Last week, Japan’s fifth largest discount electronics retailer, Bic Camera, announced it would soon obtain a 50 percent share of Japan’s sixth-largest discount electronics retailer, Kojima, thus making the combined companies Japan’s second-largest electronics retailer. Bic operates 34 stores in large cities while Kojima has about 200 in the suburbs. The deal would give the combined companies greater leverage to negotiate lower prices with manufacturers.
That sounds like good news for consumers, but it’s also a clear indication of how desperate the home-electronics situation is. The record losses recently reported by Sony and Panasonic for fiscal 2011 were worthy of front-page headlines in overseas newspapers. Sharp is also swimming in red ink. The company saw a 30 percent decline in year-on-year sales due to sluggish demand for liquid crystal displays in Japan, thus forcing it to accept investment help from a Taiwanese company, but even with that Sharp has already predicted a deficit of