The Windows 8 operating system debuted on October 26th, six months ago today. Intended to be the savior of a flagging PC industry, Microsoft’s latest software is designed specifically for touch-equipped hardware. While Apple continues to increase its iPad shipments year-on-year, Microsoft and its OEMs are fresh out the gate with an operating system that tries to marry a keyboard and mouse-driven UI to a modern touch-enabled interface. Microsoft provided some early signs of Windows 8′s sales performance, but recently it has been rather quiet. How well is the big Windows 8 gamble paying off?
The first indication of Windows 8′s growth came from Microsoft itself. The software maker announced 40 million license sales in late November, noting…
LG has released its earnings report for the first quarter of 2013, and while they were down overall from last year, there is good news to report for its phones. A net profit of $ 20.3 million is lower than Q1 2012′s $ 214 million, and Q4′s $ 80.75 million, blamed on weaker earnings in its home theater business. The good news is reserved for phones, where sales were up 30 percent from last year thanks to devices like the Optimus G (original, Pro and Nexus 4) and L series. Home Entertainment sales dropped to their lowest level in the past year, blamed mostly on a decline in plasmas. According to LG its LCD sales were actually up thanks to growing demand in Europe and China, but profits took a hit because of increased competition. While it doesn’t expect the overall market to change, it is looking for better results in Q2 as its new Smart and 3D TVs hit shelves, not to mention 4K sets. We’ll keep digging through the numbers for more details, check the source link below to take a look for yourself.
Filed under: Cellphones, Home Entertainment, HD, Mobile, LG
Source: LG Korea, LG Q1 2013 earnings (PDF)
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Apple began selling its iPad Mini on Friday, as it seeks to maintain its leadership of the tech industry, Ian Sherr reports on digits. Photo: Getty Images.
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Despite rumors of Microsoft building three to five million tablets for its Surface RT launch, it appears that the company may have only shipped less than one million in the recent quarter. IDC says the figure is “just shy of 900,000 units into the channel,” as Microsoft looks to compete with other tablet makers. “There is no question that Microsoft is in this tablet race to compete for the long haul,” says IDC’s Ryan Reith. “Reaction to the company’s Surface with Windows RT tablet was muted at best.”
Microsoft has pumped millions into advertising campaigns for Windows 8 and its new Surface tablets, but the holiday execution was less than perfect. The slow reaction could be blamed on a number of factors, including a lack of retail…
Apple has managed to nab three of the top 5 spots for the top-selling mobile phones in the U.S. during Q4 2012 according to the NPD Group, with the iPhone 5, iPhone 4S and iPhone 4 ranking first, third and fourth, respectively. Apple also retained the crown for best-selling overall smartphone maker, accounting for 39 percent of smartphone sales in Q4 2012, compared to Samsung’s 30 percent.
iPhone 4 sales rose 79 percent compared to Q3 2012, and iPhone 4S sales grew 43 percent sequentially, while the iPhone 5 accounted for 43 percent of all iPhone sales in Q4 2012, which is roughly in line with the numbers we’re seeing out of carrier data as well. It also made up nearly two-thirds of all smartphone sales on post-paid plans with a value over $ 200, NPD says. Samsung made considerable gains on the year, going up to 30 percent of all U.S. smartphone sales in Q4 2012 from 21 percent in the year ago quarter, but the gains were mostly at the expense of other Android OEMs, including HTC, while Apple’s overall share remained constant.
Net Applications also released its monthly report on mobile OS share, which found that Apple’s iOS increased slightly in terms of traffic, accounting for 60.56 percent of all mobile operating systems, while Android actually took a bit of a dip to 24.51 percent, continuing a decline that has occurred over the past two months from a peak high in November of 28.02 percent. It looks like Apple’s release of the iPhone 5 might have essentially begun to erase earlier gains made by the longer availability of the Samsung Galaxy S III, but Apple still has some ground to make up if it wants to climb back to its 2012 high of nearly 66 percent web traffic share among mobile devices.
Apple’s holiday quarter, which included 47.8 million iPhone sales and 22.9 million iPads, looks to have helped it in terms of remaining the leader in both smartphone and mobile device sales in the U.S., and in keeping the hold it has on mobile browsing. The strong quarter also accounts for Apple’s regaining the role of largest mobile phone maker by volume in the U.S., an honor it reclaimed according to the latest data from Strategy Analytics released earlier today.
Google and LG’s Nexus 4 has been such a coveted item this past holiday season, that it’s been in and out of stock since its release in mid-November. Because Google doesn’t publicly comment on device sales, it’s been hard to understand exactly how much OEM partner LG produced for the device’s initial launch.
However, a little sleuthing by some Android enthusiasts and Nexus 4 owners suggests that LG produced about 400,000 devices going into the end of last year.
How did they do it? They’ve taken the IMEI numbers of their phones and backtracked the production number of their devices using an LG mobile link that’s usually used for finding new firmware. An IMEI number, or International Mobile Station Equipment Identity number, is usually printed on the battery compartment of the inside of the phone. It can be used to prevent stolen phones from accessing a network.
If you take this link and put your IMEI number at the very end, this LG site will spit back out the IMEI followed by a long string of characters that looks something like this: “LGE960 ACAGBK 212KPHG188745 20121206 GLOBAL/GLOBAL N N”
If you break this string apart, you get: LGE960 = phone model A = ? CA = Country where the device was sold. (Others include ‘US’ for the U.S., ‘HK’ for Hong Kong, ‘AU’ for Australia and so on.) G = Storage (G = 16GB, 8 = 8GB) BK = Color 2 = ? 12 = Production Month (November) K = Production Country (Korea) PHG = ? 188745 = The line or production number, showing that phone was the 188,745th device made. 2012121206 = The production date in YYYYMMDD format
A number of Nexus 4 owners have been sharing and compiling the production numbers day by day (see below). It suggests that LG made about 70,000 devices in October, 90,000 in November and 210,000 in December. Google declined to comment on these numbers.
Still, they’re interesting for a couple reasons. It appears that Google and LG have been conservative with the Nexus 4 launch. LG has previously said that the Nexus 4 “had proven extremely popular, and as such retailers have been met with huge demand.” Google’s U.K. and Ireland managing director Dan Cobley likewise has said there have been communication problems on both ends with managing supply for the Nexus 4.
Keeping supplies tight have made the Nexus 4 debut a world apart from the launch of the original HTC-manufactured Nexus One back in 2010.
DEC 165000 264000 265133 14-th ADEUBK GERMANY 266133 15-th AHKGBK Hong Kong 267133 15-th AHKGBK Hong Kong 268133 15-th ADEUBK GERMANY 269133 15-th ADEUBK GERMANY 270133 15-th ASWSBK SWS Switzerland (looks like around 500 units) 271133 16-th AISRBK Israel 272133 15-th ADEUBK Germany 273133 15-th AHKGBK Hong Kong 274133 15-th AHKGBK Hong Kong 275133 15-th AHKGBK Hong Kong 277133 17-th AHKGBK Hong Kong 278133 17-th AHKGBK Hong Kong 279133 16-th AMYSBK 280123 17-th AMYSBK 289000 18-th UK 300123 19-th ADEGBK 305112 19-th ACA8BK 306000 28-Oct (?) AUSGBK, 211KPPB306000 “csn” is also very different from the “surroundings” 306001 8-Oct AUSGBK 211KPHG306001 esnoutgodate=null >>Never shipped? 306009 4-th Dec AUSGBK 212KPHG306009 esnoutgodate=null 306010 19-th AUS8BK 212KPYR306010 esnoutgodate=null 306020 19-th AUS8BK esnoutgodate=null 314001 19-th AFRGBK 314002 19-th ADEGBK 314050 19-th ADEGBK 314123 19-th ADEGBK 315112 19-th ADE8BK 319123 20-th ADEGBK 320123 20-th ADEGBK 321123 20-th AAUGBK 325112 20-th AUSGBK 330123 20-th AUSGBK 340123 21-th ACAGBK 350123 22-th AUS8BK 360123 26-th AUSGBK 365123 27-th AUS8BK 370123 27-th AUSGBK 374110 28-th AUSGBK
- Sleuthing|Tech Meets Blog
Microsoft has bet the farm on Windows 8 and its new modern-style interface, but it seems that not everyone is ready to get on board with the tiles and colors just yet. Earlier reports had claimed that demand for Windows 8 hasn’t lived up to Microsoft’s own internal expectations, and now Fujitsu, an important partner for Microsoft, is blaming its poor PC sales performance on the lack of interest in Windows 8. According to a report from Bloomberg, Fujitsu president Masami Yamamoto pointed to the “weak” demand for Windows 8 as a reason why Fujitsu won’t make its shipment target for new computers in 2012. Microsoft apparently pointed the finger at manufacturers in its own internal reports, but now manufacturers are turning the blame right…
Samsung is looking to move around 20 percent more mobile phones in 2013 than it did in 2012, according to a new report from The Korea Times. The Korean electronics firm wants to ship 510 million phones in the New Year, which exceeds the 420 million it projected for 2012. The 2013 increase adds anticipated holiday sales to its existing 288 million total devices sold through September. Around 76 percent, or 390 million, of that 510 million will be smartphones, according to a key Samsung supplier speaking to the Korea Times.
These figures are very optimistic compared to earlier projections from Gartner, which pegged Samsung at around 300 million smartphone sales next year at the upper limit. Samsung has since shown itself as a very strong competitor in the latter half of the year, thanks to devices like the Galaxy S III and Galaxy Note 2, which have helped the smartphone maker become the top global cellphone brand in 2012, finally overtaking Nokia to win that honor, according to iHS iSuppli projections.
While Samsung execs see a possible slowdown overall for smartphone demand, the company will offer Windows 8 devices and smartphones shipping with TIZEN – a joint project with Intel — in addition to its existing stable of Android-based handsets. It also claims in the report to be considering “better pricing” in developing markets to drive growth, and provide LTE-capable handsets at lower costs in more established markets like North America.
Put in perspective, Apple’s iPhone sales for 2012 totaled just over 125 million, so Samsung’s plan would see it outselling its strongest smartphone market rival by a considerable amount and outpacing its other Android handset maker rivals by even more of a gap. Given how strong the Korean electronics maker has come on in both the Android OEM race and overall smartphone market, that’s not too surprising or unrealistic an expectation for 2013.
Apple’s iPhone 5 is a “hit” according to English-language Chinese newspaper Shanghai Daily, despite the fact that there were not huge lineups or riots in the streets as there were on iPhone 4S launch day. That’s because most of the new phones were sold at China Unicom and China Telecom stores, the newspaper reports, rather than at Apple’s three Shanghai stores. In Shanghai alone, the newspaper puts first day sales at around 20,000 iPhone 5s through brick and mortar retail.
That includes around 15,000 sold through carrier outlets, making for a “robust” launch according to market watchers speaking to the Shanghai Daily, and adds to the 300,000 pre-orders seen through Apple’s China Unicom alone, which the carrier itself reported earlier this week. China Telecom wasn’t as transparent about its overall pre-order numbers but a Beijing subsidiary did reveal amazing 5,000 reservations for Apple’s new smartphone.
Other outlets also report strong iPhone 5 sales, including 100,000 pre-orders from home appliance retailer Suning, which also sold 20,000 handsets through its retail channels in China. It’s hard to compare this to data from previous launches, as last year riots halted sales early with the iPhone 4S. The iPhone 4 sold 60,000 units (across the entire country, not just in Shanghai) on launch day, however, with over 200,000 pre-orders through China Unicom, then the exclusive iPhone carrier in the country. The 3GS did far worse, netting 100,000 sales only after six weeks of availability, but it also came to China two years after it had been available in the U.S.
Jay Yarow at Business Insider points out some reasons why this launch appears on the surface to be weaker than others have in the past, including the implementation of a tightly regulated reservation system by Apple to defray the kind of trouble it ran into with the 4S, and also to prevent grey market resale. Apple is also using a lot more third-party resale partners than it has in the past, and as noted above, buyers seem to be flocking to those outlets.
This launch is definitely a much more muted affair than what we saw last year, but those proclaiming that they’re a sign of a weak opening in China could be jumping to conclusions before all the data is on the table.
Apple is aggressively ramping up its iPhone 5 supply chain in order to make sure that customers looking for the smartphone can get their hands on it easily and quickly come the holidays, according to stock checks and supply analysis conducted by Piper Jaffray’s Gene Munster (via Fortune). The analyst and his team conducted nightly checks of supplies at 100 Apple Stores in the U.S., and found that stock levels have improved significantly during the past 10 days, with availability of AT&T and Verizon climbing fast, and Sprint also remaining consistent after having risen previously.
Apple also recently improved the availability of its iPhone 5 models via its online store to two weeks, a slight but significant improvement from the 2-3 weeks it has been promising since earlier in November. Based on current availability trends, Piper Jaffray estimates that Apple will have same-day stock of iPhone 5s in most stores within two weeks, Munster concludes in the note he issued to investors Wednesday.
The last few years have been tremendously successful for Apple in terms of holiday iPhone sales, culminating in banner years in 2010 and 2011 thanks to the new fall release schedule for iPhones, which used to go on sale beginning in June. For Apple to continue to capitalize on holiday shopper appetite for its latest smartphone, the company needed to address supply bottlenecks and reported issues with manufacturing partners in order to make sure that customers shopping for the iPhone 5 could find it in stores and online. Supply chain optimization is one of CEO Tim Cook’s specialties, and it seems like the efforts he and his company have taken so far will indeed help make sure everyone who wants to give an iPhone 5 as a gift this year should be able to.
