Category: Consumer Electronics

Is Sony TV Spin-Off a Potential Rival?

Posted by: Kenji Hall on July 02

Did Sony unwittingly spawn a rival TV technology? That’s a question worth asking now that it appears that Field Emission Technologies, which was split off from Sony in late 2006…

Sony’s Bad Luck

Posted by: Kenji Hall on June 27

Talk about bad timing. Sony’s announcement yesterday that it will turn around its loss-making TV and videogame businesses this fiscal year and work to give nearly all of its gadgets…

Sony Shareholders Want to See the Money

Posted by: Kenji Hall on June 20

Show me the money. That’s what investors heckled Sony’s management about at the company’s annual shareholders meeting held today in Tokyo. What were their specific demands? Raise dividends and fully…

In TVs, Sony is Attuned to Market Shift

Posted by: Kenji Hall on May 14

The prospect of a global economic downturn should make Sony nervous. After all, you can’t expect consumers to be out shopping for giant flat-screen TVs and other pricey consumer electronics…

Kenwood, Victor of Japan (JVC) to Merge

Posted by: Kenji Hall on May 12

More merger news from Japan. This time, it’s two mid-sized consumer electronics companies, Kenwood and Victor of Japan (maker of the JVC brand), that are joining forces to improve their…

Pioneer Gets Smart About Surviving TV Battle

Posted by: Kenji Hall on March 04

It shouldn’t surprise anyone that Pioneer is considering outsourcing the panels that it uses to make flat-screen plasma TVs. Making flat TVs from scratch requires heavy-duty investments in plants and…

Sharp and Sony Tie Up in LCDs for Flat TVs

Posted by: Kenji Hall on February 26

Consolidation it wasn’t. But on Feb. 26 when Sony (SNE) said it would pick up part of the $3.5-billion tab for Sharp’s planned TV-panel plant, two of the world’s biggest…

Goldman downgrades Sony

Posted by: Kenji Hall on January 22

Sony’s out. That’s according to Goldman Sachs analyst Yuji Fujimori, who downgraded Sony (from “buy” to “neutral”) today, effectively telling investors to remove the stock from their shopping carts (but…

Sharp-Samsung Legal Tussles Herald U.S. Marketing Race

Posted by: Moon Ihlwan on December 31

A recent spate of legal tussles between Japan’s Sharp and South Korea’s Samsung Electronics over LCD-related patent infringement heralds a fierce fight in the U.S. for a bigger share of…

Sony Exits Rear-Projection TVs

Posted by: Kenji Hall on December 27

Mention Sony TVs and the Bravia line of flat-panel liquid-crystal-display sets comes to mind for most people. And no wonder: The marketing behind Sony’s flat TVs has been nothing short…

Another Bruise for Sanyo

Posted by: Kenji Hall on December 26

At Sanyo Electric, it’s gone from bad to worse. The Japanese electronics and appliance company’s stock dropped to an 11-month low after yesterday’s announcement that the company had restated six…

Sony’s Stringer Talks

Posted by: Kenji Hall on December 11

Sony Chairman and Chief Exec Sir Howard Stringer met with reporters in Tokyo earlier today. Here are edited excerpts from the hourlong Q&A. On the PlayStation Network It’s not proprietary….

Why Bernanke’s Warning Hurts Panasonic

Posted by: Kenji Hall on November 09

Call it the Bernanke effect. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke’s warning that U.S. growth could “slow noticeably” hit Japanese stocks like a ton of bricks, sending them to a three-month…

Samsung Faces Embarrassing Legal Challenge

Posted by: Moon Ihlwan on November 06

Samsung is no stranger to legal battles. In recent years, the South Korean conglomerate has been brought to courtrooms, accused of patent infringements or price fixing for its products such…

Sony’s Asset-Lite Chip Strategy Is Good News For Games

Posted by: Kenji Hall on October 18

It’s no coincidence that Sony’s decision to sell its production line for the high-powered Cell chip to Toshiba comes so soon after a cut in the price of its PlayStation…

From C-Suite To Wall Street: Is An Esoteric Company Metric Going Mainstream?

Posted by: Kenji Hall on October 16

You’ve probably never heard of Francis McInerney. He’s the 57-year-old managing director of New York-based consulting firm North River Ventures and the author of several books on business. McInerney also…

Buy Sony’s Internet-to-TV Link, Get SI’s Swimsuit Video

Posted by: Kenji Hall on October 09

Buy a Sony TV (plus attachable module), get Sports Illustrated’s annual swimsuit issue—-in video. That might get men to drop anywhere between $900 and $6000 for a flat-screen Sony…

Samsung Teams up with B&O on Phone

Posted by: Moon Ihlwan on October 08

The latest thing among cellphone makers, it seems, is moving upscale. Little wonder that global manufacturers are reaching out to luxury brands to bring out fashion phones with a…

Will Shoppers See More Panasonic-branded LCD TVs?

Posted by: Moon Ihlwan on October 05

With the rapid growth in LCD television sales allowing Samsung Electronics to maintain its global TV leadership, it would be interesting to watch how Matsushita Electric will react over the…

Sony’s Hope For Flat TVs Is In An 11-inch Set

Posted by: Kenji Hall on October 01

The future of Sony’s flat TV business is a set with a screen that measures just 11 inches diagonally and rotates on a swivel arm. In an era when the…

Will Sharp Gobble Up Pioneer?

Posted by: Kenji Hall on September 20

Can someone reading the tech-industry tea leaves tell me what the Sharp-Pioneer alliance, announced today, means? One company makes solar cells, flat liquid-crystal-display TVs and next-generation DVD players. The other…

Sony Gets Serious About Outsourcing Cell Chip

Posted by: Kenji Hall on September 16

Back in February, Sony’s Yutaka Nakagawa told analysts that he was considering outsourcing production of the high-powered Cell chip. The chip, which Sony developed with IBM and Toshiba, is the…

Could Sanyo Cellphone Biz Sale Trigger Merger Mania For Japan’s Handset Makers?

Posted by: Kenji Hall on September 14

That’s a key question that many observers will be asking if Sanyo Electric sells its cellphone business to Kyocera, as the Japanese financial daily Nikkei reports today. The sale…

Memo to Sony’s SLR Group: What Took You So Long?

Posted by: Kenji Hall on September 06

A year after Sony entered the single-reflex-lens camera market with an entry-level model, it’s about to launch its second camera with an interchangeable lens in November. The Alpha 700…

A Taiwanese Company Throws in the Towel

Posted by: Bruce Einhorn on August 24

For Asian companies looking to jumpstart their efforts to build a global brand, the case of the strangely-named Taiwanese company BenQ is a scary example of just how wrong things…

Will LCD TVs follow the PC model?

Posted by: Moon Ihlwan on August 23

Will Taiwanese contract manufacturers make most LCD TVs in the future just like the way most PCs are produced now? That’s a big question raised after U.S.-based companies Vizio, Syntax-Brillian…

Sharp’s Oh-So-Thin Display

Posted by: Kenji Hall on August 22

Remember the new $3-billion factory Sharp announced plans for just last month? Most people (including me) assumed the Japanese TV maker was just burning through more money to make…

Sony Fights the Dark Side of E-Waste

Posted by: Kenji Hall on August 17

It’s a common eyesore in many homes: a jumbled mass of old PCs, monitors, MP3 players, cell phones and connecting wires clogging our closets or file drawers. How often…

Sharp’s Spending Spree

Posted by: Kenji Hall on July 31

Japan’s Sharp is a master of oneupsmanship. And why wouldn’t it be? To survive and stay profitable in the flat-panel TV business manufacturers have to pour billions of dollars…

Matsushita Walks Away From JVC…Not Really

Posted by: Kenji Hall on July 24

So much for trying to get rid of JVC. Victor of Japan had been a financial albatross for Matsushita Electric Industrial for so long that it only seemed natural for…

Mickey Mouse Music Player

Posted by: Moon Ihlwan on June 25

The use of flash memory chips to store data and songs has enabled the design of small and light digital music players. South Korea’s ReignCom, which sells music players…

PlayStation’s Father Steps Aside

Posted by: Kenji Hall on April 26

In the end, it was Ken Kutaragi himself who felt his creation was better off without him. On April 26, the inventor Sony’s iconic PlayStation video game consoles proposed to…

Sharp’s Lookin’ Good, But Not Trouble-Free

Posted by: Kenji Hall on April 25

Sharp’s numbers today were impressive: For the fiscal year through March, it posted double-digit gains in sales and profits and record highs across the board for the fourth straight year….

Coming To Your Big-Screen TV: High-Def Photos

Posted by: Kenji Hall on February 28

I’m finding it harder than ever to get excited about digital cameras. Call me jaded but it seems like every few weeks a tech maker comes out with yet…

Sharp’s Share Falls

Posted by: Kenji Hall on February 14

Should Sharp be worried? The latest iSuppli ranking for the fourth quarter of 2006 showed Sharp dropping to fourth place with just 11.4% of the global LCD TV market. (Samsung…

Sony Cuts Back On Chip Spending

Posted by: Kenji Hall on February 13

Is Sony giving its semiconductor strategy a rethink? That’s what Yutaka Nakagawa, who heads Sony’s semiconductor division, suggested to reporters on Feb. 13. The exec said Sony’s investment in its…

Samsung Phone Joins Family of Touch-screen Devices

Posted by: Moon Ihlwan on February 07

Underscoring a new tech trend this year, South Korea’s Samsung Electronics on Feb. 8 unveiled its new smart phone that lets users dial numbers and call up features by…

Canon through one SED TV roadblock?

Posted by: Kenji Hall on January 12

Canon’s announcement today that it will buy Toshiba’s entire stake in their joint venture making SED TVs is likely to bolster the tech maker’s case in a patent fight in…

Matsushita’s Big Plans For Plasma

Posted by: Ian Rowley on January 09

The battle between producers of LCD, plasma and other flat TV screens shows no sign of letting up. Today, Matsushita Electric Industrial announced that it will spend $2.5 billion to…

LG Unveils Dual-format HD Disc Player

Posted by: Moon Ihlwan on January 07

On the eve of the opening of the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, South Korea’s LG Electronics allowed journalists to have a peek at its new next-generation…

Toshiba Quits Music Biz, Puts Sony in Spotlight

Posted by: Kenji Hall on December 14

Who says content is king? Toshiba’s decision on Dec. 14 to unload its stake in music venture Toshiba-EMI for $170 million suggests that not everybody believes in the money-making potential…

Déjà vu at Sony

Posted by: Ian Rowley on October 17

Another day, another Sony laptop battery recall. Today, Sony said it would be recalling up to 60,000 battery packs used in its Vaio laptops in Japan and 30,000 in China…

More on Hon Hai’s China fiasco

Posted by: Bruce Einhorn on September 06

Some advice for Terry Gou, the chairman of Hon Hai, the giant Taiwanese electronics company: Hire a flak. And make sure it’s a good one. You’re a billionaire and one…

Remote control palmed off

Posted by: Ian Rowley on August 08

Those wasted hours searching for remote controls could soon be over. Researchers at Osaka University in Japan have come up with a new system where palm movements, rather than…

LG Charges Ahead with Plasma Business

Posted by: Moon Ihlwan on August 03

LG Electronics execs almost sound like a broken record player when they talk about the company’s ambition to be a top-tier consumer electronics player within a couple of years. Its…

Glued To Our Net TVs?

Posted by: Kenji Hall on August 02

Ready to swap your PC for an Internet TV? That’s what five Japanese consumer-electronics makers are betting on with their plans for a hard sell of Net-connected TVs by…

Matsushita’s branding dilemma

Posted by: Kenji Hall on July 19

It seems Matsushita Electric Industrial is considering a new strategy for its brand. A few days ago, Matsushita officials sent out a survey by email to journalists asking for advice….

A contrarian view on the Apple China controversy

Posted by: Bruce Einhorn on June 19

Hurray for Perry Wu, who blogs at ChinaTechNews. Wu has weighed in on the controversy surrounding the report in the UK tabloid, the Mail on Sunday, about alleged iPod sweatshops…

Haier invests in South Carolina

Posted by: Bruce Einhorn on April 12

If ever a Chinese company needed a new brand, it’s white-goods and consumer-electronics maker Haier. The company is a success story, with its refrigerators and washing machines and TVs selling…

Apple’s latest victim

Posted by: Bruce Einhorn on April 06

Quick: What Asian company is the biggest threat to Apple and the iPod? My guess is that most people would answer Samsung or Sony. But when it comes to…