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

HMV sales for the financial year ending April 2012 show further declines despite restructuring efforts-- with pre-tax losses reaching £38.6 million.

The annual report follows the stepping down of CEO Simon Fox after 6 years on the job. Replacing him is ex-Jessops boss Trevor Moore.

Finance Director David Wolffe also hands in his resignation, and will be succeeded by ex-Best Buy Europe CFO Ian Kenyon.

Total sales fall by -19.7% (reaching £923.3m) while like-for-like sales fall by -12.1% as the retailer continues to struggle within an increasingly competitive market.

HMV's restructuring costs total £11.1m, including job cuts and the closing of around 30 stores back in 2011. However it gets some windfall from the £32m sale of the London music venue Hammersmith Apollo, as well as the the Waterstones book chain sale.

Film companies and record labels also stepped in to help the ailing retailer, while increasing demand for tablets and headphones helped offset collapsing CD, DVD and game sales.

The retailer is in fact hopeful for a return to profits-- "at least £10m" come 2013, even with debts worth £166m.

Go HMV Full Year Results 2012

Go HMV Directorate Change

Dixons Retail takes control of ownership of French online retailer PIXmania-- paying founders Jean-Emile and Steve Rosenblum €10 million in cash for their 22% stake. The deal increases the Dixons share in the retailer to 99% and also waives around €5m in debts the pair owes to Dixons.

Club Fotovista (a French company owned by former and current PIXmania employees) owns the last remaining 1%.

The acquisition allows Dixons to take day-to-day control of PIXmania.

Dixons bought a 77% stake in PIXmania back in 2006 for €266m. That gives you an idea of how retail value has dropped since the global recession-- if 22% is now worth only €10m (plus waiving €5m in debts) when its 2006 value was closer to €83m.

This is Dixons’ plan to turnaround what you could call "the PIXmania problem." PIXmania saw like-for-like revenues fall 10% to £665m in its most recent full-year results and it lost £19.8m in the 12 months to April 28 (compared to a profit of £3.5m the year before). Those losses compelled Dixons to take a writedown in goodwill of £190m in its annual report citing a good portion of that as due to Pixmania’s "supply issues following natural disasters" (Thailand?), "consumer declines in core markets" (southern Europe’s economic disaster) and "transition to a new operating model."

"PIXmania's own trading business continues to face strong market headwinds and this move will also allow us to manage the company in line with the group's wider strategy and take the decisive actions necessary to improve its performance," Dixons Retail CEO Sebastian James told Reuters.

PIXmania sells in 26 countries via web and currently has trials in 17 high street outlets in continental Europe. Its pan-European e-commerce platform and business is what holds attraction for Dixons. PIXmania's e-Merchant platform also handles multi-channel operations for Dixons UK & Ireland and 3rd party clients (including Carrefour).

Go Dixons Retail Takes Full Control of PIXmania (Reuters)

Will BlackBerry maker RIM sell off part of the company? According to Bloomberg sources, the RIM enterprise-services unit has "attracted the interests" of no other than IBM.

The enterprise-services unit operates the server network running the BlackBerry support and messaging network, and is valued at around $1.5-2.5 billion.

However RIM appears to be "inclined to wait" at least until the BlackBerry 10 launch before it decides to sell of parts of the company, especially since "no talks are currently under way."

Earlier this week rumours emerged of another potential RIM buyer-- Samsung. Influential Jeffries analyst Peter Misek said RIM was trying to "revive talks" with Samsung to license the BlackBerry 10 OS.

And RIM CEO Torsten Heins did tell The Telegraph the company is looking into licensing BB10 to 3rd parties...

However the hearsay was dismissed by Samsung, with a statement saying the S. Korean company has no interest in either licensing BB10 or buying the company.

Either way, RIM remains in trouble-- and will end up struggling even more should the much-awaited (and delayed) Q1 2013 BB10 launch proves to be a bust.

Go RIM Said to Draw Interest from IBM on Enterprise Services (Bloomberg)

Go Samsung Says Not Considering Buying RIM

Pacific Media Associates (PMA) reports the Euro 2012 championship and the lead-up to the Olympics brought a "bouyant" Q2 2012 for 1080p projector sales in Europe, as the WW projector market totals 2.3m units in the quarter.

Global projector growth for Q2 2012 reaches 7% Y-o-Y, with solid gains for high-end projector sales. The US market leads the world in high-end projectors, with the region hitting a "record-setting" Q2.

Meanwhile the sub-1000 lumen projector sector sees Y-o-Y declines due to low embeddable mobile device module shipments, and standalone projectors (including pico and personal models) only manage small Y-o-Y gains in Q2 2012-- even if PMA believes both segments should pick up strongly by H2 2012.

Go PMA Q2 2012 Projector Market Tracker