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TWICE: The global CE market won’t achieve annual revenue growth this year, according to a new iSuppli report. Although the global consumer electronics market returned to sequential revenue growth in the second quarter, the industry this year will not achieve an annual expansion that would signal a true recovery, the research firm said.

Global CE equipment revenue rose to $71.1 billion in the second quarter, up 4.2 percent from $68.3 billion in the first quarter, based on a preliminary iSuppli estimate. This represents a major improvement from the first quarter, when revenue fell by 25.8 percent compared with the fourth quarter of 2008.

While consumer electronics revenue typically declines on a sequential basis in the first quarter following the fourth-quarter holiday selling season, this represented a particularly sharp decline.

“Following the dismal first quarter, conditions are starting to improve in the consumer electronics business,” said Sheri Greenspan, consumer electronics senior analyst for iSuppli.

“Revenue will continue increasing on a sequential basis in the third and fourth quarters, rising by 12.5 percent and 10.2 percent. While this growth is encouraging, 2009 will still be a down year for the industry.”

iSuppli predicted global consumer electronics equipment revenue will decline to $307.6 billion in 2009, down 8.2 percent from $335.2 billion in 2008, due to the impact of the worldwide economic downturn as well as sharply declining prices for key products.

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HDTVNews: The economy hasn’t quite recovered yet. But this recent news from Sharp is definitely a positive sign. Even with the volatile market, consumers can’t seem to get enough of LCD flat-panel televisions. This prompted Sharp to increase their production of flat-panel sets.

Again, this is due to the ever increasing demand for LCD televisions in the first half of this year. First up is their Kameyama factory in western Japan. The company planned to increase glass substrate production from 90,000 to 100, 000, starting in August.

These glass substrate are the main components in manufacturing LCD televisions. Each substrate measures 2.16 meters by 2.46 meters and can be used to up to eight 40-inch class or six 50-inch class LCD panels. Basic mathematics would give us an idea of how many actual sets those 100,000 glass substrate could produce.

Of course, the Sakai factory, which is larger than the Kameyama factory, will naturally produce even more. It will handle even larger sheets of glass. I don’t know when the economy will completely stabilize. But this news is certainly one of the better signs.

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BBC: Dutch electronics giant Philips has said it will “vigorously oppose” any suggestion that it and Korean firm LG fixed the prices of LCD flat screens.

Philips’ comments came after European Commission competition regulators sent it a “statement of objections” to formally outline their suspicions.

Brussels suspects Philips and LG may have been part of a wider cartel. The investigation relates to a jointly-owned Philips and LG business – LG Display – which was set up in 1999. Philips has subsequently sold its share in the unit.

Issuing a statement of objections is the first formal step in European Union anti-competition investigations, under which the Commission first informs the parties concerned about the objections raised against them.

It does not prejudice the outcome of an investigation, and firms can reply to the objections. Last November, LG Display pleaded guilty to LCD price-fixing in the US, paying $400m (£249m) following a parallel investigation by US competition regulators. Japan’s Sharp and Taiwan’s Chunghwa Picture Tubes were also fined by US authorities in that case.

Brussels has not said which other firms are involved in its investigation. The news comes on the same day that Philips reported a 94% drop in second quarter profits due to a big decline in sales.

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JCNNetwork: Sony Corp. chief executive Howard Stringer said the Japanese electronics conglomerate’s turnaround efforts, which include job cuts, plant closures and a management reshuffle, were advancing well.

Sony last month forecast a second consecutive year of losses as the global slump hits demand for electronics. To get back to growth, it is implementing far-reaching restructuring such as a headcount reduction of about 16,000 people and closure of eight of its 57 manufacturing sites.

Mr Stringer took the helm at Sony in 2005 vowing to deliver growth and get its various divisions to work closely together to compete with new rivals such as Apple in portable music and Nintendo in games. Mr. Stringer’s efforts have been hampered by a stronger yen and sluggish demand for its electronics products, which include Bravia liquid-crystal display televisions, Cyber-shot digital cameras, and the PlayStation 3 game console.

Sony shareholders also approved a new management set-up at the company that will center power around Mr. Stringer and a team of younger executives.

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EngadgetHD: Pioneer and Sharp have officially finalized their deal to combine Blu-ray operations, completing the joint venture planned since Pioneer began navigating its way out of several businesses including its Kuro plasma HDTVs.

The official PDF has all the details, but the salient points are that Pioneer will have 66% ownership and 3 of 5 seats on the board of the 450-employee joint venture, ready to start up on schedule October 1, for the development, design, manufacture and sale of optical disc products, primarily Blu-ray.

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Electronista: Dutch shares of native GPS device maker TomTom spiked on Friday morning after speculation rose that Apple is mulling getting a stake in the company.

Following Apple’s WWDC presentation Monday that saw TomTom introduce an iPhone GPS app and a matching car kit, some investors claim to have heard that TomTom being singled out and its tight integration of software with the iPhone are advance evidence of Apple wanting to invest a minority amount in the European firm.

The rumor is not universal, however, and some openly doubt the likelihood of such a deal. Apple has historically shied away from partial deals, making this unlikely, but does face competition in the GPS arena from cellphone designers that also have alliances with GPS firms.

Garmin and ASUS are working together on the nuvifone series of navigation handsets. Nokia, meanwhile, acquired NAVTEQ and is using the latter’s map data for its own navigation features.

Other companies have expressed interest in developing turn-by-turn iPhone GPS apps, particularly NAVIGON, but are often far smaller and less likely to have committed the resources to development in advance.

TomTom had said it was researching the possibility of a driving directions app for the iPhone as early as mid-2008 and so would have been the best-prepared for an eventual product. Apple hasn’t commented on the rumor.

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TWICE: The Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) is hoping for a turnaround in CE industry sales, but it still sees challenges ahead.

CEA is projecting 1 percent growth in the third quarter and 1.5 percent growth in the fourth quarter for CE sales, and said its industry advisors predict that for the entire year sales will be down by 0.5 percent.

However, they expect 2.9 percent growth in 2010. In a survey of its CE Advisory Panel in April they estimated sales will bottom during this quarter (almost 30 percent), with about 20 percent saying the third quarter. In its Mid-Year CE Market Update, presented at the CEA Line Show here June 10, CEA reviewed the flat-panel TV business.

The report confirmed what individual manufacturers, distributors and retailers have been saying recently, namely that everyone is keeping lean inventories, unit shipments are up, but maintaining revenues compared to the previous year are hard to come by.

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JCNNetwork: Toshiba Corp., needing funds for investment after a record annual loss, raised 289.7 billion yen (US$3.04 billion) in Japan’s biggest stock offering by a non- financial company in eight years.

The stock, offered at 3.2 percent less than its closing price, was sold at the high end of a range indicated last week. Toshiba has lost 60 percent of its value in the past year, almost twice the decline in Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 Stock Average.

About 500 companies worldwide have raised US$124 billion selling stock in 2009, 27 percent fewer issuers and 22 percent less in value than in the same period last year. The proceeds from the offering will help Toshiba invest in factories to compete against Samsung Electronics Co. in making chips that store data in cameras and mobile phones after last year’s net loss more than tripled the Japanese company’s ratio of debt to equity.

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CEPro: Panasonic, the world’s largest plasma TV maker, lost $4 billion in its fiscal year ended March 31, the company’s first loss in seven years.

Like most other Japanese electronics makers in the red (see Sony, Pioneer, Toshiba), Panasonic is blaming the recession for its losses.

Panasonic had a record net loss of 444.3 billion yen for the January-March quarter, compared to a profit of 61.6 billion yen one year earlier. Last year, Panasonic posted a record net profit of 281.9 billion yen.

The Osaka-based company says business was down across all segments due to lower demand for flat-screen TVs, digital cameras, home appliances and semiconductors. Here are the sales numbers: Sales in its Digital AVC Networks unit fell 13 percent Home Appliance sales were down 9 percent Sales in its PEW and PanaHome business were down 9 percent

Overall, sales fell 14.4 percent to 7.77 trillion yen, while operating profit plunged 86 percent to 72.9 billion yen. Panasonic expects business to drop another 10 percent this year for an estimated $2 billion loss by March 2010. Panasonic offered the following statement:

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Engadget: Pioneer’s decision to axe the Kuro earlier this year set off a wave of gloomy predictions about the future of plasma, but we’ve never really bought into it — and it sounds like the product planners at LG, Samsung, and Panasonic haven’t either.

HD Guru asked reps from each company for their thoughts on the state of the plasma market, and the responses were pretty similar across the board: plasma remains the connoisseur’s choice overall, and it still makes up just about half of 50-inch and bigger sales.

Of course, that means that plasma’s niche is shrinking and moving higher-end while LCDs more or less take over the rest of HDTV market, but until something like OLED develops into a true competitor we think plasma’s around for a while.

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JCNNetwork: Fujitsu Ltd., Japan’s biggest computer-services provider, forecast it will return to profit this fiscal year on narrowing losses in its chip business.

President Kuniaki Nozoe is selling the company’s money-losing hard-disk-drive business to Toshiba Corp for about 30 billion yen (US$303.9 million) to focus on chip and software operations.

Fujitsu also plans to outsource production of system LSI chips measuring 40 nanometers to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. to cut spending and help return the chip unit to profit next year.

Net income will probably be 20 billion yen (US$202 million) in the 12 months ending March 31, 2010, from a deficit of 112.4 billion yen (US$1.1 billion) a year earlier, losses at the semiconductor unit will narrow to 15 billion yen (US$152 million) in the period from 60 billion yen (US$607.8 million). Fujitsu is also considering joint development of 28-nanometer devices with the Hsinchu, a Taiwan-based company.

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BBC: Electronics giant Sony has reported its first annual loss in 14 years, after being hit by a big drop in sales.

Sony reported a loss of 98.9bn yen ($1.04bn; £685m) for the year to the end of March, compared with a profit of 369.4bn yen the previous year.

The company blamed the global downturn and the strong yen for the loss. Worldwide sales were down 12.9%.

It had previously announced it would be cutting 8,000 of its 185,000 workforce and closing 10% of its factories.

Sony’s president Ryoji Chubachi stepped down in April as part of a managerial shake-up at the group.However, the loss was not as bad as Sony had expected. It had forecast a loss of 150bn yen back in January.

Sony’s shares closed down 6.8% at 2,400 yen ahead of the results. Several Japanese companies have said they have been hurt by the strong yen, which make exports more expensive. On Tuesday, Hitachi announced an annual loss of 787.3bn yen – a record for a Japanese manufacturer.

Sony, which makes Playstation games consoles and Vaio PCs, forecast a net loss for the current financial year of 120bn yen. And it said it would carry on with its restructuring programme of closing plants and cutting jobs. Analysts greeted Sony’s results with cautious optimism.

“Their outlook gave me the impression that their business is heading for a gradual recovery,” said Fujio Ando, senior managing director at Chibagin Asset Management. “But it would all depend on whether they would be able to start producing popular products, because right now they have no ‘Number One’ products.”

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