Tag: handsets

Amazon UK accused of stressing workers

Posted on November 25, 2013 by - News

Amazon logoA BBC Panorama report is claiming that working at Amazon can really stress you out.

That’s a claim Amazon rejects.

According to the BBC, it planted a reporter at the firm’s Swansea warehouse and he used a hidden camera to record the action.

His job was to pick orders from the huge warehouse, using a handset that told him what to collect.

The handset gave the reporter, Adam Littler, a fixed time to pick the products and it started counting down and beeped at him if he got it wrong.

The handset reported the speed at which Littler was performing and if his performance wasn’t under par, he was reported to managers.  He worked 10 and a half hour night shifts at £8.25 an hour and reported that he walked 11 miles on an average shift.

Amazon told the BBC that it was “working hard to make sure we’re better tomorrow than we are today”. The Panorama programme airs tonight at 9:30PM.

Samsung boosted by smartphone sales

Posted on April 26, 2013 by - News

Samsung HQ in CaliforniaGrowing sales of its smartphones have helped Samsung reach a record quarterly profit.

The company announced that it had raked in a net profit of $6.4 billion in the first quarter of 2013, 42 percent higher than the same time last year.

Samsung said its IM Division rang up the first quarter with a  seven percent increase from the previous quarter. It added that this was driven by “sound sales” of its GALAXY S III and GALAXY Note II devices, which aided profit margins for Mobile Communications.

However it warned that it expected global demand for smartphones in the second quarter would “dampen” as a result of  “heightened competition”.

It also admitted that the January-to-March quarter proved trying on the PC business, while the Networks Business came around with a stable supply of Long Term Evolution (LTE), fourth-generation equipment.

Demand for consumer electronics products in emerging markets stemmed further sales losses but weak seasonality and a sluggish economy took their toll on Samsung’s sales of TVs and home appliances. However, Samsung’s VP and Head of Investor Relations moved to drum up support claiming the company expected to increase R&D spending for strengthening its “competitiveness ahead of planned new product launches.”

He did, however manage expectations, warning that  the company couls experience stiffer competition in the mobile business due to expansion of the mid- to low-end smartphone market while TV growth would continue to wane in developed markets.

On the components side, global supply of PC DRAM remained weak, brought on by adjustments in the product mix by chip makers opting to manufacture mobile and server DRAM over chips used in PCs. Samsung is looking to improve its profit margins with a differentiated product portfolio.

The Display Panel segment faced a challenging quarter due to seasonally soft demand from set makers. However the introduction of new devices and increased shipments of smartphone display panels, prevented steeper losses.