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Hyundai hopes it can make online car shopping simpler
Dead-simple online shopping has spoiled us all, and Hyundai wants car shopping to feel just as painless. With its newly announced Shopper Assurance program (which launches first in Miami, Orlando, Dallas and Houston) potential car buyers visiting dealership websites will see more straightforward prices that factor in whatever company discounts and incentives may be applicable. According to a report from the AP, those local dealerships will also be encouraged to match prices ferreted out by resources like Edmunds and Kelley Blue Book. In theory, this means you'll get just as good a deal from the dealership down the road — if not a little better — than further-flung car sellers.
Snap CEO: Spectacles sales are 'over 150,000 units'
Now that the hype around Snap's Spectacles has died down, there is the question of how many units the company actually sold. In a conversation today at the Vanity Fair New Establishment Summit, CEO Evan Spiegel revealed that sales of its camera-equipped sunglasses had topped 150,000 -- more than the 100,000 units he claims the company expected and more than the iPod sold in its first year. It's hard to tell if that's spin or a sign that Snap has a real future in hardware, but Spiegel is pushing forward, as he told Walter Isaacson "If you look at the Snapchat camera, layering this expression on top of your experience encourages anyone anywhere to be creative." Of the company's IPO and recently slumping stock price he said: "I think one of the things we've been going through this year is how to communicate the Snap story."
EU withheld a study that shows piracy doesn't hurt sales
In 2013, the European Commission ordered a €360,000 ($430,000) study on how piracy affects sales of music, books, movies and games in the EU. However, it never ended up showing it to the public except for one cherry-picked section. That's possibly because the study concluded that there was no evidence that piracy affects copyrighted sales, and in the case of video games, might actually help them.
US music sales keep climbing thanks to streaming
Last year, streaming generated more money in the US for the music business than all other forms of distribution for the first time ever, and that trend is continuing in spades. In the first half of 2017, the industry raked in just under $4 billion, up 17 percent over the same period last year, with 62 percent of that coming from streaming. If the trend continues, the industry should easily surpass the $7.7 billion it earned in 2016, which was already the best year for music since 2009.
Toys ‘R’ Us has declared bankruptcy
Toys 'R' Us might file for bankruptcy as soon as today, according to Bloomberg. That should help the toy giant restructure the $400 million in debt that comes due for it next year, which it was saddled with after getting bought out a decade ago. While the retail chain has been suffering declining sales for five years, Amazon has continued to grow its own toy sales, taking a bigger share of the industry.
Best Buy plans to send sales consultants to more homes this fall
Best Buy, the company that'll sell you overpriced HDMI cables and charge a premium for making basic adjustments to your TV, wants to put its sales people in more houses. The Associated Press reports that the expanded service will be free, and this fall will move beyond the five test cities where it's currently available. The retailer says that in its tests, customers spend more when a sales person comes to their homes versus what they do in stores.
Microsoft boasts about Xbox One X sales without giving numbers
Microsoft has been counting the days until the release of its powered-up mid-generation console, the Xbox One X, on November 7th. The company even announced a stylized but otherwise identical Scorpio edition to commemorate the launch. Apparently, that's gotten players hyped up enough to preorder the console in record but entirely unspecified numbers, Microsoft boasted in a blog post:
Xiaomi is one of the world's biggest phonemakers, again
Samsung shipped two percent more phones in the second quarter of 2017 compared to the same period last year, according to Strategy Analytics. By shipping 79.5 million out of 360 million units worldwide, it remains the top smartphone-maker in the world -- it has been for a while, so it's not the standout name in the market research company's list. It's Xiaomi, which reclaimed the fifth spot in the top phone manufacturers list for the first time in a year.
Nintendo’s Switch continues to outsell the competition
Despite its launch issues and rollercoaster early sales projections, Nintendo's portable console can safely be declared a legitimate hit for the company at this point. In March, the Switch became the best-selling piece of game hardware, outselling Nintendo's own projections, and selling more copies of Breath of the Wild than there were consoles to play them on. Although sales slowed in the month after launch -- dropping from 906,000 units in March to 280,000 units April -- the Switch still continued to top the charts.
Samsung's Galaxy S8 hits sales records despite the Note 7's flameout
As Samsung was readying the Galaxy S8, everyone wondered if the company would be able to recover from the disastrous, exploding Note 7. From a pure quality of hardware perspective, the S8 appears to be a home run -- as long as nothing unexpected happens. The other question is whether customers would reject Samsung after the hit it took last year, but it sounds like that hasn't happened: Samsung says that pre-orders for the S8 and S8+ were the best it has ever seen.
Nintendo's fastest-selling console ever couldn't top 'Zelda'
Nintendo has been proclaiming that the Switch is its fastest-selling console ever since the system launched, but now it has numbers to back that up. Based on NPD reports, it says the Switch sold 906,000 units in the US in March. What's surprising, however, is that The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is not just its fastest-selling launch title of all time, its Switch version actually outsold the console, moving 925,000 copies (add 460,000 for the Wii U and you have 1.3 million total).
Amazon wants social media influencers to sell you products
Amazon's always kicked a few cents the way of its unpaid salespeople if they convince family and friends to purchase something. Now, however, the company is making a big play for people and companies with large social media followings. The retailer has launched an "influencer program" that enables folks that are big on the internet to set up their own branded stores.
WSJ: Nintendo is selling way more Switches than it expected
We already knew that the Switch was Nintendo's fastest-selling console ever, but we now have an idea as to how many units it's pushing out. The WSJ says Nintendo plans to double production from 8 million units to 16 million for its 2017 fiscal year (starting in April) in order to keep up with higher-than-expected sales.
The Switch is the fastest-selling console in Nintendo history
If you've had a hard time finding a Nintendo Switch at the store, there may be good reason for that. The Friday through Saturday sales for Nintendo's latest console surpassed the first two-day sales for any system "in Nintendo history," according to tweets from the New York Times' Nick Wingfield. The info comes from an interview with Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime.
Lenovo is being dragged down by its mobile business
Lenovo is accustomed to good financial news, but even it's not immune to the tepid smartphone market. The company's mobile division lost $112 million as sales took a 23 percent nosedive, including both Moto and Lenovo handsets. Not long ago, Lenovo was the number one smartphone maker in China, with mobile sales (including tablets) actually besting PCs. Now, however, it's well behind arch-foes Oppo, Huawei and Vivo.
Tag Heuer sold more $1,500 smartwatches than it expected
I'm not much of a smartwatch guy, but I like my LG R Android Wear watch and its bright OLED screen. An acquaintance recently expressed admiration for it, and to my surprise, came back the next day with a $1,500 Tag Heuer Connected. ("Must be nice to have money," I thought.) He wasn't alone, though: In an interview with German site NZZ, Tag Heuer CEO Jean-Claude Biver said that over 56,000 people bought one, tripling expected sales. As a result, the Swiss company will release new smartwatch models in May and expects to sell 150,000 units.
The iPhone 7 may not be selling as well as Apple hoped
Traditionally, new iPhones sell pretty well in their first few months -- often outperforming the previous model's sales during the same quarter. That might not be the case with Apple's latest handset: according to Nikkei, sluggish sales are forcing the company to cut back production of iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus devices. Based on data received from suppliers, Nikkei expects Apple to slow stock production by about 10 percent.
Nintendo sold 196,000 NES Classic Editions in November
The NES Classic Edition has become a tough gift to find during this holiday season. Cheers to those who've already located one (or two), but according to industry tracker NPD, Nintendo sold 196,000 pieces of nostalgia-bait to US customers between its launch and the end of November. Compare that to Media-Create's numbers, which showed Japanese sales of the Classic Mini Famicom surpassed 261k units in just one week. Clearly, the demand is there, but the question is if Nintendo will be able to make enough of the systems available before the holiday rush is over. (If it follows this up with an SNES Classic Edition, we'll probably be lining up all over again.)
Sony has sold 50 million PlayStation 4s
After surpassing 40 million sales back in May, Sony has now sold 50 million PlayStation 4s. That figure includes PS4, PS4 Pro and the new slim version of the console, and represents sales to customers, rather than shipments to stores. The 50 million milestone took just over three years for Sony to reach. For comparison, the PlayStation 3 was on sale for four and a half years before Sony had shipped the same number.
UK vinyl sales made more money than music downloads last week
Digital music might be the future, but legacy formats like vinyl aren't going away any time soon. New figures from the Entertainment Retailers Association (ERA) have shown that more money was spent on vinyl records than digital music downloads in the UK last week, highlighting a significant shift in how consumers are choosing to buy their music.
