Last month, Sony announced a dramatic restructuring that it believes will help straighten out the slide in profits in the electronic sector. Sony's senior vice president, Masayoshi Morimoto, stated that…
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Reuters has reported that Sony Corporation is experiencing a 20% drop in profits this year, brought about by poor showings from audio and video product sales, slow markets, price wars, and a lack of hit records. The report also stated that the electronics sector, which normally generates the bulk of Sony sales, saw operating profits decline by more than half compared to the previous year.
Record Q4: Harman International Industries, Inc. (NYSE:HAR) announced record results for the fourth quarter and full fiscal year 2005. Net sales for the quarter were $808 million, compared to $732 million during the same prior year period, an increase of 10%. Net income for the three months was $70.2 million, a 32% increase above the $53 million earned in the fourth quarter last year.
For the fiscal year ended June 30, 2005, net sales were $3.03 billion, an increase of 12% compared to $2.71 billion in the prior year. Net income rose 47% to $232.8 million versus $157.9 million. Earnings per…
Regardless of what the skeptics claim, Jonathan Scull is a firm believer in resonance-control devices. For "Fine Tunes" #15, Scull investigates some products he has found useful. "Pssst," Scull whispers. "Hey you. Yeah, you . . . we know you're a tweaker. It's nothing to be ashamed of. You just wanna make it better, right? Even as everyone around you wants to know when enough's enough already."
"This is an era in which products and websites are 'launched,' but in the past two years Herron Audio has sort of oozed its way into the public ear. With little visible promotion or splashy…
Tower Records should be back in fighting form on Monday, March 15 when a Delaware bankruptcy court rules on the company's reorganization plans.
The music retailer could emerge from its Chapter 11 bankruptcy the same day, making its 35 days in fiscal limbo one of the business world's shortest stays. Faced with crushing debt, and unable to find a buyer, Tower entered Chapter 11 on February 9. It will emerge having shed $80 million in debt, and with a new $100 million line of credit—the financial equivalent of having spent the past month on strict regimen at a fat farm.
The quick…
It's just about impossible to imagine a worse public relations campaign than the one being waged by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) in the nation's courtrooms.
One of the first victories scored against 261 alleged music pirates was a quick settlement by 12-year-old Brianna LaHara, an honor student who lives with her 9-year-old brother and single mother in a New York housing project. Brianna's mom, Sylvia Torres, testified that she had assumed that her daughter's paid subscription to the KaZaA service made her downloading perfectly legal.
On September 9, that…
Primedia, the leading targeted media company, announced March 30 the newsstand arrival of its recently launched Connected Guide To The Digital Home. Part of Primedia's Home Technology & Photography (HT&P) Group, Connected is the first consumer magazine dedicated entirely to adopting and integrating audio, video, information, telecommunications, security and other personal and home technologies.
Upholding its position as the only magazine focusing on the products, experiences and aspirations unique to the digital lifestyle, the inaugural issue previews Web-enabled refrigerators,…
Just look at the dates and you'll see a legacy that essentially spans the entire history of electrical music reproduction. That's fitting. In his career—or more properly, many careers—Irving M. ("Bud") Fried all but embodied that era.
Fried, the legend goes, fell in love with reproduced music when he heard Stokowski leading the Philadelphia Orchestra over the big corner horn speakers in his father's movie theater in 1928 ("the year that the movies learned to speak"). The importance of music reproduction to Fried was made paramount during his service in WWII, where he encountered fellow…
In the first set of prophecies, we foresaw the effects of DVD-Audio, high-end sales around the world, and tweak multidisc CD. For the second installment, we look into our crystal interconnects and foresee new audio data-distribution methods for the coming year.
4) Downloading music from the internet heats up---slowly.
There was a dumptruck-load of hype when several online music services launched, but the numbers reveal that "CD quality" audio streaming is still for web fanatics. Expect this situation to change when ADSL, cable modems, and high-bandwidth satellite links, providing…
What began as a seemingly random collection of songs became a classic animated movie. Yellow Submarine was recently remastered and reissued on DVD and CD, and has now become the latest in a string of virtual-reality theme-park rides: Beatles fans visiting Berlin's Potsdamer Platz can travel through Pepperland at The Beatles' Yellow Submarine Adventure.
The ride, which opened to the public on January 20, is a key attraction of the Music Box, a new Sony entertainment center intended to celebrate music in all its forms. Other attractions include a melodic water fountain that can be played by…
During the recent, successful Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) predicted that manufacturer-to-dealer sales of consumer electronics products will total a record $101 billion in 2004—a 5% increase over 2003.
These numbers, revised upward from the CEA's pronouncements four months ago, were issued as part of CEA Market Research's semi-annual US Consumer Electronics Sales & Forecasts report. The forecast also reflects optimism that the industry will finally top the important $100 billion milestone that it was aiming for in 2003.
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