Sanyo in talks with Best Buy for TV growth

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan's Sanyo Electric Co (6764.T) is in talks with Best Buy Co Inc (BBY.N) and others to expand sales channels in North America beyond Wal-Mart (WMT.N) in a tough market, a Sanyo executive said.

Sanyo, restructuring with the help of major shareholder Goldman Sachs (GS.N), hopes to reach an agreement with Best Buy this year, and is also in talks to expand its product lineup with energy-efficient appliances at Wal-Mart.

"U.S. consumers are becoming more aware of power consumption issues. When Americans start putting their money on environment-friendly products, we will be ready," Masami Murata, president of Sanyo North America, told Reuters in an interview on Friday.

Sanyo, which sold about a million LCD TVs in North America last year, is fighting to keep pace with undercutting rivals like Vizio Inc by procuring panels from suppliers such as Sharp Corp (6753.T).

The company plans to launch a marketing campaign targeting hotels, movie theatres, gasoline stations and other businesses with its low-power consumption air conditioners, refrigerators and other appliances, Murata said.

It also eyes sales of 10 billion yen in Mexico, where it plans to begin sales of its refrigerators and TVs later this year, in the year ending March 2011.

Sanyo has said it plans to raise its finished goods business in North America by 70 percent in three years to 2.2 billion yen ($20.77 million) in 2010/2011.

"We would like to hit double-digit sales growth this year," Murata said. "But this year is a year of preparation. Sales will truly take off in the following two years."

Sanyo, the world's largest rechargeable battery maker, swung back to the black for the first time in four years last business year, helped by sales of rechargeable batteries and digital cameras.

It expects a profit jump this year on the sale of its loss-making mobile phone unit to Kyocera Corp (6971.T). The unit supplied handsets to Spring (S.N) and would have made up 35 percent of Sanyo's North American sales last year.

Sanyo has been hit hard in recent years by hefty costs to cut thousands of jobs, steep price falls, rising materials costs and earthquake damage to its microchip plant.

Its shares were down 1.4 percent at 283 yen, against a 1.5 percent rise in the benchmark Nikkei average .N225 at 0449 GMT.

(Reporting by Mayumi Negishi and Noriyuki Hirata; Editing by Chris Gallagher)