Technics 1200 & 1210 Turntables Not Facing Axe; 2009 Vinyl Sales Up 35% On 2008

Excellent news, old school vinyl lovers.  Despite earlier reports from Technics Australia suggesting that parent company Panasonic were planning to axe the Technics 1200 and 1210 decks in February 2010, the company has issued a statement saying they have "no current plans" to discontinue the iconic turntables.

"As a major global business, Panasonic keeps all of its operations under constant review. However, there are no current plans to discontinue the Technics brand and the production of Technics turntables" Panasonic statement

It seems the SL-1200 and SL-1210 are safe for now, then.  In fact, with recent Nielsen Soundscan figures showing that more than 2.1 million vinyl records had been sold in 2009 – an increase of over 35-percent from 2008 – it seems the format still has plenty of life in it.  Though vinyl only accounted for less than 1-percent of total album sales this year, the figures are still the highest since Nielsen began tracking the format in 1991.