The News Review:
- Euro-area recession dents Carrefour sales
- Nokia Corporation Q1 2009 Earnings Call Transcript
- Human Capital: People on the move Apr. 15
- Nintendo’s March Hardware Sales Win ut
- DirecTV Comcast violate their own Do Not Call lists
Euro-area recession dents Carrefour sales
MarketWatch
EDT April 17 2009 MADRID (MarketWatch) — With results typifying how hard the recession is hitting some euro-area nations Europe’s biggest retailer Carrefour SA reported its first quarterly sales drop in six years owing to painfully-weak markets like Spain. Late Thursday the French retailer reported a 2. 8% drop in first-quarter sales which was much worse than the consensus 1. 4% fall that was expected citing poor sales in its home market of France but also a hard hit from Spain one of its biggest markets. The nation has been hard hit by the fallout of a construction boom that has rippled across the economy with unemployment at 15% and predicted to sail past 20% by 2010. Revenues for Carrefour (.
Related from Recollets: Carrefour to Reduce Prices in France
Nokia Corporation Q1 2009 Earnings Call Transcript
Seeking Alpha
We?re taking a coordinated action across the company. We have in fact pruned and continue to prune our mobile device portfolio to match the current markets? outlook; adjusted our mobile device production capacity accordingly; focused our resources on five core consumer Internet services; sold our enterprise firewall business; cut subcontracting external consultants; struck more favorable terms with suppliers; frozen salaries for the whole of 2009; restricted travel; scaled back Devices & Services R&D activities Vancouver as an example focusing R&D on fewer sites; focused and narrowed our long-term Nokia Research Center research agenda and we stepped back from Japan in mobile devices. The headcount impact of measures we?ve announced and commenced in the first quarter includes approximately 1700 people affected by actions to scale back Devices & Services sales marketing and technology management operations streamline Nokia?s device R&D organization and increased efficiency in certain global support functions. Approximately 1000 people leaving Nokia Devices & Services and global support functions through our voluntary resignation package and reductions due to closure of our Jyvaskyla mobile device R&D facility. This totals approximately 3000 people; excluding temporary layoffs affecting around 2500 people on a rotational basis at our Salo mobile device manufacturing facility. In quarter one; we took total charges of EUR93 million related to these and other cost actions. In Q1 our strong operating expense performance in Devices & Services was attributed primarily to disciplined control over discretionary expenses.
Human Capital: People on the move Apr. 15
Bizjournals.com
a Boston-based marketing and advertising agency named Bob Price senior vice president of account development. Prior to joining Evolution Marketing Price was a general sales manager for the. as VP of direct salesRIS Inc.
Nintendo’s March Hardware Sales Win ut
Gamespy.com
html’>Pokemon Platinum Version on the DS sold nearly 805000 units in the game month making the number two best seller for March. Wii tallied sales of nearly 601000 in March while Nintendo DS sold more than half a million even in advance of the April 5 launch of the new Nintendo DSi system. Both Wii and Nintendo DS extended their lead as the best-selling video game systems of this generation. “Nintendo systems accounted for 58. 4 percent of the video game hardware sold in March more than all other systems combined” said Cammie Dunaway Nintendo of America’s executive vice president of Sales & Marketing. “Consumers continue to be attracted to the wide range of software available and the great value of Nintendo systems.
DirecTV Comcast violate their own Do Not Call lists
Los Angeles Times
In a separate action cable provider Comcast Corp. agreed to pay $900000 for alleged Do Not Call infractions. The FTC accused both companies of violating its Telemarketing Sales Rule which says a company cannot make unsolicited calls to customers who have asked them to stop. Neither company admitted wrongdoing in the settlements. DirecTV based in El Segundo declined to be interviewed but said in a statement that it conducted the 2007 phone campaign “to determine whether we had correctly recorded customers’ do-not-call status. “The settlement amount was dwarfed by a $5. 3-million penalty paid in 2005 by a company charged under Do Not Call.