Close on the heels of Pioneer Electronics' decision from withdrawing from the plasma TV market, the Southern California-based Vizio announced its plan of discontinuing its manufacturing of plasma TVs, and shift its attention towards LCD technology.

Though Vizio has been successfully selling plasma as well as LCD TVs through retailers like Costco and Wal-Mart, the announced shift in favor of LCD comes from fact that long-lasting and power-saving LCD has become exceedingly popular with consumers and business users.

The overwhelming inclination of consumers for LCD models can be gauged from the findings of industry researcher Display Search, which reveals that LCD sell more than plasma by a 7:1 margin. With Vizio's website, indicating its current product lineup, showing only 5 plasma models as against 20 LCD models, the company's decision to dump plasma is not too surprising!

According to The New York Times, the announced departure of Pioneer and Vizio from the plasma TV market would leave only three key players in the US plasma TV market - Panasonic, LG and Samsung.

Nonetheless, the low-priced plasma cannot yet be written off - especially as the ongoing recession has bleak chances of respite in the near future. In fact, as per Display Search figures, the 2008 holiday-quarter shipments of plasma increased 28 percent from the earlier year, in comparison to a 2 percent fall in LCD shipments.