Senior Best Buy executives have plunged headlong into “gap management” mode to determine why Best Buy’s “customer centricity” stores recorded the lowest same- store sales increases compared to the rest of the chain since the centricity model was launched, analysts were told Tues. in the chain’s 3rd-quarter conference call.
Sony, a strong 3LCD supporter, took issue with a Pacific Media Assoc. (PMA) research report that concluded DLP maintained dominance in rear-projection TV technology in Oct. with nearly 2/3 of the revenue (CED Dec 6 p7). Citing NPD point-of-sale data, a Sony spokesman said his company leads the microdisplay category with a 40.9% share. Considering that Samsung’s share is 19.5%, Mitsubishi’s is 14%, and Toshiba’s is 8.6%, “the 2/3 claim is not possible,” the spokesman said. Because Hitachi (5.1%), Panasonic (4.6%) and JVC (4.9%) have shares around 5% and are 3LCD or LCoS manufacturers, it’s probable those marketing 3LCD,LCoS or SXRD sets make up most of the microdisplay market, Sony said. William Coggshell, founder of PMA, said his company’s finding was based on sell-through, point-of-sale data from a sample of TV retailers and resellers.
In the “guerilla war” of aftermarket receiver sales, it’s “not accidental” XM is pushing retail price cuts in advance of Howard Stern’s Jan. 9 debut on rival Sirius, XM Chmn. Gary Parsons told the UBS Global Media Conference in N.Y. Wed.
A significant “backlog” at PSP’s launch in the authoring of software titles on Universal Media Disc (UMD) has cleared, Robert Hurley, exec. vp-sales & mktg. at replicator Sony DADC, told IRMA’s annual management summit Tues. in N.Y.
Panasonic as expected has begun pilot production of dual-layer 50-GB Blu-ray ROM discs at its Panasonic Disc Mfg. Corp. of America facility in Torrance, Cal., the company said Mon. The Torrance operation set up its pilot line last spring to prove the feasibility of replicating single-layer 25-GB Blu-ray discs using the spin-coat method preferred by Panasonic for applying the disc’s 0.1- mm cover layer (CED May 4 p3). It was designed for cycle times of 3.5 sec. per disc. Production of dual-layer discs was achieved by “bolting” a dual-layer “module” onto the existing line for 50-GB discs, with cycle times similar to the target (CED June 30 p2). Panasonic said it has achieved yield rates exceeding 80% on the single-layer discs it has produced. Panasonic has said it favors the spin-coat method as one that has better long-term viability over the alternative thin-film application approach. Proprietary production and curing methods developed with the Japanese firm Origin have eliminated the “ski-jump” phenomenon formerly associated with spin- coating, Panasonic has said. The phenomenon is so named because discs spin-coated defectively tend to be thicker at the edges.
Cable industry progress has been “rapid” in developing a downloadable conditional access system (DCAS) that can benefit MSOs, CE makers, retailers and consumers, the NCTA said in report the FCC had required. And although “considerable work” remains to be done “to perfect a commercially viable” DCAS, such a system is “feasible” and can be rolled out nationally by July 2008, NCTA said.
Differences overshadow agreements between the cable and CE industries on how best to deploy bidirectional CableCARDs. That was evident from reams of CEA and NCTA filings at the FCC Wed.
LOS ANGELES -- Recent fallout over Sony BMG’s use of XCP content protection on music CDs is “irrelevant” to Blu-ray’s roll-out, and, as such, Blu-ray runs no risk of a like fiasco, Andy Setos, Fox Home Entertainment pres. of engineering, told a Blu-ray news briefing Tues. on the Fox Studios lot here.
Pioneer Japan’s top 2 executives took the fall Mon. for the company’s bleak first-half financial performance. Relinquishing their posts, effective Jan. 1, are Chmn. Kanya Matsumoto, who will become a corporate dir., and Pres. Kaneo Ito, who will become an adviser. No replacement was named for Matsumoto, but Ito’s successor is Tamihiko Sudo. He’s a Pioneer exec. vp, but has held various top executive posts within the company, including pres. of Pioneer’s mobile entertainment subsidiary. In a statement, Pioneer said Matsumoto and Ito were stepping down to show they were “assuming responsibility for the steep decline in Pioneer’s financial performance,” due to lower than expected sales of plasma TVs and DVD recorders, “both strategic products.” For the 6 months ended Sept. 30, Pioneer swung to a Yen 12.3 billion net loss from a year-earlier Yen 4.8 billion profit. Although the company reported increased sales of plasma displays as having negated the decline in DVD recorders and other products, gross margins in plasma TVs fell sharply due to increased price competition. Pioneer’s U.S. market share in plasma has fallen drastically. Panasonic is the main beneficiary.
Dolby Labs plans to be “a major player” in digital cinema, but a shortage of projectors will be a big “gating factor” impeding all market contenders, Pres. Bill Jasper told analysts in the company’s 4th-quarter conference call. “We believe we will be successful in getting our equipment deployed throughout the digital cinema rollout,” Jasper said. “But you have to remember that just announcing someone has an agreement with a studio and is going to roll out x-thousand screens doesn’t really mean it’s going to happen.” He said Dolby learned from the recent rollout of Disney’s Chicken Little that “getting digital cinema out there is extremely complex.” Dolby had over 50 installers in the field working to get its 84 sites deployed for Chicken Little and “discovered huge problems,” he said. But it solved them and “gained a great deal of expertise,” Jasper said. Jasper said Dolby had wanted to do 100 screens for Chicken Little, but it and Disney “settled for 84 because we could not get any more digital projectors. Going forward, this is going to be a problem.” Responding to an analyst’s question on when Dolby might begin reaping dividends from the launch of Blu-ray and HD DVD, Senior Vp Ed Schummer said: “When it’s going to happen is anybody’s guess.” He said the PS3 rollout may precede debut of a set-top Blu-ray player. “We can’t make any predictions about the release dates of some of our licensees’ products, but we certainly look forward for that format to be making a contribution sometime in 2006.” As for Dolby license enforcement activities in China, Schummer said that with Dolby now a public company, “the methodologies we employ” to track down violators “are somewhat more limited than they were when we were a privately held company. Nevertheless, we've started to do an audit of some of our implementation license fees and some of our systems license fees. I can’t say too much about it because some of the work has not been completed, but so far we're satisfied with the results, and we look forward to being able to better enforce our rights in the future in China.”