Samsung Electronics denied a report saying it may cut its 2009 investment in semiconductors by more than half from last year amid a lingering downturn. "At this point, we have not made any decisions on our investment plan, and even if we had a plan it would be contingent on different economic scenarios that will be possible during this year," Chu-Woo-sik, Samsung's executive vice president of investor relations, told Reuters.

Across the whole holiday season 3.7 million Blu-ray units were sold in Britain, and that doesn't include sales of Sony's Playstation 3 console, which also plays Blu-ray movies.

Sony is likely to announce closures of Japanese factories and major divisions early next month, the Times of London said on Monday, but the company denied any such plan existed. The maker of Bravia flat TVs and PlayStation video game consoles faces halting sales and mounting piles of inventory in the wake of the financial crisis, even as a stronger yen bites into earnings.

Freescale on Monday is expected to announce a new processor for netbooks that may challenge chip maker Intel on price in the low-cost computing space. The company's i.MX515 processor will run on netbooks, low-cost laptops that are designed to perform basic computing functions like accessing the Internet and running productivity applications.

LG Electronics has lately been trumpeting its plans to debut a 3G wristwatch phone with a touch screen technology at CES 2009. The LG-GD910 watch phone is expected to first be sold in Europe next year, although an exact release date has yet to be determined.

Samsung Electronics plans to introduce the world's slimmest LCD TV at the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas from Friday through Sunday. The 6.5mm-thick TV equipped with an LED backlight is seven times thinner than Samsung's Bordeaux 850, the slimmest TV available on the world market.

"Our view is that the underlying theme of the market will change over the course of 2009 from the current 'we are worried about demand' towards 'we are worried about supply'," said analyst.

Taipei-based DRAMeXchange has lowered its outlook for 2009 NAND Flash bit growth from 108.2% to 81%. The market intelligence company cites weakened demand for flash memory as the source, stemming from a decrease in forecast demand for flash memory-based consumer devices in 2009.

Shares of chip makers and companies serving the sector suffered during the year. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Sector index, which is comprised of chip companies as well as manufacturers of chip-making equipment, fell by nearly half in 2008. The index closed Tuesday's trading session at 211.26, compared with 408.04 at the end of 2007.

Tejas Silicon Holdings (UK) has completed the acquisition of the Atmel wafer fabrication operation in Heilbronn, Germany. The sale follows a leasing agreement announced in September and its completion on December 31 has enabled Atmel to achieve its goal of reducing the number of its manufacturing facilities from five to two in 2008.

Mainstream SSD drives tend to be limited to 80 GB or less for affordability. There are drives that have larger capacities, but the cost is significantly higher than a similar HDD, which is what is keeping SSD drives out of the hands of many at this point. Despite this, capacities are ramping up fast!

Commodities, until six months ago the darling of investors and an out-performing asset class, sealed their worst year on record with accelerating losses in the fourth quarter of the year, data showed on Thursday. "At the moment, confidence in the commodity market is short, definitely short. That confidence would start to be restored when we start to see a rebound in equity markets again..."

Chartered Semiconductor exemplifies the problems facing Singapore's ailing electronics sector after warning that it will suffer its biggest loss in nearly four years when it reports its results for the last quarter of 2008.

Former United Microelectronics Corporation (UMC) chairman Robert Tsao and former vice chairman John Hsuan were found not guilty by the Taiwan High Court yesterday of illegal investments in a Chinese company.

South Korea's exports fell by more than 15% for a second straight month in December, adding to signs the economy is headed for its first recession since 1998. President Lee Myung Bak said South Korea will run an "economy-emergency government" this year to fight the worst economic crisis since its 1997 $57 billion bailout by the IMF.

Factories in China and India joined much of Europe in slashing output and jobs at a record pace in December, another sign the biggest emerging markets were wilting under the recession gripping industrialized nations. "It feels like we've passed through the eye of the storm," Robert Rennie, chief currency strategist at Westpac in Sydney said of the financial crisis triggered by US bank failures last year.

It seems that Samsung will be the first tier one handset maker to release an Android phone, pipping Motorola, Huawei and Sony Ericsson to the post with a 2Q launch in the US planned.

"We will continue to combine market share and margins in the right way in order to maximize the bottom line," Nokia CEO Kallasvuo was quoted as saying in an interview. This in stark contrast to some of its smaller rivals, like LG Electronics, who have said they will do anything to reach their sales targets.

US stocks started the new year with a big jump on Friday as investors looked beyond yet another piece of grim economic data on hopes that a recovery is on the horizon after a disastrous 2008. Markets shrugged off a report by the Institute for Supply Management that said US factory activity fell to a 28-year low in December, showing a more severe contraction than economists had expected.

JP Morgan analyst Christopher Danely today lowered his estimate for global semi sales in 2009 from a decline of 17% to a decline of 20%, after Wednesday's report from trade group The Semiconductor Industry association that showed a steeper-than-expected decline in chip sales in November.

Computer-chip manufacturer Qimonda Ag said it is taking steps to meet the New York Stock Exchange's market-capitalization standard and increase the price of its American depositary shares to above US$1 to remain listed on the bourse. Qimonda's US-listed shares lost 2.6% in after-hours trading.