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Electronista: Sony this week outlined a plan to fight back against Apple by opening its own flagship retail stores.

Starting with Sony Store Nagoya, the stores will imitate the multi-floor design of Apple flagships like Ginza and use large, spacious display areas divided by category.

The first floor of the Nagoya store will focus on portable devices like Cyber-shot and Handycam cameras, the PSP, Sony-Ericsson phones, Walkman players and VAIO PCs; a second floor will focus on home theater equipment such as Blu-ray players and TVs.

Staffing will also echo Apple’s and will include “Stylists” who, like Apple’s Specialists, will provide help on choosing devices in addition to actually handling purchases. They will be unique in that they’ll provide customer feedback to Sony itself, the company says.

While Sony already provides service at some of its stores, staffers on the second floor will take on more of an Apple Genius-like role and teach customers to use what they own. The Nagoya location will open on March 13th and should be accompanied by others in the future, though it’s not known if this will involve international locations. Existing Sony Style and Sony Store locations aren’t expected to close in at least the short term.

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Electronista: Amazon on Thursday released its fourth-quarter earnings report, indicating a net income increase of 75 percent to reach $9.5 billion.

CEO Jeff Bezos claims that “millions of people now own Kindles,” although the company has yet to release specific distribution numbers for the e-book reader.

The US Kindle Store now offers over 410,000 e-books, covering 100 of 112 New York Times bestsellers.

Customers can also choose from over 8,000 blogs and more than 130 domestic and international newspapers.

“When we have both editions, we sell 6 Kindle books for every 10 physical books,” said Bezos. “This is year-to-date and includes only paid books — free Kindle books would make the number even higher. It’s been an exciting 27 months.”

Amazon has reported a 28 percent increase in net sales for the full year of 2009, reaching approximately $24.5 billion. Net income rose to $902 million for the year, a 40 percent increase compared to 2008 profits.

The company recently changed its Kindle payouts to compete with Apple, now giving 70 percent of the purchase price back to the publishers. Apple has maintained its 30 percent cut, however publishers are not restricted to Amazon’s $10 price cap for e-books.

The iPad maker recommends that publishers charge $14 or $15 for hardcover bestsellers.

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JCNNetwork: Sony Corp. will start selling 3-D televisions and Blu-ray disc players this summer, part of a plan by Chief Executive Officer Howard Stringer to go “all out” to seize control of the market.

The company will sell nine 3-D models of Bravia televisions and a Blu-ray player in mid-2010. Stringer is betting that 3-D products will generate more than 1 trillion yen (US$11 billion) in the year ending March 2013, not counting content.

Samsung will sell similar products this year. Samsung will begin selling 3-D TVs and Blu-ray players starting this year.

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BBC: Phone maker Nokia has said it will “defend itself vigorously” after Apple launched the latest salvo in an ongoing legal wrangle between the two firms.

On 15 January, Apple filed a complaint with the US International Trade Commission (ITC) asking it to block Nokia imports to the US.

It is the latest move in a series of legal proceedings that started in October when Nokia sued Apple.

The Finnish firm alleged that Apple’s iPhone infringed 10 of its patents. Apple countered by filing its own lawsuit against Nokia, saying the phone maker had copied certain aspects of the iPhone and infringed 13 of its patents.

In late December, Nokia filed a further claim with the ITC, alleging Apple infringed seven of its patents in “virtually all of its mobile phones, portable music players, and computers”.

Apple told the BBC that it would not comment on its latest legal move. However, Nokia said it would “study the complaint and defend itself vigorously”.

“This does not alter the fact that Apple has failed to agree appropriate terms for using Nokia technology and has been seeking a free ride on Nokia’s innovation since it shipped the first iPhone in 2007,” a spokesperson said. Apple is also being sued by camera maker Kodak over technology used in the iPhone.

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CNet: Here at CES 2010, Samsung has announced it will be creating its own app store, but unlike its rivals, who offer applications on mobile phones, the Korean giant intends to supply apps that work across phones, computers, Blu-ray players, home-cinema systems and even TVs.

The Samsung Apps feature — essentially an evolution of the company’s Internet@TV concept — will ship on the vast majority of Samsung tellies with screens 40 inches and above, starting with the 55-inch LED 9000 series.

With these, users will be able to search and download applications even while watching TV. Some apps wil be bundled with the sets, some will become available for download over the sets’ integrated Wi-Fi free of charge from this spring, while paid-for apps will start to arrive in the summer.

Currently, Samsung says the style of applications will be pretty diverse. Some will provide basic information like up-to-date weather, sports fixtures and results, picture viewing through the likes of Picasa, plus services such as BBC iPlayer and Twitter.

Several apps will allow interaction betwen your Samsung mobile phone and your Samsung TV. In one example, the company said consumers would be able to play virtual poker using the television as the table, and their handsets to view cards and control the game.

Crucially, Samsung is making its app store an open platform, which should encourage third-party developers to create a decent number of apps and help ensure the system doesn’t become a relic any time soon. Keep your eyes on CNET UK over the coming weeks when we’ll bring you a more in-depth look at the best of these apps and the TVs they’ll feature on.

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JCNNetwork: Hitachi Ltd. may need more funds to finance a revamp after selling a record 350.7 billion yen (US$3.9 billion) in stock and bonds.

Hitachi needs money to finance factory closures and job cuts to focus on growing businesses such as trains and medical systems.

Hitachi aims to reverse a multi-decade strategy of expanding into everything from televisions to vacuum cleaners and nuclear reactors after reporting a record loss for a Japanese manufacturer last fiscal year.

The company will reduce about 200 units, merge its unprofitable chip subsidiary with a rival and relocate workers in its plasma-display and automotive units to cut 260 billion yen (US$2.9 billion) in costs this year.

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Engadget: It sure took awhile, but Panasonic now has controlling interest of Japan’s beleaguered Sanyo Corporation.

After shareholders approved the deal last year, the partnership became mired in anti-trust concerns across the globe.

That was then — today the company founded by Konosuke Matsushita is the proud owner of 50.19% of Sanyo for the bargain price of ¥404 billion ($4.6 billion).

That gives Panny access to Sanyo’s battery (some of which was sold off to appease regulators) and solar technology as well as its unsurpassed ability for making dull and matronly consumer electronics. Everybody wins!

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CNet: Rumours have surfaced that Amazon is looking to open physical retail stores in the UK, not long after the Borders chain of bookstores went into administration.

The rumours emerged yesterday in The Sunday Times. According to the paper, Amazon has ‘launched a secret search for brick-and-mortar stores to support its rapidly growing Web site’.

The intent behind such a venture seems clear enough: you could order online and collect at the store a few hours later. This is something that Argos is undoubtedly having heated board meetings about as you read this.

According to the The Sunday Times, 18 per cent of Argos’ sales are made on its Web site but collected from a store.

In recent years, Amazon has expanded from its core book-selling business to offer electrical products, clothes and shoes, sports gear and even kitchen appliances. The problem we see, however, is that many of these products are actually sold by third-party retailers who simply sell through Amazon’s site and give it a cut of the revenue generated.

There are a number of ways the company could make its retail stores really stand out. For example, it could enable in-store browsing and downloading of MP3s from its Amazon MP3 store, or provide opportunities to actually try out the Kindle ebook reader before purchase. And let’s not forget the convenience of having somewhere local to return faulty or damaged goods, negating one of the big pains in the backside experienced by online shoppers.

We contacted Amazon.co.uk for comment, but it hadn’t responded at the time of publication.

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Bloomberg: Samsung Electronics Co., the world’s biggest maker of liquid-crystal display televisions, sued Sharp Corp. in a U.S. court, escalating a trade battle over LCD-TVs and other electronics.The patent-infringement lawsuit was filed Dec. 2 in federal court in Wilmington, Delaware, similar to a complaint Samsung filed against Sharp with the U.S. International Trade Commission in Washington. The lawsuit seeks cash compensation for what Samsung contends is infringement of three patents.

Both cases involve patents related to the way LCD screens portray the black and white portion of images, minimizing the effects of static electricity and improving the image quality. The ITC case seeks to ban imports of Sharp televisions and other LCD devices, while the civil suit asks a court to force Sharp to pay damages for past infringement.

“Samsung and Sharp have many patents related to LCD technology so these kinds of lawsuits will continue to occur as long as they make TVs,” said Kim Yoo Jin, an analyst at Taurus Investment & Securities Co. in Seoul. “They could settle, but it may take a long time for that to happen.”

The companies have been fighting for more than two years over LCD technology, and each filed earlier requests to the ITC to ban the other’s televisions from the U.S. The latest legal fight targets Sharp’s Aquos HDTVs made in Mexico.

Chris Loncto, a spokesman for Sharp, said the company had no comment on the latest dispute.

Top Spot

Samsung rose 0.5 percent to 763,000 won as of 10:51 a.m. in Seoul trading, while Sharp rose 0.4 percent to 1,074 yen on the Tokyo Stock Exchange.

Samsung retook the top spot in U.S. sales of LCD TVs in the third quarter, with almost 17 percent of the market, according to market researcher iSuppli Corp. of El Segundo, California. Sharp doesn’t rank among the top five.

Both companies have joint manufacturing ventures with Sony Corp., which battles Samsung for the title of world’s largest maker of TVs and is ranked fifth by iSuppli in LCD TV sales in the U.S. The ITC complaint doesn’t seek to block any Sony products, nor is Tokyo-based Sony a party in either case.

Last month, the ITC said certain LCD TVs and computer monitors made by Samsung that infringe Sharp patents should be banned from the U.S. That decision is being reviewed by President Barack Obama. Suwon, South Korea-based Samsung has said it will be able to work around the Sharp patents to ensure any ban doesn’t interfere with its sales.

Infringe Patent

Because of a case brought by Samsung that’s currently on appeal, Osaka-based Sharp isn’t allowed to import Sharp LCD televisions, including those sold under the Aquos name, that infringe a Samsung patent for an LCD with a wider viewing angle.

Sharp has continued to sell its televisions overseas, saying it changed its products to avoid using the Samsung invention.

In a filing with the ITC on Dec. 1, Samsung contended the Sharp LCD panels in the altered Aquos and other TVs continue to infringe the patent and asked the commission to find that Sharp is violating the order to stop imports that use the Samsung technology.

Sharp’s redesigned LCD television models still infringe patents, Samsung said in the filing. The Korean company said Sharp should be forced to pay $100,000 for every day it violates the earlier order.

The civil case is Samsung Electronics Co. v. Sharp Corp., 09cv920, U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware (Wilmington.

The new ITC case is In the Matter of Liquid Crystal Display Devices, Complaint 2698, U.S. International Trade Commission (Washington). The Sharp case against Samsung is In the Matter of Certain Liquid Crystal Display Modules, 337-634, and the earlier Samsung case is In the Matter of Certain Liquid Crystal Display Devices and Products Containing Same, 337-631, both ITC.

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JCNNetwork: Sony Corp. Chairman Howard Stringer wants to remain the company’s chief for at least three years through March 2013 to meet a turnaround plan delayed by the global recession and the yen’s surge to a 14-year high against the dollar.

Sony last month pushed back key profitability targets as the maker of Bravia televisions battles to recover from its first back-to-back annual losses since its 1958 listing. Stringer will continue streamlining Sony to compete against South Korean electronics makers such as Samsung Electronics Co.

Sony projected in October the yen would average 90 to the dollar in the six-month period beginning Oct. 1. The company’s losses reached about 1 billion yen (US$11 million) in annual operating profit for every yen gain against the dollar.

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Engadget: If you enjoy the decimation of an industry as much as Google does then you’re going to love the latest rumor sourced from DigiTimes’ manufacturing moles.

According to the Taiwanese rumor rag, personal navigation device R&D teams at the manufacturing powerhouses of Foxconn (aka, Hon Hai) and Wistron have been shifted to other devices in the face of “declining PND orders.”

Seems logical as GPS-equipped smartphones snuff out their dedicated forebears with the same converged precision that turned wrist watches into items of fashion.

The strange part of this DigiTimes rumor is that said manufacturers have shifted those PND teams to focus on e-book readers and (are you ready?) MIDs.

Man, if the world’s largest manufacturer of consumer electronics sees MIDs as a more economically viable option than personal navigators, well, maybe things are more dire for TomTom and Garmin than originally feared.

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Bloomberg: Panasonic Corp., the world’s biggest plasma-TV maker, will invest $1 billion by 2012 in a plan to make its principal business equipping homes and buildings with solar power and energy-saving technologies, the president said.The move focuses on solar-panel and energy-storage technology that Panasonic will gain from its purchase of Sanyo Electric Co., coupled with systems that Panasonic has invented, President Fumio Ohtsubo said yesterday in a New York interview.

Panasonic is shifting focus as growth slows in its main consumer-electronics and appliances businesses, where it competes against Samsung Electronics Co. The change coincides with a worldwide move toward more energy-efficient technologies, a goal that’s leading more than 190 countries to meet in Copenhagen next week to discuss cutting greenhouse-gas emissions.

“This is what Panasonic has to do,” said Osamu Hirose, an analyst at Tokai Tokyo Securities with an “above average” rating on the stock. “Wherever you look, consumers in developed and developing markets are interested in environmental products.”

The company hasn’t determined how much the energy- management systems will cost or how they will be distributed, Ohtsubo, 64, said. The Osaka, Japan-based company also doesn’t know what percentage of its overall sales can come from the new business by the end of its current medium-term business plan in 2012, he said.

‘Fighting Ring’

“Our growth is not enough compared to Samsung,” Ohtsubo said. “So we want to change our fighting ring from our current categories to a different field.”

The new technology will let consumers monitor their own electricity use and display the data on television sets, Ohtsubo said. The system will be able to connect and monitor all of the appliances in a house, and the solar panels may produce enough clean power to offset any carbon dioxide created from other power the appliances use, he said.

“Our products in consumer electronics and our appliances will benefit from the new core business” as people buy more energy-efficient gear, Ohtsubo said. “The future is not 20 to 30 years out. Within two to three years, Panasonic can realize this kind of concept.”

He said consumers can achieve energy savings of 30 percent to 50 percent with the new technology.

Shares Rose

Panasonic rose 1.9 percent to close at 1,156 yen on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, compared with a 0.4 percent decline by the benchmark Nikkei 225 Stock Average. The company’s stock has advanced 3.9 percent this year.

The new plan is a departure from focusing on selling plasma TVs, which are less energy-efficient than other television models.

Most of Panasonic’s plasma TVs with 42-inch screens that display full high-definition images consume at least 173 watts, higher than the 146 watts used by comparable LCD TVs, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Energy Star TV product list.

Panasonic is offering to buy control of Sanyo, the world’s largest maker of rechargeable batteries, for 403 billion yen ($4.6 billion) to boost its share of the battery market and gain access to Sanyo’s solar-cell technology.

The company also is entering the market for lithium-ion batteries used in electric cars, Ohtsubo said.

Panasonic, which generated 47 percent of its revenue overseas in the past fiscal year, said last year that it aims to raise that share to 60 percent, mostly by boosting sales in emerging markets.

Narrowed Loss

Panasonic narrowed its full-year loss forecast in October by 28 percent to 140 billion yen, citing cost reductions. The company, which also raised its operating profit forecast for the year to 120 billion yen from 75 billion yen, posted a net loss of 379 billion yen in the year ended March 31.

The company, which cut 29,155 jobs in the 12 months ended Sept. 30, may pare more than 300 billion yen in costs this fiscal year, compared with its original estimate of 260 billion yen, Chief Financial Officer Makoto Uenoyama said Oct. 30.

Ohtsubo said that Panasonic will cut costs at Sanyo after the transaction closes, though he didn’t say whether the moves would involve more job reductions.

Samsung, the Suwon, South Korea-based company that’s Asia’s biggest maker of chips, flat screens and mobile phones, said third-quarter profit tripled to a record 3.72 trillion won ($3.2 billion) on rising demand for consumer electronics and appliances.

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