Jan. 8 (Bloomberg) -- Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. will sell televisions in the U.S. that can access Google Inc.'s YouTube, riding on the popularity of a site where more than 100 million videos are viewed daily.

The company will start sales of the Internet-connected televisions this spring, Osaka, Japan-based Matsushita, the world's biggest consumer electronics maker, said in a statement today. Users can also access Picasa Web Albums, Google's online photo-sharing program, on the TV sets, Matsushita said.

The partnership may help bolster sales of Matsushita, the world's largest producer of plasma televisions, whose TVs face competition from liquid-crystal display models of Sony Corp. and Samsung Electronics Co. YouTube is the world's most used video- sharing site, with 28 percent of the U.S. market.

``It makes sense for Matsushita because the company also developed chips used in televisions to transmit data at a fast speed,'' Koya Tabata, an analyst at Credit Suisse in Tokyo, said by telephone. The plan is in line with Matsushita's business strategy to ``add value'' to television,'' said Tabata, who has a ``neutral'' recommendation on the stock.

Matsushita will consider selling the new plasma televisions in Japan or Europe if there is demand, spokesman Akira Kadota said by telephone, without providing a timeframe. The company and Google have jointly developed equipment to show Internet video clips clearly on large TV screens, he said.

Sony Channels

Separately, Sony Pictures Television, a unit of Tokyo-based Sony, yesterday introduced The Minisode Network, which will screen five-minute versions of popular television shows such as ``Married, With Children'' on YouTube. The company also said it expects to include original content on other channels on YouTube in future.

Financial terms of Google's agreements with the Japanese companies weren't disclosed.

Sony rose 2.6 percent to 5,980 yen as of 1:13 p.m. on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, while Matsushita fell 1.4 percent. The benchmark Nikkei 225 Stock Average declined 0.2 percent.

YouTube's 28 percent U.S. market share in September was followed by Fox Interactive Media's 4.2 percent and Yahoo Inc.'s 4.1 percent, according to researcher Comscore Inc.

Mountain View, California-based Google bought YouTube for $1.65 billion in 2006 to expand revenue sources. The company gets 99 percent of its more than $10 billion in annual sales from advertising, mostly by selling links next to search results on its own pages and partner sites.

Apple Inc. sells a set-top box that transmits movies and shows, including YouTube video clips, for playing on televisions.

Separately, Intel, the world's largest semiconductor maker, yesterday introduced a package of chips that let people access the Internet and use personal-computer programs on televisions.

To contact the reporter on this story: Masaki Kondo in Tokyo at mkondo3@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: January 7, 2008 23:50 EST