Under the deal, Matsushita, maker of Panasonic brand consumer electronic products, will start to supply Hitachi with 103-inch plasma panels this fiscal year, the companies said. Hitachi will start to supply Matsushita with 85-inch plasma panels in the year starting April 2008, they said.

The two companies have been partners in the plasma TV business since February 2005, when they agreed to collaborate on research and development, production, marketing and intellectual property, they said. Consumers around the world are steadily replacing their old, bulky cathode ray tube televisions with flat panel TVs, which generally use either plasma or liquid crystal display technology.

Matsushita and Hitachi expect the partnership will strengthen their flat panel TV businesses by supplying each other with panels while helping to cut development costs, boosting their chances for surviving the intensifying competition and the threat from declining prices, the companies said.

Matsushita had the largest slice of the plasma TV market in the first quarter of 2007, with a 28.9 percent share. But that was down from 32.5 percent in the final quarter of last year, as South Korean rivals LG Electronics Inc. and Samsung Electronics Co. expanded their turf, according to market researcher DisplaySearch.

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