TOKYO — The display comes with a price tag to match its monster size — about $100,000.

But Sharp Corp.'s 108-inch high-definition display, the world's biggest liquid crystal display on commercial sale, has found its first customer, a downtown Tokyo movie theater.

The display, shown to reporters Thursday ahead of the theater's opening Saturday, was embedded into a lobby wall near the escalators, running preview trailers, including scenes from the latest Indiana Jones movie.

The display is made from a single piece of display glass called "8th generation" at Sharp's Kameyama plant in Japan. That panel is usually cut into smaller pieces for flat-panel TVs. It is used entire for the 108-inch display.

Nobuhiko Kashimura, manager for Shochiku Co., the theater's operator, said the 12-floor 2,237-seat cinema complex has 50 other smaller liquid crystal displays for showing ticket and food menu information as well as video. The main advantage of the displays is that information can be easily updated, he said.

"Replacing paper posters can be quite a task for a complex this size," Kashimura said.

The theater also has 10 regular movie screens for films. But the LCDs add pizazz to the ambiance, which is heavy on glass and white decor, he said.

Tetsuo Myoui, Sharp group deputy general manager, said giant displays will grow more common as electronic posters at airports, malls and other public areas. They will also be popular for presentations and satellite conferences in offices, he said.

The 108-inch display is available by order for businesses, and response has been good since Sharp began taking orders last month, according to the Osaka-based electronics maker. There are no plans so far to sell the product to individual consumers, according to Sharp.

Sharp faces competition in LCDs from Samsung Electronics Co. of South Korea and Japanese rival Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., which makes Panasonic brand products.

Competition is also coming from a rival technology, plasma display panels.

A 103-inch plasma TV from Panasonic retails for about $70,000 in the U.S. For the fiscal year ended March 2008, Panasonic sold 3,000 103-inch TVs around the world, 70 percent to businesses.

Earlier this year, Panasonic showed a test model of a 150-inch plasma TV. Sales dates and prices have not been announced.

Demand for larger panels is expected to grow as next-generation Blu-ray disc video becomes widespread, and high-definition digital broadcasting kicks in around the world.