Rebecca Day

In an open New Year’s letter to members of the CE industry Wednesday, Richard Glikes, executive director of Home Technology Specialists of America (HTSA), appealed to vendors to launch new technologies through the struggling specialty AV retail channel in 2011 following disappointing introductions of Google TV and 3D TV through the nation’s largest electronics retailer, Best Buy.

Fine Sounds Spa, the Milan-based holding company for Audio Research Corp. and Sonus Faber, bought Wadia Digital, manufacturer of high-end digital audio components. Terms were not disclosed. Wadia CEO John Schaffer said both parties’ goals were met by the acquisition. In seeking a buyer, Wadia wanted to find “a strategic partner with an understanding of and appreciation for the legacy of the Wadia brand,” Schaffer said. According to Fine Sounds, the acquisition extends the company’s reach into the “digital lifestyle” category. Resources provided by the deal will allow Wadia to expand its Series 1 line of “affordable” products, which includes the $379 170 iTransport iPod dock, Schaffer said. Historically, the company has focused on “tip of the pyramid” digital audio at luxury goods price points, he said, but based on “astronomical” growth for the iTransport, the company wants to expand the category. “That’s where we've been growing the fastest,” Schaffer said, “and it’s outstripped our ability to keep up.” At CES, the company will show its Model 121, sub-$2,000 small form factor D-A converter that’s due to ship in Q2, he said. Although the company “had absolutely run into the same kind of stagnant economy you'd expect” in 2009, Schaffer said 2010 has been a bounce-back year and the company joins Fine Sounds “from a position of strength.” Schaffer will continue to manage the Wadia brand from the Michigan office and joins the Fine Sounds board. He said no job cuts were part of the deal and operations will continue in Michigan. “We're not planning any major reorganization,” he said.

3D is “not the panacea studios had hoped,” said BTIG analyst Richard Greenfield, who downgraded the 6,705-screen Regal Cinema shares to “sell” in a report on the BTIG website Monday. Regal shares closed 1.2 percent lower at $11.81 in Tuesday trading. In the 10 days ending Sunday, total movie industry box office was down more than $152 million, or 30 percent, year over year, “a staggering number,” Greenfield said, “for an industry that expected 3D technology to motivate people to get out of their houses and go to the movies.” Total attendance for Q4 is likely to end up down 12 percent, he said.

Despite comments from CEO William Lynch last month during the Q2 Barnes & Noble earnings call that sales of Nook e-readers and the digital content platform “may be greater than we originally thought in our one- to three-year models,” the company appeared unprepared Christmas Day for the onslaught of Web traffic as Nook recipients tried to redeem gift cards and order e-books. Lynch said in late November that NOOKcolor was selling through at twice initial projections. In a prepared statement upon shipping of the product in mid-November, the company said NOOKcolor had already become the best-selling product at Barnes & Noble, with pre-order volume “significantly beyond that of the company’s aggressive expectations.”

Home Technology Specialists of America (HTSA) announced its eighth annual vendor awards, rewarding vendors for margin support, versatile product lines and reliability. The honors will be distributed at CES next week. Panasonic took overall vendor of the year honors for “outstanding product margins” and going “above and beyond to create a program that all could embrace.” The buying group, comprising specialty and custom dealers, tapped Lutron as custom vendor of the year citing its ability to “consistently manufacture and integrate high-quality lighting systems” and for “great training, bulletproof product and serious in-field representation.” Panasonic’s TC-P65VT25 plasma 3DTV was named product of the year, and Jim Sanduski, senior vice president of sales for Panasonic, was named man of the year for combining “industry intelligence with a soothing demeanor."

Procrastinators hoping to get good deals on pre-Christmas sales are being rewarded this week at online electronics sites. Low-end digital cameras are especially hot Christmas gift bargains this week as retailers try to reduce inventories with last-minute blowout sales. At RadioShack, stocking stuffer cameras include a Vivitar V25 2.1-megapixel camera, reduced to $14.99 from $19.99, and a Crayola 5.1-megapixel model discounted $10, to $29. Other deals include a Polaroid i1237 camera, cut 25 percent to $59, and a Kodak 14-megapixel model slashed to $79 from $149. To sweeten the pot further, RadioShack is tossing in a 7-inch digital photo frame with cameras priced $69 and up.

Worldwide factory equipment revenue generated by mobile communications will approach the quarter-trillion-dollar mark by year end, said iSuppli. Global mobile communications factory equipment revenue for 2010 is forecast to be $235.5 billion, up 7.9 percent from last year, on the expansion of mobile broadband worldwide and by sales of 3G phones, the industry research firm said. For 2011, revenue for the segment is projected to hit $271.3 billion. 3G mobile handsets will account for the largest share of revenue at $86.4 billion, up 34.6 percent from $64.2 billion in 2009, the firm said. Revenue is declining in older 1G and 2G mobile handsets, to $55.6 billion in 2010 from $68.3 billion in 2009, but remains significant in emerging markets in Latin America, Asia and Africa, it said. Revenue figures are much smaller in the nascent 4G category, “whose precise definition is in dispute,” iSuppli said. Sales are expected to come in significantly higher at $1.3 billion for 2010 compared with $11 million in 2009. Analyst Francis Sideco said 3G will likely continue to be the dominant technology through 2014, while wireless carriers wrestle with heavy data traffic and “attempt to maximize investments in existing 3.5G and 3.75G technologies through incremental network upgrades.” ISuppli also noted that carriers are deploying next-gen 4G technologies such as LTE that “will begin in earnest” by 2011. Smartphones are leading growth in the handset category, iSuppli said, with a projected increase of 40.6 percent this year, after a 12 percent expansion in 2009. Apple, Research in Motion and HTC continued to gain market share at the expense of other players, it said.

Potential seat kills led ESPN to designate six of its nine 3D cameras as robotic models as opposed to manned cameras at Friday’s first NBA basketball game televised on ESPN 3D, according to Anthony Bailey, vice president of emerging technologies at ESPN. Seat kills are the practice of putting cameras where paying customers ordinarily would sit. Bailey told Consumer Electronics Daily at a special TV viewing of the Miami Heat-New York Knicks game at New York’s Madison Square Garden that seat kills will remain an issue for 3D sports telecasts. He said games held in arenas as opposed to larger football stadiums are especially susceptible to seat kills.

One in five LCD TVs sold in the U.S. during Q3 this year used LED backlighting, said a survey by iSuppli. LED-lit LCD TVs accounted for 19.6 percent of TV purchases last quarter, up from 17.9 percent in Q2 and 4 percent in Q3 2009, iSuppli said. The share of 3D TVs among overall purchases, meanwhile, barely registered “a blip,” according to iSuppli, which said those purchased were in the 50-inch and larger segment.

Thiel Audio held the first of a series of webinars for dealers and current and potential customers. The company plans to use webinars for distributor and dealer training, consumer support and media events, said Dawn Cloyd, Thiel director of international sales. As evidence of the hazards of first runs, Cloyd said the Thursday webinar was designed and intended for consumers, “but lots of industry friends,” including anyone who had signed up for Thiel consumer e-news on its website, received the invitation, “an error on our part.” The upside was a “great response,” Cloyd said, resulting in overbooking beyond the 25-person limit.