LyrArc Article Gist
IHS reports show the cost of making the Galaxy S 4 smartphone with 16 gigabytes of flash memory is about $244. This is 15% more than the cost for the Galaxy III and 17% more than Apple iPhone 5 with 16 gigabyte memory. Higher cost is due to better sensors, a better processor, and larger full high-definition display for upgrades. Samsung plans to launch the new phone in April 2013 in 155 countries. Unlike Apple Samsung does its own manufacturing providing it an edge in hardware capabilities.

LyrArc Article Gist
Huawei's investment to compete in smartphones with Samsung, Nokia and Apple is one of the main reasons for a 53% drop in profits in 2011.

LyrArc Article Gist
HTC was the first company to come out with a smartphone using Google's Android software in 2010. By the second quarter of 2011 HTC's share of the global smartphone market climbed to 10.7%, only to see a sharp decline in 2012 dropping to 2.2% according to IDC, as it faced stronger competitors Samsung and Apple. Second quarter 2012 revenues were down 27%, and an expected drop of about 50% in the third quarter. Samsung and Apple invest significantly more in distribution and marketing, and discount prices on older high end models making it difficult for HTC to compete. In 2012 the company's value declined by 50%.

LyrArc Article Gist
Starting in 2009 Samsung's investment in R&D exceeded the same investment by competitors Sony and Panasonic. By 2011 this gap had widened, as Samsung spent $8.7 billion on R&D in 2011, Panasonic $6.6 billion and Sony $5.5 billion for their fiscal years. This is a result of Samsung's having captured a larger portion of the market and profits in recent years. In the U.S. Samsung has 50% of the market for LCD television sets. Now Sony and Panasonic have reached an agreement to join together their efforts for production technologies to produce OLED television sets, the next generation technology for television. Sony and Panasonic are also working on changing their mindset that focussed on technological advancement and less on delivering consumer friendly technology at attractive price points. Sony developed the first e-reader in 2004, and developed the first OLED set in 2007. But the e-reader lacked the software capabilities of the e-readers developed later by Amazon and Apple. For OLED the production technology was lacking for Sony to produce it at commercially viable prices for mass production. Now Sony prefers to let S. Korean competitors take the lead, and hopes to come from behind by combining critical areas of technological development with Panasonic. Samsung and LG Electronics will bring new 55 inch OLED sets to the market in late 2012. Panasonic and Sony have new CEO's who are faced with developing strategies for a rebound. Panasonic CEO, Kazuhiro Tsuga, is keen on changing the mindset of the company back to the consumer. He told a news conference recently: "Japanese firms are too confident about our technology and manufacturing prowess. We lost sight of the products from the consumer's point of view."...

LyrArc Article Gist
The US share of Japanese exporting companies went down from 20% to 16% in the 2007-2010 period, while the exports from Japan to China, India, and Brazil have gone up by 25% in the same period. Korean companies like Hyundai and Samsung plunged early into the Indian market. LG and Samsung have a significant share in the electronics and consumer appliance markets in India. By comparison Sony's share is about 5% according to Euromonitor research. Now Japanese compaies are putting a new focus on India. In food products Nissin is expanding aggressively by doubling its noodle making capacity, and making its Ramen brand available in smaller packages costing 10 cents each. The idea is to customize the effort to the unique nature of the Indian market.

LyrArc Article Gist
Sony and Panasonic will jointly develop mass production methods for organic light emitting diode display, or OLED, by 2013. The two companies are also cosidering an alliance to mass manufacture OLED television sets under their brand names. One option is to work with a low cost Asian manufacturers such as AU Optronics of Taiwan. Samsung and LG Electronics are planning to introduce 55 inch OLED television sets in 2012, with the sets costing about $9000. The challenge for the manufacturers is to bring down the cost of manufacturing. Sony is a leader in this technology, having developed the first 11 inch OLED set in 2007.

LyrArc Article Gist
Apple's sales in India are insignificant because of the lack of 3G networks. RIM's Blackberry and apps work well on the existing 2G networks. Prices are higher with the cheapest iPhone costing $705 at a Reliance iStore. The cheapest iPad 2 goes for $603. Blackberry phones cost less than $200. As a result Apple's iPhone sales are only 2.6% of India's smartphone shipments for the 2nd quarter 2011. RIM's is 15%, Samsung Electronic's is 21%, and Nokia's 46%, according to IDC. RIM is extending its distribution in India from 15 cities in 2010 to 80 cities in 2011. IDC estimates that smartphone shipments in India will grow by 68% a year, reaching 81.5 million units by 2015.

LyrArc Article Gist
Google Inc. has made an agreement to acquire Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc. for $12.5 billion in cash. This deal puts Google in direct competition with Apple Inc., RIM, and Nokia. Google is taking on new risks with this acquisition. It is known as a software company, and the acquisition puts it in an area with which it has little experience- manufacturing and managing sales of devices working with retailers. It also risks making partners- such as Samsung, HTC Corp., Sony Ericsson, and LG Electronics that make mobile phones- into rivals. Forrester Research points out that this could lead to these companies hedging their bets and also making mobile phones that use the Microsoft operating system. Google considered a similiar plan for entry into the PC market after it developed the Chrome operating system but decided against it, opting instead to work with PC manufacturers Acer Inc and Samsung. The deal brings with it a large number of patents Motorola holds in mobile technology.

LyrArc Article Gist
The WSJ's Paul Sonne gives this exceptional account of how Russians are coping in the economic crisis of 2015-2016, with the twin shocks of the collapse in the ruble and the collapse in oil prices. He does this by looking at the Kaluga region, a provincial city 110 miles south of Moscow that has benefitted from large foreign investment to meet the needs of 20 million consumers in the Moscow region. The governor of Kaluga since 2000, Anatoly Artamonov, worked hard to attract foreign investment that includes VW, Volvo AG, Continental AG, Lafarge, Samsung Electronics, General Electric, and other companies. He ran a collective in the Brezhnev era, and now is energetic in meeting needs of foreign investors. Karmanov says it is stupidity to not say he is talking to business people in other parts of the world because of the political climate in the country. About 42% of the industrial output in Kaluga comes from the foreign automobile plants, including VW. The automobile and light commercial vehicle production in Feb. 2015 dropped by about 39% compared to Feb. 2014, according to the Association of European Business estimate. Only 40% of autombile production cost from assembly lines is sourced locally, the rest is imported at the new value of the ruble which has fallen about 50%, leading to higher prices and slumping demand. Ordinary Russians are feeling the effects of the crisis with higher prices. Consumer price inflation in Feb. 2015 was at 16.7%, with 23.3% increase in food prices. High interest rates to prop up the ruble meant cutting off access to credit to finance consumer purchases. An 8% drop in real wages in Jan. 2015, according to Capital Economics, added to pressures on consumers. With the political and economic crisis following Russia's Ukraine intervention foreign investment in 2014 declined to $18.6 billion in 2014 compared to $61.5 billion in 2013, and the EBRD bank cut financing with the sanctions....

LyrArc Article Gist
Global supply chains in industries such as clothing and other consumer items, in autos, and in tech products are changing as the shift away from China continues with the Trump administration's tariffs war. The clothing and other consumer products manufacturing is shifting away from China. Auto production is centred on regional hubs for manufacturing under renegotiated trade agreements such as the one that replaced NAFTA in North America, correcting imbalances in wages and U.S. content. Mexico gets to stay as a auto hub with exports of $50 billion in 2018 but under new rules that the Trump administration sees as fair. India is being considered as an auto production hub in Asia. In tech products China continues to have an edge but this is changing gradually. Samsung has built a huge smartphone manufacturing complex in Vietnam. South east Asia is a beneficiary, so is Mexico. In the future India stands to gain as its manufacturing base expands and infrastructure develops. In this changed scenario China will be moving to produce more advanced technological products, as it shifts away from lower end products. This will also correct some of the grossly unfavorable trade imbalances that have developed with the U.S. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Sony's television business is expected to show a profit in 2014 after years of losses. Sony is concentrating on the high end 4K part of the television business. It has 8% global market share in televisions compared to Samsung at 27% and LG at 15%.

LyrArc Article Gist
Apple has 42% of the smartphone market in the U.S. A larger iphone with 5.5 inch screen could generate a meaningful upgrade cycle, say analysts, increasing Apple's market share by 11%. The larger device is especially important in emerging markets where the iphone serves as the main computing device. Samsung currently dominates the larger screen market with 34%, followed by Lenovo. The shift to larger screens is significant- market research firm Canalys estimates that 40% of global smartphone shipments were larger than 5 inches in the 2nd quarter of 2014, up from 21% the prior year quarter. This is the one area in which Samsung holds an advantage.

LyrArc Article Gist
Shipments of LG phones were up 54% in the 1st quarter of 2008 from a year ago, about 4 times the average growth of 14% in the industry., according to Strategy Analytics. The market share goes up to 8.6% from 6.4%. This puts it near overtaking Motorola for 3rd place ater Nokia and Samsung. Its biggest hit so far is the Chocolate, a skinny phone that looks like a chocolate barwith a dial pad that glows red. About 18 million have been sold worldwide sine introduction in May 2006. It also developed a pricey handset called Prada designed with the Italian fashion house and introduced in March of 2007. What is interesting is the way LG has approached product development. The Chocolate's creator Skott Ahn got the top job at the LG cell phone business unit in early 2007. And he has been put in charge of all areas of design developmet with the authority to make decisions in the way he would run this business. Ahn doubled the headcount of designers to 150 and engineers to 4000. He launched an inhouse design competition. The winner of the 2008 competition is the Secret, made from sleek yet sturdy carbon fiber and tempered glass and with a 5 megapixel camera and software to let users create their own music videos. This phone was intorduced in Europe this month. LG's profits on cell phones are expected to double to $2 billion according to Mirae Securities in Seoul, with a 50% jump in sales, and the stock is up 57%....

LyrArc Article Gist
Facin competition from RIM's Blackberry, Apple's IPhone, Smamsung and LG, Nokia has seen its market share in the USA take asteep dive from 35% in 2002 March to 10% in 2008, and 7% in June 2009. Nokia say experts made adecade of mistakes. It failed to design new phones , failed to anticipate consumer tastes in America, like flip phones and touch screens, and failed to accomodate the CDMA format using instead the European GSM standard.

LyrArc Article Gist
With the decline of its hardware business making iPhones Apple is looking at other fields. It is launching cheap online TV subscriptions in streaming wars in competition with Netflix and others. Apple is launching a new TV streaming service Apple TV+ in 100 countries for 4.99 British pounds a month undercutting Netflix's price of 5.99 pounds. The new service will be started November 1, 2019. Disney plans a streaming service for 7 pounds a month starting November 12. This service is alongside iPhone 11 launch and anew iPad, a new iWatch. Buy any new Apple device and you get a 1 year streaming service free.  Sales of iPhones fell 14% in the April to June 2019 quarter to 39 million units. Samsung's business is growing by 4% to 75 million units and Huawei by 16% to 58 million units. Apple sees the need to increases its services business with a target of $50 billion in 2020. Apple sees itself more as a media and cloud services company as it makes this change. In markets such as India Apple's growth is limited by its failure to lower prices on new iPhones. In China it faces strong competition from Huawei. The trade tensions are increasing the strength of Chinese brands in the Chinese market. The market in U.S. and Europe is saturated after years of expansion. New iPhone models are costly and bring peripheral advantages such as more and better cameras and features such as screens that are not breakable- for the iPhone 11- not dimensions that are critical for making a costly purchase. After years of growth tech companies such as Apple, Google, Alibaba, Amazon are reaching a point where incremental growth is not what it used to be and most of the rapid growth behind them. Trade tensions are also limiting the outlook in the Chinese market, and pricing remains a major factor in the Indian market. Western markets are saturated. There are fewer and fewer substantial new ideas from these tech companies. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Sony's Xperia Z smartphone as a competitor to Samsung Galaxy and Apple iPhone in 2013. Sony is now in third place in global smartphone sales with a 5% market share. Sony CEO Hirai says the basic building blocks are in place for Sony to secure the strong position in smartphone sales that its technology and assets deserve.

LyrArc Article Gist
The company that only a couple of years ago was coming up with new models and among the top names in the cell phone business, is now gasping for air as it struggles to keep its cellphone business alive. It is an example of how vigilant and on ones toes (how paranoid in Andy Grove's words), one has to be in the fast moving tech businesses. Losing its leadership position to Nokia and other rivals like Samsung and LG from South Korea, who had better strategies and newer models, Motorola has never recovered, and the way down has been steep and precipitious. Motorola's cellphone sales fell a huge 51% in the fourth quarter, matching in its magnitude the kind of breathtaking sales drops that have hit GM and Chrysler for January 2009. And things cannot get better when the loss of $595 million for the cellphone division (or $31 for each cellphone shipped), mean cuts in design and other needed staff. Motorola has been closing design centers and has laid off 25% of design staff. In total Motorola posted a loss of $3.58 billion for the 4th quarter 2008. The rest of the losses include writedowns and charges for layoffs of 7000 workers announced since October 2008. Motorola shares trade at $4.04 on the NYSE and Moody's has downgraded it to Baa3, the lowest investment grade rating. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
The smaller iPads like the Apple Mini 5S iPad are gaining in popularity. Apple has 32% of the iPad market. Samsung is gaining market share moving up to 18% in 2013 second quarter, up from 7.6% the prior year quarter, according to IDC. Apple is making the new iPad Air thinner and lighter from 1.4 pounds to 1 pound. The iPad Mini gets the high-resolution Retina display and goes for $400, $70 higher than the previous mini ipad which will now go for $300. Both iPads get faster processing chips, the A7 and the M7, and better antenna wifi connections. The new products will go on sale in Nov. 2013. Gartner estimates smartphone shipments at 1 billion and tablet shipments at 184 million for 2013. Tablets are expected to outsell PC's in 2015, according to IDC. The growth is rapid paced, with 2012 sales at 120 million tablets, increasing from about 17 million in 2010 when the iPad was first introduced.

LyrArc Article Gist
Apple's 5% smartphone market share in India lags behind Sony at 9% and Samsung at 40% for 4th quarter 2012, according to Canalys. India is expected to become the third largest market for smartphones after China and the U.S. A major problem for Apple is India's multilayered distribution network, says Apple CEO Cook. Government rules require Apple to source 30% of parts in India to be able to open its own store network. Apple is also working on lower priced smartphones for the Indian market closer to Samsung's starting price of $111 for Galaxy smartphones in India.

LyrArc Article Gist
Pfanner and Chen of the NYT talk to Samsung executives in Digital City, Suwon, head offices near Seoul. After capturing about 40% of the smartphone market Samsung still remains for the most part a hardware based company with strengths in production, cost and efficiency. Samsung still remains dependent on the Google Android software. Competitors in China are making smartphones that compete with Samsung products and cost much less. There is also the awareness of the problems faced by Motorola, Nokia, Blackberry, HTC, having only a temporary advantage in the fast paced software driven industry. Samsung's software efforts include merging its research effort in mobile operating systems with an industry effort that includes Intel Corp called Tizen operating system. In 2011 Samsung hired David Eun, who worked for AOL and Google, as one of the executives leading its software effort. The Boxee startup for television software was acquired and a partnership setup with the Flipboard news reading app company. In Feb. 2013 the Open Innovation Center was opened in S. Korea, New York and Mountain View, California, The same year the Samsung Accelerator program was setup in Palo Alto and Chelsea for tech startups to make products exclusively for Samsung. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Nokia slips into seventh place in the smartphone market in Nov. 2012, as Apple and Samsung take the lead with combined 46.5% market share, and HTC, RIM overtake Nokia. Nokia has only 4.3% of the smartphone sales worldwide. Smartphones now account for about 40% of all mobile phone sales worldwide according to Gartner Inc., and sales are growing fast with a 47% increase in global smartphone sales in the third quarter according to Gartner Inc. Worldwide 169.2 million smartphones were sold in the third quarter of 2012. Microsoft operating system and Nokia's Symbian system account for only 5% of the operating systems on smartphones in the third quarter 2012, says Gartner. By comparison Google's open end Android platform accounts for 72.4% of smartphones, increasing from 52.5% the prior year.

LyrArc Article Gist
The smartphone market in Brazil is shifting to the $100-$300 range. Because of higher import taxes and other costs, including paying for the full price upfront, buyers pay about $260 for a Moto G whereas a iPhone 6 would cost $1060. The focus is on the better value for the Moto G compared to the Samsung Galaxy and Apple iPhone in developing countries, where new middle class consumers such as in Brazil may make between $5400 to $27,000 a year. This creates opportunities for such phones with superior value- the Moto G has a 5 inch HD display, a 1.2 GHz Qualcomm pocessor, and an 8 megapixel camera. This has helped Lenovo Motorola Mobility take 18% of the Brazil smartphone market, according to IDC, making the Moto G the best selling smartphone in Brazil.