Pioneer and Sharp have officially announced today that they have signed a partnership agreement on the establishment of a joint venture in the optical disk business area. The goal of the new joint venture is to make more effective use of the management resources of the two companies in the optical disk business field, and to gain a leadership position in this area, particularly in the Blu-ray Disc market where significant growth is expected in the future.

The optical disk businesses of the two companies will be transferred to the new joint venture, with a target date for the start of operations around October 1, 2009. The new company will engage in the development, design, and manufacture of optical disk products, focusing on optical disk drives, recorders, and players. The name of the new company is not determined yet. The two companies plan to officially sign the joint venture agreement by June 25, 2009.

Pioneer Corp. will have the control of the sales of the new products coming out from the JV company and thus, there will be no change in the "Pioneer" brand name or logo of the future products, Pioneer told CDRinfo.

Integrating the technological expertise of Pioneer and Sharp in the areas of optical pick-up heads, optical disk drives, and system design is expected to make their joint optical disk business even stronger, and their cooperative relationship will serve to further enhance the market competitiveness of both company's audio-visual businesses.

Pioneer had unveiled that it had come in an initial agreement with Sharp to join forces in the optical disc field last year, when the company announced its global reconstruction plan.