Electronics
Ceconomy, the owner of electronics chains MediaMarkt and Saturn, has appointed a new CEO and a new CFO. After the exit of Pieter Haas, Jörn Werner and Karin Sonnenmoser will take over.
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Ceconomy, parent company of MediaMarkt and Saturn, is putting its alliance with Fnac Darty on hold for now. The company wants to find a solution for its ongoing poor performance and financial troubles first.
Famous British music chain HMV has filed for bankruptcy for the second time. After a much more modest restart in 2013, the "tsunami of challenges for British retailers" has brought them down again.
Voice commerce, shopping through a smart speaker like Amazon Echo, struggles to gain popularity. eMarketer had hoped that almost a third of users would be shopping through smart speakers by 2019, but it turns out less than one percent has adopted the practice.
Ceconomy, the holding owning electronics chains MediaMarkt and Saturn, has had a bad year: after CEO Pieter Haas' departure in mid-October, now financial director Mark Frese also quits.
Bernard Darty, co-founder of French electronics chain Darty, has died at age 84. The group was founded in 1957 by Bernard Darty and his brothers Natan and Marcel, but became an international electronics group.
Europe's biggest electronics retailer MediaMarktSaturn has installed a self-checkout in its flagship store in Hamburg. Customers can now shop without passing by a cash register, if they so choose.
An international group of companies is set to test drones at the DronePort campus in Brustem, Belgium. Internet giant Amazon is among its members.
A new employee called Toru is starting in Zalando's warehouse in Erfurt, Germany. You might consider this nothing special, but Toru is an autonomous picking robot that can not only move whole boxes, but even individual objects.
Ceconomy CEO Pieter Haas leaves the holding company of German electronics chains Media Markt and Saturn with immediate effect, after another series of disappointing results.
German electronics group Ceconomy has released a profit warning: disappointing sales in its MediaMarkt and Saturn stores have caused the company to miss the profit forecast.
Dutch electronics retailer Coolblue has launched its website and app in English as a third language (after Dutch and French), aiming to increase their service for English-speaking customers in the Benelux. However, the retailer does not (yet) speak of a step towards foreign markets.
Ceconomy, MediaMarkt's parent company, has sold its onerous Russian division to local electronics chain M.video. The German electronics giant does not quit Russia altogether however, as it continues as shareholder of M.video.
BackMarket, a French start-up that wants to be a marketplace for refurbished smart phones, tablets and laptops, has secured a 41 million euro investment. The most famous new investor is Bernard Arnault, CEO of luxury group LVMH.
Dutch e-commerce group Coolblue has terminated hundreds of its web shops, instead preferring one central web shop at coolblue.be/nl. This may be the precursor to an international expansion, the company says.
Chinese smartphone manufacturer Xiaomi just opened a physical store in Paris, part of its ambitious European expansion plan. The brand is also dreaming of an American launch.
