CONSUMER ELECTRONICS NEWS ON FASTMOVING

Microsoft Corp cruised past Wall Street’s quarterly profit and revenue forecasts on Thursday, helped by strong sales of its Office and server software to businesses, sending its shares up more than 5 percent after hours.  read more

Samsung Electronics Co Ltd’s quarterly operating profit surged 26 percent to a new record, matching estimates and powered by a strong recovery in its memory chip business as smartphone sales growth eases sharply. read more

Hewlett Packard Co Chief Executive Meg Whitman expects revenue to stabilize in 2014 with “pockets of growth” before the business accelerates again in 2015, sending the stock up as much as 9.5 percent on Wednesday. read more

Microsoft Corp will follow its Steven Spielberg collaboration with more television projects aimed at positioning its new Xbox games console as a home entertainment hub. read more

Joahnnesburg - Retailer JD Group [JSE:JDG] reported a 10% drop in full-year earnings on Monday, and hiked its provision for bad loans, as debt-laden customers continue to suffer. read more

Panasonic Corp is finalizing plans to pull out of the consumer smartphone business in Japan and has approached potential buyers for its cellular base station business, the Nikkei reported. read more

Hewlett-Packard Co is back in the market for acquisitions of up to $1.5 billion, Chief Executive Meg Whitman said in a televised interview on Thursday, aiming for smaller deals after a flurry of outsized purchases in past years.  read more

Samsung Botswana officially opened its third store in Gaborone at Rail park mall, bringing the total number of Samsung franchise stores in Botswana to five.  read more

Sony Corp reported a higher than expected first-quarter operating profit on Thursday, boosted by strong sales of its flagship Xperia smartphones in Japan and rising shipments of image sensors to phone makers.  read more

Pretoria - Efforts are under way to stop the import of unsafe and unauthorised products into South Africa, the National Regulator for Compulsory Specifications (NRCS) said on Tuesday. read more

Microsoft Corp shares fell more than 11 percent on Friday, their biggest plunge in more than four years, a day after the software company posted dismal quarterly results due to weak demand for its latest Windows system and poor sales of its Surface tablet.  read more

Microsoft is cutting the price of its Surface RT tablet by as much as 30 percent as the device struggles to lure customers.  read more

Shares in Samsung Electronics Co Ltd slumped 3 percent to nine-month lows on Wednesday, as investors braced for weaker-than-expected earnings from the smartphone maker for the April-to-June period.  read more

According to the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Smart Connected Device Tracker, global shipments of smart connected devices (PCs, tablets, and smartphones) are expected to surpass 1.7 billion units by 2014, with roughly 1 billion units delivered to emerging markets. read more

Rochester, New York - Kodak says it's secured as much as $895 million to fund its operations after it emerges from bankruptcy protection.  read more

Microsoft Corp recently talked with Nokia about buying the Finnish phone maker’s devices unit, but the discussions faltered and are not likely to be revived, the Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday in its online edition.  read more

Sony Corp CEO Kazuo Hirai said on Thursday that the electronics firm’s board will consider hedge fund Third Point’s suggestion to spin-off the electronics company’s profitable entertainment arm. read more

San Francisco - Microsoft on Thursday announced that it is expanding its real-world retail push with mini-shops inside 600 US and Canadian stores operated by consumer electronics chain Best Buy.  read more

Tokyo - Apple raised prices of iPads and iPods in Japan on Friday, becoming the highest-profile brand to join a growing list of foreign firms asking Japanese consumers to pay more as a weakening yen squeezes profit. read more

Tokyo - Sony chief Kazuo Hirai said Wednesday the company was examining a hedge fund proposal to sell off part of its entertainment unit in a bid to boost profits in its core business. read more

Sony forecast annual profit that missed analysts’ estimates on Friday as chief executive Kazuo Hirai rolls out new Xperia smartphones and Bravia televisions to recapture market share lost to Samsung Electronics. read more

Seoul, April 29 (Xinhua) -- South Korea's consumer electronics giant LG Electronics said Monday that it began sales of curved organic light-emitting diode (OLED) TV for the first time in the global industry.  read more

Rochester - Kodak says it has agreed to sell some of its document imaging assets to Brother Industries Ltd. for about $210 million. read more

Richardson, Texas -- Samsung Electronics and Best Buy Co. have entered into a partnership to install Samsung in-store shops in more than 1,400 Best Buy and Best Buy Mobile stores across the U.S. beginning this month. read more

MULTICHOICE Zambia has opened a new Digital Satellite Television (DStv) agent outlet in Kitwe to serve its customers effectively and efficiently. read more

Cape Town - The opening of a factory manufacturing high-tech gadgets could boost employment not only in the Western Cape but South Africa as a whole, Cape Town premier Helen Zille said on Tuesday. read more

Sony Corp’s board chairman, Howard Stringer, who headed the company as chief executive for six years until last April, will retire from Japan’s struggling consumer electronics giant in June, the Financial Times reported. read more

Apple Inc CEO Tim Cook could be deposed in the government’s lawsuit against the company over alleged price-setting in the e-book market. read more

Tokyo - Sony shares fell 1.54% on Thursday after the Japanese electronics giant announced its next-generation PlayStation 4 in New York, but without unveiling the console or saying how much it would cost. read more

Toronto - Shares of BlackBerry slipped on Thursday, after the company's former Co-Chief Executive Officer Jim Balsillie disclosed that he had sold his once-sizable stake in the embattled smartphone maker. read more

San Francisco - Apple CEO Tim Cook termed a shareholder lawsuit against the company a "silly sideshow", but says he is open to looking at the shareholder's proposals for sharing more cash with investors.  read more

LG Electronics Inc fell short of consensus forecasts in quarterly earnings on Wednesday, with profits in its TV division tumbling to around one tenth of year-earlier levels as the world’s No.2 TV maker bumped up promotional spending in the year-end holiday season. read more

Panasonic Corp, in a display of technological one-upmanship with its South Korean rivals, unveiled a prototype of the world's largest OLED screen on Tuesday. read more

DionWired has pointed to a “very encouraging” uptake in online sales since the group revamped its sitein November, adding that its inaugural “Black Friday” promotion was particularly successful. read more

Panasonic Corp may sell its Sanyo digital camera business to Japanese private equity fund Advantage Partners by the end of March, a source familiar with the plan said. read more

Comet is to close a further 125 stores – with the loss of 2,500 jobs – over the next few weeks, and it may shut down its entire business before the end of the year unless a buyer can be found, the administrator, Deloitte, has warned. read more

Ratings agency Fitch downgraded the debt ratings of Japan’s Sony Corp and Panasonic Corp to “junk” status citing weakness in their consumer electronics and TV operations, further diminishing the luster of the once-great Japanese brands. read more

Munich - Siemens AG's procurement chief Barbara Kux looks set to leave the company in 2013, five years after becoming the German engineering conglomerate's first female top manager. read more

Kadoma, Japan - About a fifth of Panasonic Corp's 88 business units are losing money and only half so far meet a target for at least 5 percent operating margin, the Japanese electronics group's finance chief said in an interview on Wednesday. read more

Sony Corp‘s long-term debt rating was lowered one notch by Moody’s Investor Service to the lowest investment grade level because of shrinking demand for its consumer electronics.  read more

HiFi Corp, a provider of electronic, audio and visual products, has launched its new e-commerce store, taking its range of services online. read more

Panasonic Corp may shrink its mobile phone unit by withdrawing from Europe within six months, prompting a possible writedown on the business in the year ending next March 31, two sources told Reuters. read more

Best Buy Co. (BBY), the retailer resisting a takeover attempt by its founder, said fiscal third-quarter profit will be “significantly” below last year’s results as sales at established stores continue to decline.  read more

Seoul - Samsung Electronics, the world's top technology firm by revenue, reported record quarterly profit of $7.4-billion on Friday, with strong sales of its Galaxy range of phones masking sharply lower memory chip sales. read more

After a decline in sales and uneven store performances, Best Buy CEO Hubert Joly plans to put more focus on employee training, according to an article on Businessweek.com.  read more

Samsung Electronics’ new tablet, first unveiled in February this year, is the South Korean electronics giant’s latest attempt to wrest market share from Apple, but it is not being heralded as an iPad killer. read more

Best Buy Co. may have a new owner in Founder Richard Schulze. Although he stepped down as chairman in June, he's offered to take the retailer private at $24 to $26 a share, according to Bloomberg.  read more

Seoul - Samsung Electronics said its second quarter profit rose 48 percent over a year earlier as customers flocked to get Galaxy smartphones in the absence of competitors. read more

The Hague - Dutch electronics giant Philips on Monday posted higher than forecast second quarter net profits of €167m, thanks to a 13% jump in sales. read more

Telecommunications infra-structure provider Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN), a joint venture between Nokia and Siemens, will slash about 28% of its workforce in SA, as part of NSN’s global strategy of reducing costs and focusing on mobile broadband.  read more

New York - Apple is preparing to launch a smaller tablet computer in the coming months in a bid to maintain its edge in an increasingly crowded market, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday. read more

Google opened two new fronts in the computer hardware wars on Wednesday with the launch of a new 7-inch tablet and a living-room media device running its latest Android software that it hopes will challenge Apple, Amazon and Microsoft.  

Samsung Electronics SA said yesterday it would make all of its computer monitors locally through one of its assembly plants in Gauteng. read more

Best Buy Co. (BBY) founder Richard Schulze is exploring taking the world’s largest electronics retailer private as he considers options that include selling his stake, according to a person familiar with the matter.  read more

Los Angeles - Microsoft introduced its own line of tablet computers on Monday at a much-hyped press event in Los Angeles, marking a major strategic shift for the software giant as it struggles to compete with Apple and reinvent its ageing Windows franchise. read more

JD Group (JDG) on Tuesday announced the launch of its inaugural offering of convertible bonds due June 2017 in a nominal amount of up to R1.0 billion‚ with an option to increase the issue size.  read more

More tumult at troubled retail giant Best Buy: Richard Schulze, who founded the company and has served as its director for nearly four decades, has resigned. read more

California - Apple chief Tim Cook on Tuesday vowed that creativity would remain in the company's DNA and hinted that products on the horizon could come in the area of television.  read more

Retailer of household furniture, electrical appliances and home electronics Lewis Group on Wednesday reported headline earnings per share were up 13% to 882.5 cents for the year ended March 2012. read more

San Francisco - Dell forecast disappointing second-quarter revenue as United States and European corporate tech spending weakens and consumer personal computer sales continue to shrink, hammering its shares.  read more

The increasing internationalisation of Africa’s retail industry — specifically Walmart’s entry to the market — has shaken up SA’s supply chain, forcing local solutions companies to reinvent themselves, Amalgamated Appliance Holdings (Amap) CEO Alan Coward said on Friday. read more

Hoofddorp, May 10 – Today, Capi, market leader in electronics retail at airports, has opened a 245 sq. meter shop at OR Tambo International Airport in Johannesburg. The shop has been completely refurbished in the new Capi style. read more

A US company has developed a counterfeit risk algorithm to forecast the likelihood of an electronic part being targeted by counterfeiters. read more

Technology giants Hewlett-Packard and Dell are keeping a close eye on rising wages amongst their Chinese suppliers with both unsure where these costs will be absorbed. read more

Nokia has signed a supplier deal to ensure that the tantalum it sources comes from conflict-free sources.  read more

Proview International Holdings Ltd. (334), which claims ownership of the iPad trademark in China, asked retailers to stop selling Apple Inc. (AAPL)’s tablet computer as the dispute between the two companies intensified.  read more

New Sony chief executive officer has warned that cost-cutting is a priority in the company’s TV business and supply chain as the company counts the cost of a fourth consecutive annual loss. read more

Demand for consumer technology will continue to grow in 2012 with demand from emerging markets for lower-cost televisions and computers boosting volumes, says Deloitte read more

Sales of consumer electronics from smartphones to digital cameras will exceed $1 trillion for the first time this year, driving tin consumption higher just as stockpiles of the metal slump to a 33-month low.  read more