3DTV consumer pulse! 55% say NO THANKS

Are you the 45% that say yes! , or the 55% that says no.

More interesting for me is the fact that only 33% said they are considering an HDTV at all in the next year.

If you not been there - please go to http://shop.retrevo.com/ , great website!

JZ



Product News

55 Percent of HDTV Shoppers Don’t Want 3D

A new Retrevo study says that less than half of shoppers want 3D effects.

November 03, 2011 | by Rachel Cericola

There are more 3D TV options than ever. Does it really matter though? Consumers are still on the fence about the technology, according to a new study from Retrevo.
According to the company’s recent Pulse Study, about 33 percent of shoppers said that they were planning to buy an HDTV sometime within the next year. Of those potential TV buyers, 55 percent said that they are absolutely not interested in any type of 3D effects.
While this could be yet another reason to cry “oh—won’t 3D TV ever catch on,” you have to look at it from the glass-is-half-full perspective. That means that 45 percent are interested in 3D. When broken down, 22 percent were actually looking forward to buying a 3D TV, while 23 percent says it depends on the price difference.
The people that were against 3D TV cited 3D glasses (30 percent) to be a big turn-off to the technology. Passive 3D technology set out to solve some of the consumer gripes about 3D glasses. However, some say that the passive 3D image isn’t as good as the one projected by active 3D TVs. Of course, those comments are coming from the people that actually understand the technology. About 75 percent of survey responders have no idea what the difference is.
More consumers were concerned with content, with 40 percent saying that there just isn’t enough programming available to warrant having a 3D TV.
Panasonic bet pretty heavily on the whole 3D thing, and recently announced plans to scale back TV production. Sony also just announced (via Bloomberg) its own TV-related losses and restructure plans.
If you are on the fence, it would be wise to wait a little longer. Retrevo Pulse says that they expect a major drop in the 3D TV price premium this holiday season.

Panasonic expects biggest loss in 10 years

Panasonic has now lost money in the TV business for 3 years in a row. Now is downsizing in an attempt to restore profit to the category. Time will tell if they can do any better than Sony and others.

JZ

Panasonic Forecasts Biggest Loss in Decade on Strong Yen, TV Restructuring

Q

By Mariko Yasu - Oct 31, 2011 4:38 AM PT

• 
  Kiyoshi Ota/Bloomberg

  Panasonic reversed an earlier projection for profit of 30 billion yen for the year ending March 2012, the Osaka-based electronics maker said in a statement today.are displayed at an electronics store in Tokyo.

Panasonic reversed an earlier projection for profit of 30 billion yen for the year ending March 2012, the Osaka-based electronics maker said in a statement today.are displayed at an electronics store in Tokyo. Photographer: Kiyoshi Ota/Bloomberg

Panasonic President Fumio Ohtsubo

Tomohiro Ohsumi/Bloomberg

Fumio Ohtsubo, president of Panasonic Corp.

Fumio Ohtsubo, president of Panasonic Corp. Photographer: Tomohiro Ohsumi/Bloomberg

Panasonic Corp. (6752), the maker of Viera televisions, forecast its biggest annual loss in 10 years because of a stronger yen, declining sales and a one-time charge for restructuring its TV and chip operations.
The full-year loss may be 420 billion yen ($5.4 billion), the Osaka-based electronics maker said in a statement today, reversing an earlier projection for profit of 30 billion yen in the 12 months ending March 31. That includes a charge of 404 billion yen for streamlining the TV and semiconductor businesses, according to the statement.
Japan’s biggest maker of appliances cut its annual TV sales target to 19 million from 25 million amid competition from South Korea’s Samsung Electronics Co. and LG Electronics Inc. (066570) The yen reaching a postwar high against the dollar and a decade high against the euro is pressuring the company to accelerate plans to eliminate 17,000 jobs and focus on solar panels and rechargeable batteries after acquiring Sanyo Electric Co.
“Panasonic is having a really hard time because the company has to work on two restructuring plans at the same time,” said Koji Toda, chief fund manager at Resona Bank Ltd. in Tokyo. “One is Sanyo and another one is downsizing the TV department.”
Panasonic declined 7.4 percent to 7.15 euros in Frankfurt trading after the announcement. The shares in Tokyo have declined 30 percent this year, compared with a 2 percent advance for Samsung and a 43 percent drop for Sony Corp.

Yen Appreciation

For the three months ended Sept. 30, Panasonic reported a net loss of 106 billion yen, compared with the 5.6 billion yen average profit of four analysts’ estimates compiled by Bloomberg.
Japan’s currency today dropped from a post-World War II record against the dollar after the country intervened in thecurrency markets. A stronger yen hurts the repatriated value of sales overseas.
Separately, Panasonic announced a reform plan for its TV and chip operations. The company is suspending two Japanese plants making TV displays, scrapping plans to relocate panel facilities to China and writing off some value of plants making TV displays and semiconductors.
The company also will reduce its production capacity for plasma TV panels by 48 percent.
“We’ve sought measures to solve deficits at the TV unit since 2008 but none brought a result that we anticipated,”President Fumio Ohtsubo told reporters in Tokyo.

Buying Sanyo

The company also will shift its procurement base toSingapore from Osaka, it said.
The maker of Viera TV was affected by floods in Thailandjust months after restarting domestic plants crippled by Japan’s magnitude-9 temblor on March 11.
Panasonic, which spent more than $6 billion purchasing stakes in Sanyo and Panasonic Electric Works Co. last year, wants energy-related businesses to be its next earnings driver after its TV operation recorded three consecutive annual losses.
Panasonic will speed up its plan to reduce group employment to a maximum of 350,000, the company said in a statement today. It also aims to make a profit from its TV and chips businesses next fiscal year, Ohtsubo said.
Income at the main audio-visual unit likely will total 36 billion yen this fiscal year, while profit at the home-appliance unit may be 104 billion yen, the company said without providing year-earlier numbers.
The Sanyo Electric unit may record a loss of 69 billion yen, it said.
Panasonic is eliminating overlapping operations in white goods and car navigation systems, consolidating marketing and research units and cutting its number of plants by as much as 20 percent from about 350, Ohtsubo said in April.
To contact the reporter on this story: Mariko Yasu in Tokyo at myasu@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Michael Tighe at mtighe4@bloomberg.net

Samsung vs. Apple

Will Samsung's success in Smartphones help the bottom line on a consistent basis? A bit of a risky assumption given the competition they face from Apple. We also know full well that people held back purchases of a new phone with the news of the release of the Iphone4s (I did). Those new record sales from Apple will be in the next quarter reported, so we will see how Samsung does in the next round. Overall this continues the issue with the struggle in the consumer electronics industry to profit from this business.

JZ

By EVAN RAMSTAD

SEOUL—Samsung Electronics Co. made headlines for passing Apple Inc. in smartphone shipments during the just-ended third quarter, but the company's results also showed that it is making headway in reducing the volatility of its profits, a development that is likely to have longer-term significance for investors.

Samsung's profits have made broad swings for years, usually due to pricing forces in the chip industry that were beyond the South Korean company's control. The quarterly results that Samsung released Friday—a 23% drop in profit against a record result in the year-earlier period—were better than expected and, coming amid global economic uncertainty, amounted to a sign that long-term structural bets were starting to pay off for the company.

"Our efforts to create a balanced earnings structure between component and set businesses are beginning to materialize, which will lead to more stabilized earnings," Robert Yi, the company's chief of investor relations, told analysts during a conference call.

Samsung became a force in the electronics industry in the 1980s and later a mainstay holding of emerging-market investors. But all that time, Samsung shares have been subject to big swings in value, mainly shaped by the ups and downs of pricing and profits in memory chips, which for years was Samsung's biggest business.

Even now, analysts' research and forecasts for the company's earnings—and even Samsung's daily share-price movements—are influenced heavily by expectations and developments in the semiconductor market.

But the latest results showed that a multiyear effort to diversify Samsung's chip business had reduced the impact that the current cyclical downturn in prices of memory chips for personal computers had on the company. Sales of memory chips for data centers and fast-growing sales of logic chips, which Samsung makes for digital cameras and other gadgets, provided a cushion to the division's profitability.

Meanwhile, the rise of smartphones pushed Samsung's cellphone business past the chip business in both revenue and profit. The two businesses together offset a third consecutive loss in Samsung's liquid-crystal-display division and marginal profit in its consumer-products unit.

Samsung's net profit totaled 3.44 trillion won, or $3.11 billion, in the third quarter, down from earnings of 4.46 trillion won in the same period a year earlier. Revenue increased 3% to 41.27 trillion won from 40.23 trillion won.

The company shipped about 88 million cellphones during the quarter and about 28 million smartphones, which have higher profit margins, passing Apple's shipment of 17 million smartphones.

Samsung shifted its cellphone mix sharply into smartphones this year. In the third quarter of last year, the company shipped 71 million cellphones, just seven million of which were smartphones.

The change drove Samsung's telecommunications unit to a third-quarter operating profit of 2.52 trillion won, about 59% of the company's overall operating profit of 4.25 trillion won.

The unit's operating-profit margin of 16.9% was the highest since 2004, and executives said they expect it to stay in the high teens for the next few years.

The company since April has been engaged in a high-profile legal battle with Apple over smartphone and tablet-computer patents and lost some preliminary court rulings in several countries. But Friday's results showed that the dispute has had little impact on Samsung's performance so far.

Write to Evan Ramstad at evan.ramstad@wsj.com

Sony Reorganizes Television Management Again

See the article below - Sony continue to struggle with their TV division. Trying to find a way to be profitable in the industry has been extremely hard. Panasonic just recently complained about how quickly TVs are becoming a commodity.

Still a lot to be said for understanding the Customer (not retail partner, but actual TV purchaser), and getting the right featured product at the right price for them. This is no easy task considering what the BRANDS want to do for their BRAND, as well as the Retailers want to do for their brand. Getting through the Component mess, past the brand marketing stuff, and working with retailers strategy is an incredible challenge to get product to the market a customer WANTS, and is willing to pay a certain price for.

Doing it = PROFIT , not just for the Brand, or the Retailer, but the value the customer receives has everyone win.

Is is time the consumer electronics industry got back to figuring that out. We will only continue to have success around flashy marketing / product of the moment which is not one that can be maintained.

JZ

 

Sony Reorganizes Television Manufacturing Business in Drive to Stem Losses

Q

By Cliff Edwards and Takashi Amano - Nov 1, 2011 3:32 AM PT

Sony Corp. CEO Howard Stringer

Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg

Howard Stringer, chairman and chief executive officer of Sony Corp. said TVs remain vital to Sony’s sale of related products, including Blu-ray players and video cameras.

Howard Stringer, chairman and chief executive officer of Sony Corp. said TVs remain vital to Sony’s sale of related products, including Blu-ray players and video cameras. Photographer: Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg

Sony Reorganizes Television Business in Struggle for Profit

Kiyoshi Ota/Bloomberg

Customers look at Sony Corp. Bravia televisions at an electronics store in Tokyo, Japan.

Customers look at Sony Corp. Bravia televisions at an electronics store in Tokyo, Japan. Photographer: Kiyoshi Ota/Bloomberg

Sony Corp. (6758), reeling from seven consecutive annual losses in television manufacturing, plunged the most in more than seven months in Tokyo after announcing a reorganization of the business into three groups.
One group will oversee the liquid-crystal-display operations, another will coordinate contract manufacturing and a third will oversee the development of next-generation sets, Ayano Iguchi, a spokeswoman, said by telephone. The changes take effect today, a day before the company announces earnings.
Sony, which sells products ranging from PlayStation game consoles to life insurance, is trying to compete against Samsung Electronics Co. and low-cost TV set maker Vizio Inc. in an industry where sales have stagnated in developed countries. Chief Executive Officer Howard Stringer has said TVs remain vital to the Tokyo-based company’s sales of related products, including Blu-ray players and video cameras.
The stock slumped 6.3 percent to 1,576 yen at the close of trading in Tokyo. Sony has lost 46 percent of its market value this year, compared with a 16 percent decline for the broader Topix index.
Samsung, the world’s biggest TV maker, has gained 4.3 percent this year and LG Electronics Inc. (066570), the No. 2, has dropped 38 percent.

Smart TVs

Sony makes LCD and LED TVs, sets that connect to the Internet using Google Inc.’s Android operating system and models that let users watch video in 3-D. The company uses other manufacturers, including Taipei-based Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., to produce lower-end sets.
Sony has indicated it will create a separate unit to handle the commodity hardware side of the TV business, said Ben Bajarin, director of consumer technology practice at consulting firm Creative Strategies Inc. in Campbell, California.
The other units would be free to work on so-called smart TVs, which are more expensive sets that can pull content off the Internet, Bajarin said in an interview. These groups also would look at using Sony’s music, movie and video-game assets in high-end TVs, tablets and smartphones.
“They are taking a much harder look at the three pillars of their business,” Bajarin said. “It makes sense for them to have more of the manufacturing side outsourced.”
Investors have been awaiting the company’s turnaround plan after Sony, Japan’s largest exporter of electronics, announced in August that a strategic review of the business was under way.

Panasonic, Toshiba

“Sony needs to focus on the strength of its mobile and set products,” Eiichi Katayama, a Tokyo-based analyst at Bank of America Corp., wrote yesterday.
Other Japanese TV manufacturers also are trying to turn around their business. Panasonic Corp. (6752), the maker of Viera televisions, yesterday forecast its biggest annual loss in 10 years and cut its annual TV sales target to 19 million from 25 million.
Toshiba Corp. (6502), the maker of Regza televisions, said profit fell 19 percent as a strengthening yen eroded overseas sales. The falling prices of TVs and the end of a sales boom triggered by switching to digital broadcasts in July hurt the audiovisual division, the company said in a statement yesterday.
Toshiba’s TV business had an operating loss of at least 10 billion yen in the six months ended Sept. 30, Corporate Executive Vice President Makoto Kubo said.
To contact the reporters on this story: Cliff Edwards in San Francisco at cedwards28@bloomberg.net; Takashi Amano in Tokyo at tamano6@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Anthony Palazzo at apalazzo@bloomberg.net; Michael Tighe at mtighe4@bloomberg.net