Samsung has posted excellent results for the last quarter of 2011, elevating its turnover to 31.6 billion euro and its profit to 3.5 billion euro. The company's results were fuelled by a record sales of smartphones in the October to December 2011 period, estimated to be 32 million (Samsung does not release exact sales figures).

The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) has warned Eastman Kodak they failed to meet its criteria and may well be delisted later this year. Eastman Kodak's share has been under $1 for 30 consecutive trading-days and will be expelled from the exchange early July, except if the share closes over $1 on the last trading day of any calendar month and has an average closing price of at least $1 over the 30 trading-days before that.

Yesterday Greenpeace has announced the results of its 17th “Guide to greener electronics”, in which it ranks 15 major electronics producers based on respect for the environment (or the lack thereof). HP takes over the first spot from Nokia, while newcomer RIM (Blackberry) has by far the worst score. 

HP cleanest electronics producer

HP owes its rise from fourth to first to reducing carbon emissions from its supply chain, reducing its own emissions and advocating for strong climate legislation. Dell rockets from tenth to second place thanks to its high sustainability scores, but scores zero points in the “Clean energy policy advocacy” criterion. Nokia, who had been number one since 2008, drops to third because of energy issues. Apple jumps from ninth to fourth because of a top score in the 'green products' area.

LG, Toshiba and RIM (Blackberry) form the bottom three: RIM even received zeroes in six of the thirteen categories. LG and Toshiba are encouraged to improve on energy criteria.

Only two of the fifteen producers, HP and Dell, receive more than 50%. Last year, there were eight companies that reached the 'green' marks, but Greenpeace has upgraded its criteria “to keep manufacturers focused on environment and society”.
 

Rakuten, Japan's top internet retailer, has bought its British counterpart Play.com for about £25 million (just short of €30 million). Play.com is one of the biggest British e-commerce sites, specialised in the sales of DVDs, CDs and books. The webshop hopes the takeover can help them expand into such areas as clothes and accessories.

Expanding in Europe

Play.com is not the first European acquisition made by Rakuten: the group has already taken over sites like PriceMinister from France and Tradoria from Germany and is also active in Europe through Buy.com. The international expansion is necessary for the Japanese retailer as it faces threats like population decrease and lower consumer spendings in its home market. The group tries to achieve that expansion not only through acquisitions, but also through joint ventures like the one with China's main search engine Baidu.

Rakuten is currently active in over ten countries and employs more than 7000 people. Its newest acquisition Play.com is based on Jersey, technically not a member of the UK and not subject to British VAT rules.
 

Last year, the combined markets of Western Europe saw over 10 million e-books sold, five times more than the year before. Futuresource Consulting expects the the rise to be almost as big this year, possibly reaching 32 million items sold. 

UK sells 50% of European e-books

The United Kingdom accounts for almost half of the e-book sales – mostly because of the British popularity of Amazon's Kindle. The rest of Europe is far more reluctant, but analysts believe other countries will embrace e-books as well once the offer will become more localised, not as exclusively English as it still is today.

Currently only 1% of the European book market consists of e-book spendings, but Futuresource predicts that this number should rise to 15% in four years time, reaching 1.6 billion euro in 2015. 

Germany is Amazon's hope

Germany is expected to be the market with the biggest potential for growth, their current spendings on books (per capita) being twice as big as the English. Fiona Hoy, market analyst at Futuresource, believes that they will embrace e-books even firmer: "By 2015 the tablet market will account for close to half of all paid-for e-book sales in Germany, compared to around one in three in the UK and France." 

E-retail giant Amazon.com announced excellent quarterly results yesterday, confirming its global dominance in the internet retail market. While profits went down 8% compared to last year, sales went up a staggering 51% tot $9.91 billion (almost €7 billion). 

Huge sales growth leads to investment, not profit

“Low prices, expanding selection, fast delivery and innovation are driving the fastest growth we’ve seen in over a decade,” said Amazon.com founder and CEO Jeff Bezos, in a statement.

Amazon paid a high price for its expansions though, as operational costs soared with 63% - causing net profits to drop to 191 million dollar (133 million euro). More employees, acquisitions of other companies and logistic and technological renovations cut a huge part of Amazon's income. 

Amazon's new tablet

Amazon still had no sales figures for the Kindle, its successful e-reader, but announced that the “Worldwide Electronics and Other General Merchandise” (including the Kindle) saw its quarterly sales increase by 69% 

The only disappointed noises came from tech followers, who had expected that Amazon would introduce its own tablet computer, competing with rival Apple's iPad. The e-retail giants however made no such move.

For the first time in twenty years, Media Markt and Saturn have generated losses instead of profits. The price for the disastrous figures is high: half a billion euro cuts and 3000 people laid off. The chain specified that there will be no job cuts in Belgium, labeled as an expanding market.

Three markets cause €44M loss

In the second quarter of 2011, Media-Saturn's operational loss was 44 million euro, as opposed to a 41 million euro profit the year before. A disappointing result on the German market is the main cause of this year's loss, as well as the expensive (and slow) expansion in China and the separation from the French activities. 

Focus on new web shop

In this light, the new strategic decisions for the electronics twins will be tremendously important. As we mentioned before, Media Markt and Saturn will start focussing on e-retailing, with the aim of becoming Europe's main online electronics retailer by 2015 with a turnover of 5 billion euro. Owner holding Metro has confirmed that both Media Markt and Saturn will also focus on offering the sharpest (possible) prices. 

Apart from Media-Saturn, Metro announced only good results, stating its EBIT will rise 10% this year. Nevertheless, Metro is concerned as Media-Saturn realises almost 30% of its total turnover – and was the fastest grower in the whole holding.

German electronics distributors Media Markt and Saturn have finally decided to enter the online market. Their goal is not modest: becoming market leaders. 

Saturn starts web shop in 2011, Media Markt in 2012 

Saturn will open its German web shop right before holiday season, while its sister company Media Markt will join them in the first quarter of 2012 – according to Metro chairman Eckhard Cordes in the Germain Welt am Sonntag. 

During this year, preparations will include takeovers of online electronics retailers, as to acquire the necessary know-how. Just like the recently bought web shop Redcoon, those retailers will continue to function as separate entities, so Metro can make their grasp on the online market as complete as possible – with the minimum goal being 30%. 

Reassuring the franchisees

To reassure the franchisees of the physical stores (which had been a major issue in the past), they will receive a commission on the web shop turnover. Moreover, prices in web shop and physical stores will be the same, and franchisees will only have to deal with the web shop if the ordered products are too big or too complicated to be simply delivered by a courier service.

So far, there are no concrete plans to start with a Belgian web shop. The Dutch version is already online: it was the test project that started two years ago.

Following arch rival Apple's exuberant sales figures, Microsoft also published impressive growth statistics. Eclipsing analysts' expectations of 9%, Microsoft's 4.07 billion euro profits is a 30% rise compared to the year before.

While profits grew fast, the pseudo-monopolist's turnover grew 'only' 8% to a total of 12.2 billion euro. After a period of crisis and – therefore – IT cost reductions, many companies have invested in new software packages during the last year. 

Microsoft Stores to counter Apple?

Microsoft also announced to start applying an aggressive retail strategy, opening 75 new Microsoft Stores in the US alone in the next two years.  The IT giant will also open stores outside its home market, directly challenging Apple's hen with the golden eggs – the Apple Stores. 

This move comes as a surprise as the 11 existing stores have not yet generated any profit. Microsoft, being a software firm, can only display very few fancy products – which is exactly where its arch rival gets its buzz from. Another threat to Microsoft stores is that their products are also being offered by many other distributors.