Are extended warranties worth buying for digital cameras and other electronics products? The New York Times finds out in an article that hints that warranties are more a way for the retailer to make a substantial amount of extra cash:

“In electronics, the gross margin for merchandise - the difference between what a store pays for goods and what it sells them for - is “25 percent, give or take,” at chains like Best Buy, Circuit City and PC Richards, said Professor Alan Kane of the Columbia Business School. Extended service contracts, on the other hand, produce a gross margin of “45 percent or more,” he said. Bill Cimino, a Circuit City spokesman, said that 3.8 percent of the company’s total annual sales of $10 billion, or about $380 million, are warranty sales for third-party insurers - or protection plans, as Circuit City calls them. Mr. Cimino said he bought one himself on a television, but declined one on a humidifier.”

What do you think - do you usually buy an extended warranty, or do you think they are a complete waste of money?

Website: The New York Times - To Buy or Not to Buy: The Quandary of Warranties

HP Press Release

Smiles from across the UK have created the world’s largest photo exhibition, featuring over 33,000 smiles.

LONDON, August 26, 2005 – BRITISH smiles are today being celebrated as the UK claims another Guinness World Record with the opening of the largest photo exhibition ever.

33,401 smiling photos have been donated to the record attempt by people across the UK. These will feature in the exhibition at the Royal College of Art 26 – 29 August 2005.

But smiling most are the children reliant on the work of NCH, the children’s charity. For every smile photo donated to the record attempt, the NCH received 25p from Hewlett Packard. This money will be spent on projects to help disadvantaged children across the UK.

Smile donations varied heavily between regions, and although Manchester was named “Smiling capital of the UK” in a study earlier this year1, they were beaten by Hull who topped the table for most smiling pictures donated to the record attempt (2300).

ATI Technologies Press Release

Entrants will compete for more than $15,000 in prizes

MARKHAM, Ontario—(BUSINESS WIRE)—Aug. 25, 2005—ATI Technologies Inc. (NASDAQ:ATYT) (TSX:ATY) is inviting photographers 13 years of age or older from across North America to showcase their talent and compete for the ultimate digital imaging system and other great prizes in ATI’s new Snap! Share! Win! photo contest.

Photographers of every skill level can enter the Snap! Share! Win! contest. Fifteen semifinalists will be chosen by a panel of five celebrity judges, including photography and digital imaging pros like U.S. rock music photographer Catherine Carter, Vanity Fair, Vogue and Elle fashion shooter Robert Maxwell, and the director of photography for the hit TV shows Survivor and The Apprentice, Jim Harrington.

SanDisk Press Release

SUNNYVALE, CA, AUGUST 24, 2005 – SanDisk® Corporation (NASDAQ:SNDK), the world’s largest supplier of flash storage card products, today announced it has been named to FORTUNE Magazine’s annual list of America’s Fastest Growing Companies, ranking 8 out of the 100 companies listed. The list can be found in the September 5, 2005 issue of FORTUNE Magazine.

SanDisk posted record revenues for 2004, with total revenue at $1.8 billion, up 65% from $1.1 billion in 2003. Net income was $267 million, up 58% from net income of $169 million in 2003 and fully diluted earnings per share for fiscal 2004 were $1.44, compared to $1.02 in 2003.

Lexar Media Press Release

Digital Camera Users Unaware of Need for Safekeeping their Efforts - Study shows the need for archiving digital photos

(PRWEB) August 23, 2005—A recent digital imaging study has revealed that many photographers are unaware of the need to archive their work. According to the study released by the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA), nearly 50 percent of all camera users shoot billions of pictures a year on a digital camera, but only 48 percent backup all or most of their images.

Lexar Media has simplified the solution for such photographer’s needs, whether a pro, semi-pro or simply a weekend warrior. Photo Mechanic is a program that facilitates organizing and managing hundreds or even thousands of photos at a time. Photo Mechanic is a workflow tool that assists in weeding out the preferred photos from a batch and allows very rapid browsing through a day’s or week’s images.

IDC Press Release

While Number of Digital Images Captured Increases Rapidly, Consumers’ Printing Behavior Changes, IDC Reveals

FRAMINGHAM, Mass., August 24, 2005 – The number of aggregate digital images captured per month continued to grow another 18 points in 2005, largely driven through cheaper flash memory card prices and increased capacities, IDC found in a new study of U.S. digital camera owners’ usage habits. As a result, the total number of average monthly prints is expected to increase by 29% in 2005. However, printing behavior is changing with home printing continuing to decline in favor of retail locations.

“Variability in printing behavior is obvious,” said Chris Chute, senior analyst, Worldwide Digital Imaging Solutions and Services. “While one-third of digital camera owners never print, over 10% print every image they keep. There are therefore distinct clusters of users who can be identified by their printing behavior.”

Imation Press Release

Americans Embrace Digital Convenience But Have Yet to Fully Master Digital Application Skills

OAKDALE, Minn., Aug. 24 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/—Admit it. Like most Americans, we’ve got shelves piled high with dusty shoeboxes of old photos and empty scrapbooks. And now, with the growth of digital cameras, we have CDs, DVDs, computer hard drives and e-mail boxes that are overflowing with digital photos and videos as well. It’s true, according to a national consumer survey of 2,000 American adults, sponsored by Imation Corp (NYSE:IMN) , Americans are embracing digital technologies to capture and share their memories. Even so, many Americans have yet to fully master the more complex digital application skills, such as editing or digital scrapbooking.

Center for Photographic Art Press Release

Center for Photographic Art offers $21,600 in cash awards for its Annual International Center Awards.

The 15th Annual Center Awards is an international juried exhibition open to all media including digital and mixed media.

This is a non-thematic international call to entry competition open to all photographic media including digital and mixed media. Arthur Ollman, Director of the Museum of Photographic Arts, San Diego, California will be the presiding Juror of the event.

Bloomberg are reporting that the sales of digital cameras in Japan have not been as high as predicted. Shipments will increase by 8.4% this year, according to the the Camera & Imaging Products Association, which is lower than the previous estimate of 21%. A saturated Japanese market is largely to blame: “Sales aren’t rising as much as the association had expected in part because about half the Japanese households already have digital cameras, the report said. “ It’s not all bad news, however, as shipments still increased by 37.7% last year.

Website: Bloomberg - Japan’s Digital Camera Shipments May Miss Forecast

Leica Press Release

Go-ahead for capital increase at Leica Camera AG after agreement with major plaintiffs in actions for avoidance - Major shareholders intending to subscribe

Leica Camera AG, Solms, on August 5, 2005 has achieved a settlement out of court with four plaintiffs in the actions for avoidance, among them Leasing- und Handelsservice Heinrich GmbH (Hettstadt) and EO Investors GmbH (Dusseldorf). Their actions for avoidance of the capital measures resolved by the General Meeting on May 31, 2005, which had been the subject of the ad hoc announcement of July 15, 2005, have been settled with mutual agreement. The remaining fifth action for avoidance had been brought in an unlawful way. It is expected that the procedure will be closed without further proceedings.

Nikon have announced a surge in profits for the last financial quarter, boosted by sales of higher-end DSLR cameras like the excellent D70s and new D50. “Nikon, the world’s second-largest maker of digital single lens reflex (SLR) cameras, said group operating profit totaled 13.94 billion yen ($124 million) in the April-June first quarter, up from a profit of 3.13 billion yen in the year-ago period.” Watch out for my D50 review soon!

Website: Yahoo News - Nikon profit soars, raises outlook

Konica Minolta have bucked the recent trend by announcing a profit of 1% in the first financial quarter of this year. A move to higher-end cameras and aggressive restructuring helped the company to stay in the black.

” ‘But thanks to a strategic shift to high-end digital cameras, with more than 5 mln pixels, the average retail price of our digital cameras rose some 17 pct in the first quarter from a year earlier,’ public relations department general manager Yuji Suzuki told a press conference.”

Website: Forbes - Japan’s Konica Minolta Q1 net profit rises 1 pct on upturn in digicam prices

In a curious move to say the least, HP are reported to be exiting from the digicam business in Asia and will instead “focus its investment around home photo printing, which is a high-growth area in the region”. The short reports by Forbes and Reuters don’t give too much insight into why HP are changing strategy so dramatically, other than increased competition may be a reason.

Website: Forbes - HP to quit digital camera business in Asia-Pacific

Website: Reuters - HP exiting digital camera business in Asia

Olympus is the latest digital camera manufacturer to report disappointing financial performance in the last quarter, as its net profits tumble by 62%.

“Olympus has blamed its woes in the digital camera market on its failure to launch popular cameras in a timely fashion. As a result, it has been unable to distinguish its products, making them susceptible to discounting. Another problem is its relatively small presence in fast-growing digital single lens reflex (SLR) models, high-end cameras that yield fatter margins and are less vulnerable to price falls than simple point-and-shoot compact cameras.”

Website: Reuters - Weak digital camera sales push Olympus profit down

Fuji Photo are the latest digital camera company to announce a fall in profits - a 22% decrease in the last 3 months to be precise - joining the likes of Olympus, Kodak, Sanyo and Sony.  Weak sales of color photo film and digital cameras, especially in North America, were to blame. “The difficulty we have in North America is that we can’t do much face-to-face sales to explain our products’ sales points. But we are thinking of expanding our customer targets to more high-end users who purchase cameras at camera specialty stores,” said Chief Financial Officer Toshio Takahashi.

Website: Reuters - Fuji Photo profit down on digital cameras, film

Canon has announced another quarter of rising profits, boosted by sales of colour laser printers and digital SLR cameras like the 8 megapixel Canon EOS 350D / Digital Rebel XT DSLR (pictured). Sales rose 7.3 percent to 912.5 billion yen in the three months to June 30th. “Canon’s cost structure is impressive and it can stand the price pressure that other companies can’t,’’ John Yang, an equity analyst at Standard & Poor’s in Tokyo.

Website: Bloomberg - Canon 2nd-Qtr Profit Gains on Printer, Camera Sales

Another month, another report of falling digital camera sales and losses, this time courtesy of Sanyo. Sales of digicams and mobile phones fell by 12.2%, prompting the Japanese firm to announce 14,000 job cuts on July 5th.

Website: MSN News - Sanyo reports loss on mobile phone, digital camera sales

Adobe Press Release

Adobe Announces Winners of 2005 Adobe Design Achievement Awards

1,500 College Students from Ten Countries Competed in Fifth Annual Awards Program

SAN JOSE, Calif. — July 22, 2005 — Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq:ADBE) today announced the winners of the fifth annual Adobe Design Achievement Awards, a program that honours talented student graphic designers, photographers, illustrators, animators, digital filmmakers and computer artists from the world’s top design, film and broadcast schools. Using the latest Adobe products, more than 1,500 students from Australia, Austria, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, New Zealand, Switzerland, United Kingdom and United States competed in the annual competition.

Kodak has posted a 2nd quarter loss and subsequently announced 10,000 more job cuts, in addition to the already planned 12,000 to 15,000 losses. This now means that between 22,000 and 25,000 Kodak employees, largely from the manufacturing division, will have lost their jobs by the middle of 2007. This is all summed up by Antonio Perez, Kodak’s president and chief executive officer “In 24 months, as a result of the actions announced today, we will … essentially complete the transition to our digital business model”. Kodak reported a net loss of 51 cents a share, or $146 million, for April, May and June of this year.

Website: Rochester Democrat and Chronicle - Kodak cutting 10,000 more jobs; posts second quarter loss

Despite selling their lenses to the likes of BenQ (see next story), Pentax have announced that their first-quarter profits fell by a whopping 42%, largely caused by losses in its photography division. To counteract this, Pentax is expanding its medical equipment and optical component businesses. The Japanese company gave few hints about the long-term future of its photographic unit, other than that some employees from that unit are being moved elsewhere within the company. And there’s also the seemingly inevitable shift to digital SLRs:

”“We’ll shift focus to more profitable single-lens reflex digital cameras, to offset price declines in compact types,” Urano said. Pentax plans to raise the pace of new model introductions to three per year from two, starting this year, he said.”

Website: Bloomberg - Photo loss hurts Pentax earnings