Best Buy’s move to close its namesake stores in China caps a gradual pullback from the market that began not long after expansion plans were aired. The chain will take $225 million to $245 million in restructuring charges in fiscal 2011 and 2012 to close nine stores, including six in Shanghai and two in Turkey, the first of which opened in Izmir in late 2009, Best Buy said. The move will yield $60 million to $70 million in annual savings, the company said.

Walmart experienced “continued price deflation” in electronics in Q4 ended Jan. 31, Bill Simon, CEO of its Walmart U.S. division, said in a pre-recorded earnings call on Tuesday. But he said, “Despite the price pressure on TVs, we still had positive unit growth, and we grew market share,” although he didn’t say by how much. Electronics make up the largest percentage of Walmart U.S.’s overall general merchandise sales, he said.

In the wake of Borders’ Chapter 11 filing last week, Barnes & Noble has suspended its dividend of 25 cents a share to pad its cash flow with $60 million and give the company “flexibility” to make quick investment decisions “as opportunities arise,” the company said in its fiscal Q3 2011 earnings webcast Tuesday. CEO William Lynch noted that Barnes & Noble had predicted “consolidation in the market” in brick-and-mortar stores and said the company doesn’t plan to shut stores besides the “nominal number” it previously announced. He said “a minority” of Borders’ 200 locations “appear attractive to us.”

LAS VEGAS -- Nationwide Marketing Group is taking a three-pronged strategy toward everyday low pricing, using the Funai, Haier and Sansui brands to bolster its dealers’ profile with entry-level customers, company executives said at a meeting of the group. Funai and Haier courted Nationwide dealers a year ago, and Sansui joined the fray this week with 42-inch and 46-inch edge-lit LED-backlit 1080p LCD TVs with $598 and $700 dealer costs after $22 and $30 in cashback incentives, Sansui Sales Manager Hideo Sakakihara said. The 42-inch and 46-inch LCD TVs will carry $699 and $799 prices, he said.

CEA lobbied on a host of energy and environmental issues as Congress wound down last year, the group’s Q4 lobbying report with Congress shows. The report “reflects the priorities of the CEA on environmental and other issues,” said Walter Alcorn, vice president of environmental affairs. “Those priorities have remained pretty consistent.” Meanwhile, smart grid and renewable energy issues have became a lobbying focus for many companies and industry groups in the quarter, reports show.

Sony’s PS3 and PSP were again the weakest-selling videogame systems in the U.S. in January, while the Xbox 360 became the top-selling system and was the only one to see a sales increase from January 2010, NPD’s data showed. Microsoft said sales of its console grew to about 381,000 from about 333,000 a year ago (CED Feb 16/10 p6). The growth was aided by continued demand for the Kinect for Xbox 360 motion-sensing system that launched for the holiday season. But 360 sales tumbled from the 1.86 million sold in December 2010 for the holiday season (CED Jan 18 p3). The 360’s U.S. installed base grew to about 26 million.

Retailers are flushing out inventories of standard, LED and 3D 2010 flat-panel TVs at steep discounts, our survey of retail sales circulars found last week. For its Presidents’ Day sale through Monday, Hhgregg listed about 15 TV models on sale across a swath of brands. A Sony package combining a 55-inch 3D LED LCD TV with a PS3 player was priced at $2,498, reflecting a $1,300 discount. The retailer chopped $500 off a Samsung 1080p 58-inch plasma TV, bringing it to $1,299, and cut a 50-inch 1080p Samsung plasma 25 percent to $1,079 and a 50-inch 720p model to $719. An LG 720p 50-inch plasma bottomed out at $719, down $80, and a Panasonic 50-inch 720p plasma was offered with $200 savings at $599.

Several regional CE chains plotting expansion have better bargaining leverage from the recent demise of Ultimate Electronics and from Borders’ bankruptcy, said industry executives we canvassed. The Ultimate Electronics move to liquidate 46 stores and the Borders decision last week to shut 200 stores will dump retail space into a market already bursting at the seams with empty former Circuit City, CompUSA and Tweeter locations.

Nvidia’s 3D Vision business will grow 200 percent this year as 3D technology takes hold in CE products and PCs, Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang said on a conference call. The expansion will be driven by a broader array of 3D Vision-capable products, including Acer’s 27-inch PC monitor, Dell’s XPS notebook with a 17-inch LCD and more than 500 3D-capable videogames and Blu-ray movies, Huang said.

Virgin Media gained 50,000 pre-registrations for TiVo’s DVR service in advance of a Q2 commercial rollout as the cable company builds on a year-old partnership, Virgin executives told analysts Thursday. The U.K. cable operator will spend an incremental $64.6 million in the second half on capital projects related to mobile and TiVo-related businesses, but will keep overall capital costs at 15-17 percent of total revenue, Chief Financial Officer Eamonn O'Hare said. “There will be an increase in capital expense related to TiVo, but that funding will be provided by doing less in other areas."