Tech wrap: Samsung savors smartphone supremacy
Samsung Electronics, the world’s top maker of memory chips and smartphones, reported a record quarterly profit, aided by one-off gains and best-ever sales of high-end phones. The South Korean firm posted 5.2 trillion won ($4.5 billion) in quarterly operating profit, beating a consensus forecast of 4.7 trillion won by analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S. Samsung, which surged past Apple as the world’s top smartphone maker in the third quarter, only entered the smartphone market in earnest in 2010, but its handset division is now its biggest earnings generator.
Taiwanese smartphone maker HTC recorded a worse-than-expected yearly profit decline in the fourth quarter, and the first decline in two years. The former investor darling shocked markets in November by slashing its fourth-quarter revenue guidance, sending its shares down 28 percent in two weeks and 15 percent to date. Investor concerns linger over whether HTC still has the innovative streak that catapulted it from an obscure contract maker to a top brand.
Sony will promote its consumer business chief Kazuo Hirai to the role of president as early as April, taking the title away from Howard Stringer, who is expected to remain chairman and CEO, the Nikkei newspaper reported. Such a move would give Hirai, 51, who made his name in Sony’s PlayStation video game division, more influence over the whole company and its wide range of technology and entertainment businesses, likely cementing expectations he would succeed the 69-year-old Stringer eventually.
Two weeks after disclosing that its website had been hacked, private intelligence analysis firm Strategic Forecasting warned subscribers that hackers were now circulating false emails offering the company’s services for free. Strategic Forecasting, also known as Stratfor, urged subscribers not to open attachments to the fraudulent emails, which offered subscribers the company’s premium content for free as compensation while it tried to secure its website. Stratfor CEO George Friedman said he deeply regretted any inconvenience caused by the latest incident and said the company was still working to reestablish its data systems and Web presence.
Israeli officials said they were concerned the country may be under cyber attack after a wave of credit card code thefts in the past week by a hacker who claims to be operating out of Saudi Arabia. Credit card company officials said 14,000 numbers had been posted on line Tuesday and another 11,000 Thursday. However, they said some of the codes had expired and that the active cards were all being cancelled.
Tech wrap: Bargain hunting may hurt retailers
Broader bargain hunting driven by budgetary fears may depress overall holiday spending, mitigating any hefty gains retailers reaped from long lines of shoppers snaked around malls across the U.S.
While Black Friday has been the busiest day for years in terms of traffic at stores, it does not always mean that sales will soar for the season. Despite brisk sales right after Thanksgiving, total holiday season sales fell in both 2008 and 2009 when the recession took its hold on America’s wallets.
Shopper-related injuries were popular topics on social networks such as Twitter. A shopper at a Los Angeles-area Walmart used pepper spray on a throng of shoppers and there was a shooting in a Walmart parking lot in the Oakland area.
Apple is well ahead of rivals in building brand loyalty among its users in a mobile market where the key brands are rushing to build as large a foothold as possible, a study by research firm GfK showed. Some 84 percent of iPhone users said they would pick iPhone also when they replace their cellphone, while 60 percent of consumers who use smartphones running Google’s Android said they would stick with phones using the same software.
The Department of Justice and Immigration and Customs Enforcement resumed “Operation In Our Sites”, seizing over 100 domain names in a bid to crack down on online piracy and counterfeiting, BitTorrent blog TorrentFreak writes.
Compared to previous seizure rounds, there are also some notable differences to report. This time the action appears to be limited to sites that directly charge visitors for their services. Most of the domains are linked to the selling of counterfeit clothing (e.g. 17nflshop.com), and at least one (autocd.com) sold pirated auto software.
Unnerved by a second profit warning in a month, investors sent HTC shares tumbling for a second straight day on concern the world’s No.4 smartphone maker may be running out of ideas in an increasingly competitive market. Sales at HTC — whose models include Desire, Sensation, Wildfire, Rhyme and ChaCha — grew four-fold in a year and a half, and in the third quarter of this year it sold more smartphones in the U.S. than any of its rivals. But its cracking performance is sputtering as it fails to bring out new products to rival the iPhone and Galaxy in the high-end smartphone market.
Tech wrap: Can Nook tablet take on Kindle Fire?
Let the low-end tablet wars begin. Barnes & Noble unveiled a Nook-branded tablet on Monday, the company’s answer to Amazon.com’s recently announced Kindle Fire. At $249, the 7-inch Nook tablet is a bit pricier than the $199 Fire, but Barnes & Noble is betting that consumers will pay the extra $50 for the device because it offers faster processing speeds and 16 gigabytes of storage space compared to the Amazon tablet’s 8 gigabytes. Both devices hit shelves next week. Barnes & Noble, which operates a chain of 700 U.S. bookstores, also lowered the price on its Nook e-book devices in an effort to take on Amazon’s line of Kindle e-readers, which were recently reduced in price.
Early reaction to the device was varied. One analyst characterized it to Reuters as a “wow” product, while another said it will keep “Barnes & Noble shoppers loyal.” All Things D’s Peter Kafka called Barnes & Noble’s product pitch “a bit muddled” when it came to explaining how people will access content on the device: “Unlike Amazon and its Kindle Fire, Barnes & Noble isn’t marketing its tablet with a proprietary cloud service that will get you access to music, movies and TV shows. Instead, the bookseller is leaving that up to other cloud-based services, like Netflix and Pandora. But make no mistake — these are cloud-based services,” he writes. Why then was the company so eager to play up the Nook Tablet’s extra storage capacity if it expects you’ll be streaming most content, not storing it, wonders Kafka. Engadget takes the new tablet through its paces in a hands-on video.
Google+ expanded its circles to make room for businesses who are looking to reach out to customers on the social network. Called Google+ Pages, the new service will allow corporate brands and businesses to set up a special page within the social network . Google said that 20 businesses, including Toyota, Pepsi and retailer Macy’s, have set up special pages so far, and that any organization will soon be able to join as well. Until now, only individual users have been able to sign up for Google+. Businesses are increasingly using online social services, such as Facebook, to reach new customers and to cement relationships with loyal customers through special offers and promotions.
A German court granted a preliminary injunction against Apple in a patent infringement case that banned the California company from selling some devices in Germany. But the ruling should not impact Apple’s sales in Germany as the company sells all its product there through a local subsidiary, which was not covered by the injunction, reports Reuters correspondent Poornima Gupta. The district court in Mannheim, Germany, said on Friday Apple may not sell certain mobile devices in Germany that infringe on two Motorola Mobility patents related to wireless technology. If Apple does sell the devices, it has to pay a fine of up to 250,000 euros, according to the court.
HTC said on Monday it will put equal investment weight on emerging markets next year as it does in developed ones like the U.S. and Europe, and will dip its toes back into the tablet market with a new model next year, reports Reuters correspondent Clare Jim from Taipei. HTC CEO Peter Chou told a media briefing HTC would not give up its “premium brand” image by expanding in emerging markets through cheap phones. Regarding tablets, Chou said: “Tablet is a market we would like to try and test, to see whether we can make ourselves stand out and prevent a me-too product.”
Tech wrap: Apple after Jobs
So, Apple can survive without Steve Jobs as CEO after all. At least that’s the message that was sent by Apple investors today. Apple shares, which took a beating in after-hours trade on Wednesday after the company announced Jobs’s departure, stabilized on Thursday and were down about 1 percent. Investors, at least for now, appear convinced that Apple can keep churning out blockbuster products and oversized profits with new CEO Tim Cook in charge.
What will those new hit products be? Wired’s GadgetLab takes a look at some of the patents Apple has sought recently to get a sense for where the company could be heading next. The answer: smart TVs, mobile devices with hybrid LCD/e-ink displays and voice-controlled devices. Of course, Apple fans can also expect updates to many of the company’s existing hit products. The company is expected to release a new version of its popular iPhone this fall, and there have been news reports that the iPad could get a refresh this year as well. As some analysts have remarked, Apple’s product machine seems well intact and should be for the next few years.
Reuters correspondents Poornima Gupta and Peter Henderson take a closer look at the man responsible for transforming Apple into the tech juggernaut that it is today. “Charismatic, visionary, ruthless, perfectionist, dictator – these are some of the words that people use to describe the larger-than-life figure of Jobs, who may be the biggest dreamer the technology world has ever known, but also a hard-edged businessman and negotiator through and through,” they write in a newsmaker piece.
The resignation of Jobs opens the door for rivals Samsung Electronics and HTC to battle for smartphone supremacy in salesrooms and courtrooms globally, argues Miyoung Kim. “Samsung’s fortunes are most tied to Apple, both as a competitor and supplier of components. The group also has a scale and an ability to react quickly that is rare in the sector,” she writes.
Twitter can add a new milestone to its list of achievements: the word “tweet” has made it into the Merriam-Webster dictionary. Social media term “crowdsourcing”, which is “the practice of obtaining information from a large group of people who contribute online,” also made the cut.
AOL shares rose nearly 9 percent on Thursday as the Internet company — long seen as a merger candidate — confirmed it has an investment banker and a law firm on retainer. According to Adweek, teams from investment banking firm Allen & Co and law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz met AOL executives on Wednesday. Wachtell Lipton lawyer Martin Lipton and Allen & Co banker Nancy Peretsman attended the meeting, Adweek said.
Tech wrap: Apple involved in legal battles
Samsung can sell its latest iPad rival in most of Europe again after a German court lifted most of an injunction it had imposed at Apple’s request.
Samsung’s Galaxy Tab line of tablet computers has taken the market by storm and is considered the most credible alternative to the iPad, selling about 30 million since its launch a year and a half ago.
In other legal news, the shoe is on the other foot for Apple as smartphone maker HTC has sued the tech giant, seeking to halt U.S. imports and sales of Macintosh computers, iPads, iPods, iPhones and other devices because of alleged patent infringements.
HTC is alleging infringements of three patents obtained in 2008 and 2010, and which relate to Wi-Fi capability and other functions. It seeks compensatory damages as well as triple damages for willful infringement.
A day after Google’s $12.5 billion deal to acquire Motorola Mobility, Emanuel Derman wants to know if Google will tackle their lacking customer support or user interface.
Sony is slashing the price of its basic PlayStation 3 gaming console by nearly a fifth in the United States, hoping to jump-start sales of a device losing ground to Microsoft’s Xbox.
Finally, readers around the world can view the manuscripts of Leonardo da Vinci’s Codex Arundel on the iPad.
Tech wrap: Apple vs HTC, round two
Apple has kicked its intellectual property dispute with Taiwanese smartphone maker HTC up a notch. The company filed a new complaint against HTC with a U.S. trade panel over some of its portable electronic devices and software, according to the panel’s website. Apple filed a similar action against the company last year and could be trying to strengthen the case against its rival by adding new patents to its claim this time around, notes AllThingD’s John Paczkowski. “It’s another broad warning to the industry,” he writes.“If you’re bringing a new smartphone to market, you had better make damn sure it doesn’t infringe on Apple’s IP.”
The first e-reader to fully integrate Google’s eBooks platform into its design goes on sale exclusively at Target stores across the U.S. next weekend, Google said in a blog post. The iRiver Story HD lets users buy and read e-books from the service over Wi-Fi and store their personal collections in the cloud. Google offers more than 3 million free titles for download through its eBooks service, with hundreds of thousands more for sale.
LinkedIn, the online networking website aimed at professionals, surpassed Myspace in June to become the second-most popular social network in the United States, according to a new survey from comScore. Just how much more popular is LinkedIn now? According to the figures, LinkedIn had 33.9 million unique visitors in June, a jump of about a half a million from May. Myspace, on the other hand, saw its traffic decline to 33.5 million American visitors, a drop of about 1.4 million users from the previous month.
Apple, Microsoft, Research in Motion and three other leading tech companies received court approval to buy wireless patents from bankrupt Nortel Networks Corp for $4.5 billion. A total of 6,000 patents and applications were included in the sale and fetched three times what some analysts expected from the auction in June.
Tech wrap: EBay sues Google in mobile payment war
EBay and its online payment unit, PayPal, sued Google and two executives for stealing trade secrets related to mobile payment systems, highlighting the growing battle between companies vying for a major stake in what has been described as a $1 trillion opportunity. The two executives, Osama Bedier and Stephanie Tilenius, were formerly with PayPal and led the launch on Thursday of Google’s own mobile payment system in partnership with MasterCard, Citigroup and Sprint.
The personal information of more than 283,000 customers at Honda Canada was breached, the company confirmed on Friday. The company said the stolen data included names, addresses, vehicle identification numbers and in some cases financing account numbers, but was not the type that would typically be used for identity theft or fraud.
Sony said it will start restoring its PlayStation videogame network in Japan and elsewhere in Asia on Saturday, more than a month after a massive security breach leaked personal details on tens of millions of accounts. Sony also said it plans to testify before U.S. lawmakers at a hearing on data security in Washington on June 2 to address the breech.
With its Next operating system closer than most expect, Microsoft could corner meaningful tablet market share in 2013 and beyond, Citigroup said. Microsoft could bring out a tablet-optimized version of Windows Next OS before it releases a PC version, the brokerage said in a note to clients.
Microsoft signed a patent agreement with HTC that gives the software giant $5 per HTC phone running Android, according to Citi analyst Walter Pritchard, writes Business Insider’s Jay Yarrow. Pritchard also said that Microsoft is suing other Android phone makers, looking for $7.50 to $12.50 per device, Yarrow adds.
Go Google Go! Hope you win, and be bigger than Paypal. Dont let Paypal hold people’s money anymore. I hate Paypal!! The most-hated way to pay and get paid!
Tech wrap: HTC trumps Nokia
HTC launched the HTC Sensation, offering an entire library of movie and TV shows via a wide screen, with a fast 1.2GHz processor. While Nokia, which dumped its once-dominant Symbian software earlier this year after falling behind Apple in the high-end handset market, launched two new models improved with better text input, faster Internet browsing and a refreshed Ovi Maps application, in a bid to stem customer defections while it works on a new offering.
“The new HTC Sensation phone reflects the mountain Nokia needs to climb to close the hardware and software gap with its rivals,” said Ben Wood, research director at CCS Insight. “On the day Nokia unveils the 600Mhz X7 ‘entertainment phone’ it has been trumped by HTC’s Sensation which has a dual-core 1.2Ghz processor”.
Cisco Systems will dump its Flip video camera division, retiring the popular brand rather than selling it in a first step toward reviving a company CEO John Chambers admits has lost its way. The decision to nix Flip, along with a planned folding of its Umi home videoconference business into the more successful TelePresence arm, underscores Chambers’ need to whittle down a money-losing consumer division that also includes Scientific Atlanta set-top boxes and Linksys home routers. Among the steps announced, Cisco plans to combine its lackluster Umi service with its TelePresence system for corporate clients. The company will also change the way it manufactures its Linksys line of networking equipment.
As smartphones gain functionality like video recording and GPS, what do you no longer see a need for?
The Huffington Post unfairly pocketed more than $100 million from its unpaid bloggers when AOL Inc bought the influential news website in February, according to a lawsuit filed on Tuesday. Arianna Huffington, co-founder of the website, sold it to AOL for $315 million.
VeriFone Systems, the largest U.S. maker of payment terminals, said it expects to ship over 1 million near-field communication (NFC)-enabled systems this year, underlining growing momentum for a technology that allows shoppers to buy with a wave of a smartphone. The number of mobile payment users is expected to top 340 million in 2014, ringing up $245 billion worth of transactions, according to research firm Gartner.
Tech wrap: Android takes over
Growing demand for phones running on Google’s Android platform will help the smartphone market grow in 2011, boosting companies like HTC and Samsung who are betting on the platform, analysts said.
The smartphone market will grow 58 percent this year and 35 percent the next, research firm Gartner said. Android, a distant No. 2 to Nokia’s Symbian platform just last year, will increase its market share to 39 percent in 2011, while Symbian’s share will roughly halve to 19 percent following Nokia’s decision to dump the platform. Apple’s iPhone platform will be slightly bigger than Symbian this year, while Research In Motion will control 13 percent of the market and Microsoft Windows Phone 6 percent.
Sales of cameraphones will grow to more than 1 billion handsets this year, helped by fast growth at the high end of the market, Strategy Analytics said.
Moody’s cut its credit rating on Nokia, citing the Finnish company’s weakening market position and uncertainty over its transition to Microsoft’s Windows Phone software. HTC overtook Nokia in market capitalization for the first time on Thursday. Nokia still has higher volumes, selling 19 phones for each HTC phone sold last year. But its average sale price was just $85 compared with HTC’s $360, according to Strategy Analytics.
The FCC adopted data roaming rules that would allow smartphones to access the Internet in areas across the country not covered by their wireless carrier, forcing carriers like AT&T and Verizon Wireless to offer “reasonable” roaming rates. Under the rules, wireless carriers would be free to negotiate the terms of the agreements, and could institute safeguards to prevent congestion or harm to their networks from roaming traffic.
Facebook teamed up with some of tech hardware’s biggest names — HP, Dell, AMD, and Intel — to launch the “open compute project”. CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the project aims to offer specifications and designs for more power-efficient computers that are specifically geared toward running Internet services, shared openly with other companies.
The Justice Department is close to a deal that would allow Google to buy airline ticketing software company ITA Software, while requiring that the software remain available to Google rivals, according to a source close to the deal.
Does OLED TV have a future?
Two years ago at the annual Consumer Electronics Show, Sony unveiled an OLED television — that’s an Organic Light Emitting Diode TV. It was sleek, sporting credit-card thinness, superior picture quality and energy efficiency, and some thought the technology might eventually overtake plasma and LCD. Its only hang-up was sticker shock: $2,000 for an 11-inch screen. No worries — the price will drop and demand will rise and more units are manufactured, right?
Maybe not. Sony has pulled the plug on OLED TV sales in Japan due to poor sales. It is still difficult — and expensive — to make big OLED displays, especially when prices for other forms of TVs are shrinking while sizes are increasing. Sony showed off a slightly bigger models at this years CES, including a 3D prototype. As for the models on store shelves, New York Electronics retailer J&R Music and Computer World is selling one for $1,500 after a whopping $1,000 discount.
But OLED isn’t dead: LG, which bought Kodak’s OLED business, showed off retail-ready 15-inch OLED TVs at this years CES.
It also seems to have a future on smaller devices, such as Microsoft’s latest pocket-sized Zune HD media player, and HTC’s new Desire mobile phone. It remains to be seen if the technology makes a difference for which consumers are willing to pay a premium.
Photo: Reuters; Youtube
It took 25 years for LCDs to progress from calculator displays to televisions. Be patient.
