On CE - For Dealers, Distributors and OEMs of Consumer Electronics throughout EMEA

Germany's Otto considers the sale of French mail order subsidiary 3 Suisse, following declining sales and losses in the "high double-digit million" range.

"We have involved banks and are currently examining the market to see which parts could be sold," an Otto spokesman tells both Financial Times Deutschland and Reuters. Otto owns 51% of 3 Suisse, a stake it has been building since 1974-- and does not rule out selling it all.

According to the FTD Otto booked over €50 million in 3 Suisse losses following a -5.6% decline in 2011 sales.

The French Mulliez family (current Auchan owners) owns 46% of the company, while employees own the rest.

Otto already tried to sell off 3 Suisse back in 2011, but pulled the sale when it failed to get the prefferred price of €1.5 billion.

The announcement follows news of France's PPR attempts to sell off its own mail order business and 3 Suisse rival, RedCats. PPR has been trying to sell off Redcats for over a year-- so far with no success.

Go Otto Goes All Out in France (FTD)

Go Otto Eyes Partial Sale of France's 3 Suisse (Reuters)

IMS Research forecasts the next growth market covers devices beyond smartphones or PCs-- not when it includes offerings as varied as augmented-reality (AR) glasses, light-up cocktail dresses and sports bras with built-in heart monitors.

It appears the wearable technology market is "on the fast track with growth," with shipments to potentially rise by over 500% over the 2011-2016 period according to IMS Research. Wearable technology shipments total 14 million in 2011-- a total set to grow to around 92.5m units (if not more) in 2016 according to a mid-range forecast from the analyst.

Factors boosting growth include new products and widespread availability from major brands, while a potential lack of products, poor user adoption and deficient user experiences will be chief obstacles.

“Wearable technologies provide a range of benefits to users, from informing and entertaining, to monitoring health, to improving fitness, to enhancing military and industry applications,” IMS says.

As we all know, Microsoft wants to take over living rooms through the Xbox 360 console-- and as it happens it now launches Xbox Music, a streaming music service for the 360, Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8.

Xbox Music liberally borrows features from all familiar online music services. It offers around 30 million songs, with Spotify-style streaming, artist-based radio, cloud storage and an iTunes-style music store. The UI is also familiar, since it uses the tiles Microsoft likes so much.

Pricing varies from free (if ad-supported) to monthly subscriptions and pay-per-song.

Xbox 360 users will get Xbox Music first, as a Dashboard update. The service also comes pre-installed in Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 devices, with all versions sharing the same UI.

Windows 7 or Windows Phone 7 users will not be able to access the service though... and have to stick to the Zune Music Service instead.

The service will be available in 15 global regions on launch, a list Microsoft plans to expand to 22 in the future.

Go Introducing Xbox Music

Is the Galaxy S III is too massive for small European hands? Samsung Mobile Communications head JK Shin confirms the release of a 4-inch version of the smartphone, citing increase in demand for 4-inch devices from the European market.

"There's a lot of demand for a 4-inch device in Europe. Some call it an entry-level device, but we call it "Mini,'" JK Shin says.

The regular Galaxy S III display is 4.8-inch-- not too unusual (or large) in an Android landscape where the average size for a high-end device is around 4.5-inch.

However, alongside the titular downsizing the Galaxy S III mini also receives something of a downgrade. Display resolution is 800 x 480 (down from 1280 x 720), the processor is a 1GHz dual-core number (instead of the quad-core Samsung Exynos inside the bigger brother) and the rear-facing camera is 5MP instead of 8MP.

4G capability also gets the kick.

Bigger mobile devices are something of a surprise market success... so much so even Apple boosted the display size (up to 4-inch, mind) in the iPhone 5. Mind, no confirmation exists on whether Apple will actually shrink the iPad in size as yet.

Go Samsung Introduces Galaxy S III Mini

Go Samsung Galaxy S III Mini 4-inch Announcement (INews 24)