscal year. He said the TV markets in North America and Europe are unlikely to return to the robust growth rates of the past, while China, an overseas bright spot, could face a glut of supply as panel makers rush to build factories there.
To offset the tough environment, Toshiba will try to increase sales in emerging markets in Asia, the Middle East and Africa. It will also try to reduce costs by further localizing production. Mr. Osumi said Toshiba plans to start producing TVs in Russia and India by the middle of 2011

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