Nintendo has forecast its first annual loss in at least 30 years after the yen reached a postwar high and the new 3DS console had weaker-than-expected sales.

Sharp Corp cut its full-year operating profit forecast forecast by 12 percent, hit by sliding domestic television sales but the cut was not as bad as the market had feared.

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd has revealed new figures highlighting a staggering 50% month-on-month growth in GCC sales of its Smart TVs since the product's regional launch just six months ago.

Programmable logic vendor Altera has reported third quarter sales that came in below analysts' expectations and the company's own revised guidance, with CEO John Daane saying customers are burning through existing inventories in a manner reminiscent of the downturn of 2008.

All in all, it was a strong quarter for the company. Enterprise and business sales are growing vigorously, and new products such as Office 365 and Lync appear to be gaining traction in the market. Perhaps the biggest concern is the performance of the Windows division, and the "cannibalization" of netbook sales.

Nokia has reported better-than-expected sales in its market-leading lower priced "feature phone" business, where it shipped 18m of a new dual SIM phone range in the third quarter, although revenues still decreased as it lost more ground in the smartphone market.

Xilinx's fiscal second-quarter profit fell 26% as the programmable-chip maker posted sales declines in its communications and industrial segments. Looking to the third quarter, the company projected a 3% to 8% sales decline from the second quarter.

Apple said it has sold over four million of its new iPhone 4S, just three days after its launch on October 14.

Bargains on smaller HDTVs will be plentiful this year as retailers try to make up for this year's lackluster sales so far.

The company now expects net sales to decline 6% to 8% sequentially. This compares to the initial guidance of flat to down 3% sequentially.

IT products manufacturer BenQ is targeting education and enterprise sectors to push further the sales of projectors in the country.

Sales are now expected to decline 7% to 10% sequentially. This is a revision from previous guidance that called for sales to be up 1% to down 3% sequentially.

Semico Research now expects chip sales to decline 2% compared to 2010. It previously forecast that the chip market would grow by 6% in 2011.

Jay Legenhausen previously managed worldwide sales for Actel/Microsemi. Prior to Actel, he spent 17 years working at Cypress Semiconductor in various sales and marketing positions.

Cisco Systems rose as much as 13% in late trading after profit and sales beat analysts' estimates, the first time in six quarters that the shares gained after results.

ARM sounded a note of caution about electronic goods sales this Christmas, even as it announced a better-than-expected second quarter in which its technology, already dominant in smartphones and tablets, was licensed for more and more uses.

Expected problems in the automotive supply chain failed to materialize for Infineon Technologies in the second quarter and helped the German chip maker turn in higher than expected sales and profits in its third fiscal quarter ended June 30.

STMicroelectronics fell the most in a decade in Paris trading after CEO Carlo Bozotti said there will be a "correction" in sales and gross margin in the third quarter because of difficulties at customer Nokia.

Samsung Electronics, maker of the Galaxy mobile phone, may have surpassed Nokia and Apple in smartphone sales for the first time on demand for devices that run on Android software, a research company said.

"While our Q2 results were clearly disappointing, we are executing well on the initiatives that are most important to our longer term competitiveness," CEO Stephen Elop said. "Some progress is already evident, and thus we are targeting to end this year with more net cash and liquid assets than at the end of Q2 2011."

Sales of PCs with Windows to businesses actually rose 8% in the quarter ended June 30, but could not offset weak demand among consumers, particularly in so-called developed markets, according to Microsoft. Sales of lightweight netbook computers with Windows fell 41% in the period.

Prior to HTC, Mackenzie held a progression of sales and marketing positions with DENSO Wireless and Siemens Communications, concluding as Vice President for Siemens Communications.

Dutch chip lithography manufacturer ASML reported strong sales in the second quarter, but said new orders in the third quarter would be significantly lower, lending weight to reports of slowdowns in the semiconductor industry.

South Korean consumer electronics giant LG Electronics has slashed its forecast for 2011 smartphone sales as the company struggles to compete against aggressive giants like HTC, Samsung and Apple.

Micron executives' comments about limited visibility of consumer PC demand and higher-than-ideal inventories of DRAM chips sparked a Friday sell-off in stocks linked to personal computers.

Imagination Technologies, which designs microchips used in Apple's iPad and iPhone, has doubled its forecast for chip shipments. By 2016, the company expects more than 1bn will be shipped a year, up from a previous forecast of 500m.

Rampant piracy means Microsoft's revenues in China this year will only be about 5% of what it gets in the US, even though personal-computer sales in the two countries are almost equal, CEO Steve Ballmer told employees in a meeting.

Applied Materials reported a fiscal second-quarter profit that nearly doubled from the year-earlier period, as the company saw stronger sales of semiconductor capital equipment. But shares of the company slipped nearly 2% in after-hours trading after it posted a weaker-than-anticipated outlook.

Amkor's rise in revenues wasn't enough to offset an increase in expenses, and would have been higher had the company not taken a hit from the Japan disaster. Amkor operates a 211,000-square foot factory in Japan, one of the company's smallest facilities, according to regulatory filings.

Japanese automobile sales more than halved in April - the biggest monthly drop on record - and are not expected to recover until late 2011, raising concerns the country's leading vehicle manufacturers will post losses for the first half of the year.

"Nintendo 3DS has not been selling as expected since the second week [of availability], and this is not just in the Japanese market but also in the US and Europe, where no direct impact from the great earthquake has occurred," said Nintendo president Satoru Iwata.

STMicroelectronics, Europe's largest chipmaker, fell the most in six weeks in Milan trading after saying second-quarter sales will be held back by a decline at its joint venture with Ericsson. Dubbed ST- Ericsson, the venture is completing a shift to a new lineup targeting smartphone and tablet markets.

ARM, the UK designer of chips that help power Apple's iPhone, said first-quarter sales rose 26% on booming demand for smartphones and tablet computers.

Video games giant Nintendo has seen its annual profits slump by 66%, hurt by a strong yen and a drop in sales.