TOKYO (Reuters) - Seiko Epson Corp said it has halted production and sales of its rear-projection TVs, becoming the latest company to distance itself from a technology once seen as a promising rival of LCD and plasma televisions.

Seiko Epson will focus resources on front projectors, but it is not withdrawing from the rear-projection TV business and will continue its research and development activities for rear-projection models, a company spokesman said on Thursday.

Demand for rear-projection TVs, which were once dominant in the large-sized flat TV market, has been dwindling as electronics makers in recent years started offering larger and cheaper LCD and plasma models.

Hitachi Ltd withdrew from the North American rear-projection TV market earlier this year and Sony Corp in October cut its rear-projection TV sales target for the year to March by 43 percent to 400,000 units.

Seiko Epson said it had aimed to sell about 11,000 units of rear-projection TVs in its first year of operations, though it did not give actual sales figures. The company started selling rear-projection TVs in 2004.

Shares in Seiko Epson, which competes with Canon Inc in ink jet printers, were down 0.4 percent at 2,470 yen in afternoon trade, underperforming the Tokyo stock market's electrical machinery index IELEC, which rose 1.4 percent.

(Reporting by Kiyoshi Takenaka)
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