Panasonic has announced plans to re-enter the United States market with new smart TVs that are powered by Amazon’s Fire TV operating system.
The TVs revealed this week include one model with a mini-LED screen and two models with OLED screens. The TVs will ship globally, with minor adjustments to certain features or hardware based on region.
In the United States, Panasonic’s TVs will get support for ATSC 3.0 through a software update later this year, executives affirmed during a pre-announcement briefing with investors and members of the media. The standard, also known as NextGen TV, couples traditional broadcast TV signals with connected features like geo-targeted messages, dynamic advertising and streaming sub-channels.
“The United States is crucially important to us, and ever since we left ten years ago, it has been my mission to find a way to return,” Yasunari Anan, the Executive Vice President of Panasonic Entertainment and Communication, said this week. “Today is the end of that long journey and the beginning of a new one to bring new choice to U.S. consumers.”
Panasonic’s return is punctuated by a deep relationship with Amazon announced earlier this year, one that will see Panasonic-built TVs ship with the Fire TV operating system by default.
The three models announced this week will all be powered by Fire TV, Amazon confirmed in a separate statement on Thursday. Those models are the Z95A OLED TV (65-inch screen size), the Z85A OLED TV (55-inch and 65-inch screen size) and the W95A mini-LED TV (screens from 55 inches to 85 inches).
“We’re excited to expand our collaboration with Panasonic — combining their outstanding picture quality together with Fire TV’s content-forward streaming experience — to U.S. customers,” said Daniel Rausch, the Vice President of Amazon’s Alexa and Fire TV business units. “This new lineup offers OLED and mini-LED displays — firsts for Fire TV built in — as well as the immersive Fire TV Ambient Experience. Customers in other countries have been loving the brilliant display, seamless Alexa integration, and impressive audio these smart TVs offer. We look forward to bringing this premium viewing experience to even more customers.”
Bringing Fire TV to their smart TV sets gives Panasonic an easy way to offer highly-sought streaming video apps to their customers. In most markets, Fire TV supports popular services like Prime Video, Netflix, Disney Plus and YouTube. In the United States, Fire TV also offers Starz, Paramount Plus, Hulu, Peacock, Max, Sling TV, YouTube TV, Pluto TV, Philo and Freevee, among others.
Panasonic’s OLED TVs are also the first in the world to deliver a native 144 Hertz refresh rate, Amazon said, which could prove popular for gamers who prefer higher-refresh screens with lower input latency. The Panasonic TVs will also offer a feature called True Game Mode, with color and contrast presets that will give players “a cinematic and authentic visual journey in their gaming,” Amazon said.
Presumably, Panasonic’s new Fire TV models will be sold online via Amazon. Beyond that, the companies did not say whether the models will be available in brick-and-mortar stores, too. Fire TVs made by other companies are available at Best Buy, Target, Walmart and other places.
