Toshiba has hinted this week that it may be leaving the LCD production business, a way to curb ever-increasing losses.
Corporate senior executive VP Fumio Muraoka says the strong yen, steep price declines in the units, and shrinking demand may lead to Toshiba needing to leave the business.
Toshiba Mobile Display posted an operating loss of $211 million USD for the months of April to December 2009, which followed losses of $180 million and $110 million for the division for the same periods in 2008 and 2007.
The division used to be a partnership with Panasonic but Toshiba bought out the entire stake in March.
Result for: declines
Last week we reported that the Nintendo Wii, among other consoles, took a serious hit to its sales, seeing a 57 percent drop year-on-year for the month of May.
The drop marked the third consecutive month the Wii saw substantial declines in sales. Supply issues are no longer a problem either, as there are ample amounts on store shelves.
Analysts are now coming out in droves declaring the console has reached a saturation point at its current price and price cut is necessary to stop the continued decline in sales. A $50 price cut, bringing the Wii to the same price as that of the low-end Xbox 360 Arcade seems to be a good point.
Nintendo continues to deny any price cut is in the works however. We have “no plans to reduce its prices at this time.”
“We expect Nintendo to cut the price of the Wii before the holiday,” adds Wedbush Morgan video game analyst Michael Pachter. The Wii is the only console to not see its price tag slashed since launch.
BMO Capital analyst Edward Williams wrote that he believes the Wii “is selling in a more traditional seasonal pattern.”
Major US retailer GameStop CEO Daniel DeMatteo agrees with the sentiment and believes a minimum $50 USD price cut is coming to the Wii by the Q3 2009.
Result for: declines
According to new figures from the NPD Group, video game software sales in the United States fell 23 percent year-on-year for the month of April.
Overall sales fell to $510 million USD, but NPD analyst Anita Frazier did note that the month had a particularly weak software release schedule.
“The number of new releases this month is fairly comparable to what was introduced last April, but GTA IV (on both PS3 and the 360) sold nearly 1 million more units last April than the entire top 10 list did this year,” added Frazier.
“April 2008 also featured the release of Mario Kart for Wii, which has remained a top-selling game for this past year, and is on this month’s top 10 list as well. This really illustrates the impact of comparing against a month when there were several new blockbuster titles new to the market,” she concluded.
For hardware sales, all the next-gen consoles saw declines with Nintendo leading the way with 340,000 Wii units sold, a 55 percent decline year on year. Following was the Xbox 360 with 175,000 units sold, a 7 percent decline. Surprisingly, the PlayStation 2 came in next, posting a huge 30 percent increase in sales. The PlayStation 3 lagged behind again, with 127,000 units sold, a 33 percent decline year-on-year.
