Electronics Industry

While the consumer electronics world is watching Las Vegas this week, many manufacturers are also keeping an eye on foreign markets where they can build and sell their latest gadgets. The head of the trade group behind the International Consumer Electronics Show used the stage to drive home a political message Monday: Foreign trade is key to the growth of the industry and the overall health of the U.S. economy. Gary Shapiro, president and chief executive of the Consumer Electronics Assn.

Sony, Samsung and other consumer-electronics heavyweights are uniting to support a technology that could send high-definition video signals wirelessly from a single set-top box to screens around the home. The consortium announced Wednesday is an important development in the race to create the definitive way to replace tangles of video cables, but doesn't end it -- Sony and Samsung also support a competing technology. In the new consortium, Sony Corp. and Samsung Electronics Co.

Apple Inc.'s shares took their biggest tumble in eight years Monday, as worries about slowing spending hit technology stocks even harder than the broader market on a brutal day on Wall Street. Apple's 18% plunge was triggered by increasing evidence that sales of Macintosh computers were slowing. The company has been on a roll in recent years in large part because of the comeback of its Mac business, which has been growing three times as fast as the rest of the computer industry.

The Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas -- known in years past for its outsized booths, wall-to-wall crowds and lobster dinners -- is going to be a lot tamer next month. The show's producers are expecting an 8% drop in attendance to about 130,000 people, down from 141,000 in January 2008. Companies such as Cisco Systems Inc., Panasonic Corp., Belkin International Inc. and Sony Corp.

For more than a decade, Microsoft Corp. Chairman Bill Gates and others in the tech industry have touted a vision of a connected lifestyle, in which digital content can move across devices throughout the home and be taken on the go. It's been a slow march. But as Gates kicked off the International Consumer Electronics Show on Sunday, the industry has come further than ever in delivering on that concept. "Every year represents a lot of progress," he told the Associated Press.

At the world's biggest technology trade show this week, industry behemoths such as Microsoft Corp. and Sony Corp. are touting the myriad ways to marry PCs and TVs. But Apple Computer Inc. stole some of the Consumer Electronics Show's limelight Tuesday with its own device to do just that. The question is whether Apple can translate the buzz it so expertly builds around its product launches into the sort of market dominance it enjoys with its iPod.

Just when Sony Corp. appears to have turned around its electronics business, another part of its sprawling empire -- video games -- is dragging down profit. The Japanese electronics and entertainment company Tuesday blamed the launching costs of its PlayStation 3 game console for much of the 5% drop in profit for the last three months of 2006 to 159.9 billion yen ($1.3 billion). The PS3 launched in the United States and Japan in November.

Ed Daddy wasn't very surprised that his neighborhood CompUSA computer and home electronics store was closing. "Look at this," the 43-year-old auto parts salesman said, gesturing around the nearly deserted Glendale store on South Brand Boulevard. "Of course they can't survive." The consumer electronics retail industry, marked by cutthroat competition, suffered more casualties this week.

Intel Corp.'s plan to open a $2.5-billion microchip manufacturing plant in China marks a milestone in the Asian nation's drive to develop a sophisticated electronics industry. But in the United States, the project could spark concerns about technology transfer and the continued buildup of higher-end production work and jobs overseas.

Competition to cut prices and sell more flat-screen and plasma televisions continues to ravage home-electronics chains. On Monday, Circuit City Stores Inc., the nation's second-largest consumer electronics retailer, said it expected a pretax loss of as much as $90 million this quarter and revised its forecast for the first half of 2007. The news sent the company's shares down more than 7% in after-hours trading. Sales in April were "substantially below plan," the company said.