Sony swung to an $827 million Q2 operating profit from a year-earlier loss on a 4.3 percent sales increase to $20.9 billion, the company said Friday. The company’s Networked Products & Services segment, which includes the videogame business and Vaio PCs, “contributed significantly” to the improved results, Sony said. Figures assume $1 = 83 yen. Meanwhile, Panasonic’s operating income nearly doubled, but the company said it’s leaving its full-year forecast unchanged, citing the “uncertain business environment” that’s expected to persist well into the second half.
Paul Gluckman
Paul Gluckman, Executive Senior Editor, is a 30-year Warren Communications News veteran having joined the company in May 1989 to launch its Audio Week publication. In his long career, Paul has chronicled the rise and fall of physical entertainment media like the CD, DVD and Blu-ray and the advent of ATSC 3.0 broadcast technology from its rudimentary standardization roots to its anticipated 2020 commercial launch.
There’s good news and bad news about the price erosion in flat-panel TVs, Rent-A-Center executives said Tuesday on an earnings call. “When a 60-inch plasma TV and a 73-inch DLP TV gets down to the prices that we can buy them for today, that helps and we can rent those today, whereas a year ago, two years ago for sure, we couldn’t rent 60-inch plasmas,” President Mitch Fadel said in Q-and-A. “Our customer would not have been able to afford them. So the deflation helped there. As far as what we can carry, where it can hurt you is on the ticket. The average price coming down.” The chain sees 60-inch flat-panel TVs and PS3 and Xbox 360 game consoles as some of its hottest product offerings going into the fourth quarter, Fadel said. Rent-A-Center is very excited about opening its first Mexican store in Reynoso two weeks ago, said CEO Mark Speese. “We have spent the better part of this year working on and preparing to enter this new and exciting market,” he said. “And while we are in the early stages, we are very excited about what we are seeing and the feedback we are getting from customers and prospects alike.” The chain expects to open another three or four stores in Mexico this year and 25-75 next year, he said. In Canada, the chain expects to open 10-20 stores next year. In the U.S. “rack acceptance business -- this is the kiosks inside of the retail stores -- we continue to expand quickly and perform well there, also,” Speese said. “We ended the quarter with 151 locations, expect to end the year with approximately 220, and expect to add an additional 100 to 150 locations next year.”
Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray won’t comment on the Sirius XM disclosure Wednesday that the company faces a multi-state investigation into its telemarketing and other consumer practices, Cordray spokesman Ted Hart told us in an e-mail, citing a policy against discussing ongoing investigations. Cordray heads a working group that includes the attorneys general of Arizona, Connecticut, Tennessee, Vermont and the District of Columbia that’s probing Sirius XM practices on the cancellation of subscriptions, automatic renewal of subscriptions, charging, billing, collecting, and refunding or crediting of payments from consumers and consumer solicitations, the company said in an 8-K filing at the SEC. Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum is conducting his own investigation, and Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster “commenced an action against us regarding our telemarketing practices” to residents in the state, Sirius XM said. Koster won a preliminary injunction against Sirius XM Oct. 6 for violating Missouri’s no-call laws, his website said. The injunction bars Sirius XM from making “repetitive calls to consumers on the no-call list who notified the defendant they rejected the Sirius XM subscription or after their free trial period expired, unless the consumer expressly authorized Sirius XM to call,” his website said. Sirius XM is “cooperating with these investigations and believes our consumer-related practices comply with all applicable federal and state laws and regulations,” the company said in its 8-K.
MAKUHARI, Japan -- Wait times averaged two hours or more Tuesday on the opening morning of the CEATEC Japan show for those seeking a peek at Toshiba’s newly introduced “glasses-less” 3D LCD TVs, which go on sale late December in the Japanese market (CED Oct 5 p1). Toshiba officials at the company’s CEATEC stand remained steadfast in their insistence that there are no plans to sell the technology in the U.S. or Europe.
Best Buy’s Q2 operating margin jumped 130 basis points to 25.7 percent on strong sales of smartphones, accessories and services at Best Buy Mobile, the chain said Tuesday. But U.S. same-store sales in core CE products fell 6.7 percent from Q2 a year earlier on “overall weakness” in TVs, it said.
Zoran will acquire silicon tuner supplier Microtune for $166 million, the companies said Wednesday. The deal is expected to close Q4, they said. Zoran is raising its focus on the set-top market “as part of its strategy to become a complete provider of solutions for consumer home entertainment,” Zoran said. “Microtune’s silicon tuners combined with Zoran’s solutions are expected to provide customers a more complete solution from a single supplier and enable OEMs and ODMs to quickly scale cost-performance benefits, and reduce time-to-market for future generations of cable set-top-boxes.” Buying Microtune also will “strengthen Zoran’s position in DTV as the market transitions from traditional can tuners to single-chip TV tuners during the next several years,” Zoran said. “Adoption of silicon tuners is expected to enable TV manufacturers to meet the growing demand for high-performance, smaller form factor and more cost-effective solutions. In addition, by combining the advanced demodulator technologies of both companies, Zoran’s customers will be able to obtain fully-integrated receivers as multiple new standards for demodulation emerge in various worldwide geographies.” Microtune made history during the DTV transition when it complained that most of the converter boxes that NTIA had certified as coupon-eligible did not conform to spec. The government took no action on Microtune’s complaints.
BERLIN -- Sony’s top strategist for Blu-ray and 3D said at an IFA media briefing Friday that it’s doubtful his company would market a 3D consumer camcorder before work is finished on a 3D spec for the AVCHD format that Sony developed jointly with Panasonic. The executive, Akira Shimazu, senior general manager in charge of Sony’s Blu-ray and 3D strategy office, steered well clear of criticizing Panasonic’s new 3D camcorder introduction, which has won high praise at IFA for its ability to help consumers create their own 3D images, thus filling the content void left by the fact that so few Blu-ray 3D movies broadcast 3D programs are available.
BERLIN -- In a veiled reference to CES, a top executive at IFA organizer Messe Berlin said his show now surpasses “our American competitor” in the one metric that matters most, net square meters of exhibit space. That declaration, by Messe Berlin Chief Operating Officer Christian Goke, was stunning because CEA officials long have accused IFA organizers of inflating their estimates of exhibit space they sell by counting areas of the expansive Messe Berlin fairgrounds that hold no exhibits.
BERLIN -- Panasonic and Sony both used last year’s IFA show to declare their intentions of staking leadership positions in consumer 3D technology. A year later, at back-to-back IFA news conferences Wednesday, both companies announced what they called “a full suite” of 3D product introductions to reach European stores in time for Christmas, albeit with few showstopper surprises.
SAN JOSE, Calif. -- Hewlett-Packard has been a big role player “behind the scenes” in such massive 3D projects as Avatar, but wants to do more to promote better live 3D sports telecasts and other 3D content, Phil McKinney, chief technology officer in HP’s Personal Systems Group, told the DisplaySearch Emerging Technologies Conference Thursday. The company has devised an ultra-widescreen 3D format in full HD that it’s willing to license to CE and media companies, McKinney said.