House of Fraser also announced it had agreed a deal with Barclaycard to manage its financial services division, which includes its store card.

BBC: NEWS | Business | Sales boost for House of Fraser

One case in point is the Florida division of Publix, a 760-store supermarket chain, which canceled all French wine promotions in April, despite Lebret's personal appeal. (Such stores sell a lot of the lower-end Mouton Cadet line.) Lebret figures that there were at most half a dozen complaints beforehand.

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Mr. Pichai also will have to manage an increasing overlap between Android's ambitions to sell digital media via the Google Play app store and those of its YouTube division.

WSJ: Google Android Chief Andy Rubin Steps Aside

"Consumers should not have to worry about which device works with which store, " said Steve Haber, president of Sony's digital reading business division, in a statement.

BBC: Sony to back open e-book format

In her report, Genereux said she anticipates margin erosion in the company's U.S. division is set to continue, and may even increase, due to years of weakening same-store sales and poor expense management.

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