Rebecca Day

Warner Music Group “would welcome Apple’s entering into the digital radio business,” CEO Stephen Cooper said on the company’s fiscal Q2 earnings call Tuesday, in response to a request for comment about Universal Music’s reported royalty deal with Apple for its as-yet-unannounced streaming music service. Widely published reports indicate that stalled negotiations with Sony Music and Warner over licensing fees for iRadio have slowed the streaming music service’s ramp to market.

Philips unveiled the next generation of its ZigBee-based Hue LED lighting system Tuesday that’s designed to take more advantage of the control features of smartphones and tablets. Version 1.1 also adds geofencing and recurring schedule features, which the company added to the feature set based on user feedback since the Hue system launched last fall, it said. Through geofencing, Hue lights can turn on or off based on the location of a user’s mobile device, creating automatic lighting control when a user enters or leaves the home.

Audyssey announced the ExpertFit partner program, based around a software development kit (SDK) for headphone manufacturers who want to differentiate products using Audyssey’s headphone calibration technology. ExpertFit is a measurement and listening tool based on algorithms derived from Audyssey’s MultEQ and Dynamic EQ technologies used in AV receivers, music systems, car audio, TVs and PCs, the company said Friday. Under the ExpertFit program, Audyssey creates a unique profile for each pair of headphones, it said. The profiles can be used within Audyssey’s own media player, called Amp, and also within the Songza music-streaming service, Audyssey said. The app-based approach brings advanced processing power to headphones for the first time, Audyssey said.

DTS had a 33 percent revenue increase to $32.7 million in Q1 on growth in its network-connected device business, Chief Financial Officer Mel Flanigan said on the company’s earnings call Wednesday. Network-connected income was the largest contributor to revenues “by far,” jumping 246 percent year-over-year and 37 percent sequentially, accounting for 45 percent of Q1 revenue, Flanigan said.

Following a restructuring that resulted in a 35 percent U.S. workforce reduction that claimed its Savannah, Ga., warehouse operation and executive marketing positions held by Jodi Sally and Michael Paladino, Coby plans to get back on track by focusing on key categories, President Michael Troetti told Consumer Electronics Daily. Troetti cited a poor retail environment in February and March, a “dive in sales” for legacy categories including DVD and portable audio players, and tax hits to its core “middle income” core customer base as factors leading to the layoffs of 42 employees. Sally’s position as vice president-marketing and Paladino’s senior product marketing manager post were eliminated in the restructuring and their marketing duties will be assumed by Troetti, Christi Park, marketing manager for headphones, and Ian Kolker, who had been tablet product manager, he said. All shipping will be handled from Coby’s Carson, Calif., warehouse following the shutdown of the Georgia operation at the end of June, he said. On the product side, the company will cut back on SKUs in its DVD and portable audio lines with a focus on going “narrow and deep” with “strategic SKUs that offer sufficient return on investment” rather than having a wide product assortment in those categories, he said. The company will continue to be “very competitive” in tablets, and will boost its headphone presence through microphone-equipped models designed to ride the success of the smartphone market, he said. Coby will ship its first Bluetooth speakers within the next 60 days, Troetti said, and the company is beefing up its soundbar offerings after entering the market last year, he said. In TVs, Coby will continue to focus on smaller screen sizes -- 19-24 inches and 32- and “40-ish-” inches -- Troetti said, despite industry growth trends in the 50-inch and larger category. The company took a conservative approach to TV orders during Q1 after being told by overseas sources that panel prices were increasing, Troetti said. “That didn’t happen and we got caught short by not ordering product and holding out to take advantage of better pricing,” he said. In addition, retailers were focusing on tier-one products and getting instant rebates and other financial incentives to take on more merchandise. When TV sales slowed in February and March, second-tier brands were “squeezed out,” he said. “Rather than get caught with high inventories, we took a very conservative posture,” he said.

SanDisk’s forecast for flash memory -- driven by mobile devices, PCs, enterprise storage and removable cards and drives -- envisions a total available market of $38 billion by 2016, up from $26 billion last year, said CEO Sanjay Mehrotra on the company’s 2012 Investor Day webcast Wednesday. But while demand growth is continuing, capacity isn’t growing at the same pace, which should lead to a “favorable pricing environment” near term, Mehrotra said.

Samsung 2013 smart TVs and Blu-ray players will be the first products to offer DTS-HD surround sound for streaming content through a CinemaNow app, DTS said Tuesday. The high-definition audio format will boost the sound quality of streaming audio for movies and TV shows, bringing it up to Blu-ray levels, DTS said. The format will roll out first with Best Buy’s CinemaNow streaming video service, but will be available to other Rovi-powered services as well, Geir Skaaden, DTS senior vice president-products and platforms, told Consumer Electronics Daily, describing what he called a “major milestone” for DTS and the industry.

TiO, short for “turn it on,” a new home automation brand, will launch at the end of June at the Infocomm show, Matt Curtin, vice president of sales and marketing for Automated Control Technology Partners (ACTP), told Consumer Electronics Daily. The brand is the next phase for ACTP CEO Mike Anderson, who announced last month that he planned to “redefine home control” and “revitalize the industry” (CED April 9 p15).

Disappointing Q1 results at accessories company ZAGG were driven largely by a shortfall in new Apple device introductions in the quarter, said CEO Randy Hales on the company’s earnings call Thursday. Revenue dropped 7 percent in Q1 year-over-year to $51.5 million, and gross margin dropped to 37 percent from 49 percent in the year-ago quarter, the company said. Apple’s recent announcement that it was pushing its 2013 device launches late into the year is a “significant hit to us,” Hales said. ZAGG has been the beneficiary of consistent Apple launches in the last three years, “and those have provided a great lift for us,” he said. “It’s a bit of a challenge to recover from not having those,” he said.

A charged debate on specialty AV distribution trends emerged in the social media space last week after high-end loudspeaker manufacturer Bowers & Wilkins revealed it had signed on mass-market Chicago-area retailer Abt Electronics.