Tag: Huawei

Samsung to regain smartphone lead

Posted on March 25, 2015 by - News

samsung-hqA research company believes that Samsung will be the number one smartphone vendor in 2015, taking the lead over Apple.

Digitimes Research (DR) said the top 10 vendors this year will be Samsung, Apple, Lenovo, LG Electronics, Huawei, Xiaomi, Microsoft, TC, Coolpad and Oppo.

HTC, which only a few years ago was top of the smartphone pops, doesn’t appear to get a lookin at all. Last week, Cher Wang, chairman of HTC, took on the CEO duties too, displacing former CEO Peter Chou to head up a new products division at the Taiwanese firm.

DR estimates that Samsung will ship over 330 million units and Apple will manage to ship 230 million.

But Lenovo appears to be edging upwards in the smartphone league. This year it will ship 64 million units, while LG will ship 67 million units, just ahead of Huawei.

DR estimates that Android phones supplied by the top 10 Android smartphone vendors willl represent over 70 percent of the total units shipped this year.

 

Intel and Huawei snuggle up

Posted on March 5, 2015 by - News

cuddling-dog-catIntel and Huawei Technologies are getting closer even as their rival governments fall out over trade blocks.

According to Huawei, the pair are getting closer and will share technology and adopt Huawei branding behind the bamboo curtain to make Intel products more palatable to local buyers and the Chinese government.

The technology involved focuses on the cloud, with the pair working on a project to create new servers, a data centre, software and cyber security for a global cloud-computing network.

China’s government has been openly pushing for the use of more Chinese and less foreign-made technology, both to grow its own tech sector and as a response to Edward Snowden’s leaks about widespread US cyber surveillance.

Intel and Huawei have collaborated previously, including a server and cloud product team-up in 2012 and an agreement to cooperate on data storage last April.

Although the announcement is mostly Chinese focused it is likely that the Intel side of the deal will result in other products seen worldwide. Intel would take the lead in nations where Huawei is not trusted, and Huawei stepping forward in countries which are worried about US surveillance.

Huawei increases 5G patent portfolio

Posted on March 4, 2015 by - News

huawei-liveHuawei is spending a bomb to improve its 5G patent portfolio.

The outfit said that it wants to spend $600 million on 5G wireless research and development from 2013 to 2018.

But speaking to reporters at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona yesterday, Huawei Chief Executive Ken Hu said that 5G research spending was likely to rise, without giving specific figures.

Huawei was Europe’s seventh-largest patent filer in 2014, up from 13th the previous year, according a report published last week by the European Patent Office (EPO). It was granted 493 patents by the European agency in 2014, although they were not all 5G related.

5G is supposed to be the next big thing, promises superfast internet speeds, broader network coverage and peace in our lunchtime.

It is also expected to be the driver to hook up objects to the internet from cars to health monitoring devices or the internet of things. The commercial launch of 5G is expected to begin in 2020.
“We have made quite a large number of technology innovations and breakthroughs,” Hu, deputy chairman and ‘rotating’ chief executive of Huawei, said.

These give Huawei a stronger position in terms of intellectual property, he said.

Hu urged cooperation among telecom operators, equipment makers and other industries to agree on a single set of standards for 5G technology to ensure a global market.

Smartphone sold over a billion last year

Posted on March 3, 2015 by - News

smartphones-genericIn 2014, sales of smartphones to individuals reached 1.2 billion units worldwide, a rise of 28.4 percent compared to 2013.

Worldwide sales of smartphones in the fourth quarter of 2014 saw an increase of 29.9 percent compared to the same quarter in 2013, totalling 367.5 million units, according to Gartner.

And in the fourth quarter, Samsung lost its number one spot to Apple – as a result of product introductions in Apple’s case, and erosion of sales in Samsung’s case.

Samsung lost 10 percent in market share, according to Anshul Gupta, a Gartner analyst. “Samsung continues to struggle to control its falling smartphone share, which was at its highest in the third quarter of 2013. This downward trend shows that Samsung’s share of profitable premium smartphone users has come under significant pressure,” said Gupta.

For the whole year, Samsung remained the leader, shipping 307,597 units worldwide, while Apple shipped 191,426 phones.

The top five vendors in the fourth quarter were Apple, Samsung, Lenovo, Huawei and Xiaomi, according to Gartner. These last three vendors are all Chinese companies.

Huawei dusts off US invasion plans

Posted on March 3, 2015 by - News

huawei-liveChinese phone maker Huawei is planning a campaign to win over US consumers, rolling out new mobile phones and wearable devices backed by a marketing effort.

It is a brave move considering that it was only two years ago that the company was branded a spy by US senators who knew at the time that there stance was a case of the kettle calling the pot black.

China’s second-largest smartphone maker, already with more than $40 billion in annual revenue from a wide range of telecom gear and products, is preparing to introduce Americans to several of its smartphones and wearable devices this year, including its youth-oriented “Honor” phone.

Huawei’s US spokesman Bill Plummer said the company’s 2015 US plans will include traditional advertising, online promotion and sports team sponsorships.

He said the company wanted to change its marketing approach to shed its image as a purveyor of cheap technology products.

In December, it touted its new Honor 6 Plus phone on a billboard in New York’s Times Square. Plummer said that was “a sign of things to come”.

He declined to say how much Huawei will spend on its new marketing campaign or what sports team, or teams, it had in mind. In the UK it already sponsors Arsenal, cricket teams in India and rugby clubs in Australia.

At the Mobile World Congress over the weekend in Barcelona, Huawei took the wraps off a smartwatch that will be sold in over 20 countries including the US.

Huawei now intends to appeal directly to consumers with several new phone models, both low end and high end. It hopes to secure deals with carriers, selling online through marketplaces, such as the one operated by Amazon.com, and on its own fledgling gethuawei.com US direct-sales website.
US senators are mostly concerned with Huawei’s networking equipment, but in consumer land, Huawei has a huge problem with brand recognition.

 

Samsung edged out by Chinese vendors

Posted on February 9, 2015 by - News

Samsung HQ Silicon Valley - MM picA report said Samsung faces increased competition from mainland China.
And that will affect Apple’s bottom line too, according to a survey by Taiwanese market research company Trendforce.
It published figures that showed that in 2014 home grown companies Huawei, Xiaomi and others managed to ship 453 million units – nearly 40 percent of total smartphone shipments worldwide.
Samsung is being squeezed by Apple as well as Chinese smartphone brands but Apple itself is showing signs of losing the brand loyalty it largely depends on.
The company predicts that during 2015 the Chinese branded smartphones will account for shipments of 531 million units. That will be a growth, year on year, of 17.2 percent.
But the Chinese brands showed a growth last year of 54.8 percent.
One of the reasons for the smaller growth is because Chinese telcos have been cutting subsidies, making handsets more expensive.
But that is also likely to affect Samsung and Apple too.
When Samsung released its financial results recently, it reported smaller profits on its smartphone devices in the face of increased competition from Apple and others.

 

Smartphone shipments boom

Posted on January 30, 2015 by - News

smartphones-genericOver 375.2 million smartphones shipped during the fourth quarter of 2014 – that’s up by 28.2 percent compared to the same period the year before.
Apple had been the number two vendor in 11 previous quarters before Q4 2014, but, according to IDC, it was close to a tie with Samsung, the market leader.
IDC now predicts that Samsung could well outstrip Samsung during 2015.
It’s not just Apple that is challenging Samsung – as we’ve reported before, is under challenge from small Android OEMs selling products at much lower margins.
Growth in 2013 represented 40.5 percent but according to IDC, “the market clearly still has legs”. It estimates growth will fall to a mid teen figure during 2015.
The top five vendors for the fourth quarter were Samsung, Apple, Lenovo, Huawei and Xiaomi.  The last showed growth of 178.6 percent during Q4 2014, compared to Q4 2013.

 

Samsung, Apple, take top semi spots

Posted on January 21, 2015 by - News

Samsung HQ Silicon Valley - MM picApple and Samsung were the biggest buyers of semiconductors in 2014.
Together, they bought $57.9 billion worth of chips last year, up by $3.9 billion in 2013, according to Gartner.
In terms of the total market for semiconductor, both companies’ accounted for 17 percent of the total market.
Gartner said the two firms have been top of the semiconductor consumption market for four years in a row.
That, said analyst Masatsune Yamajo, means decisions they make “have considerable technology and pricing implications for the whole semiconductor industry”.
Samsung was still top buyer but its decision to withdraw from some parts of the PC market as well as losing market share to other vendors meant its growth rate wasn’t as great as in the past.
Gartner estimates that the top 10 companies bought $125.6 billion of semiconductors, accounting for 36.4 percent of the whole market in 2014.
After Samsung and Apple, the remaining eight top ten buyers were HP, Lenovo, Dell, Sony, Huawei, Cisco, LG Electronics and Toshiba.
The entire semiconductor market worldwide amounted to $339.9 billions last year.

 

Chinese phone company revenues soar

Posted on January 5, 2015 by - News

android-china-communistXiaomi Technology, which is beginning to challenge smartphone players including Samsung and Apple, turned over close to $12 billion in 2014, according to its CEO.
Lei Jun, the CEO of the company, said the revenues rose 135 percent compared to 2013, in a blog on the company’s website.
The company isn’t public but that hasn’t stopped it denting sales of the global giants as well as having an impact on another Chinese manufacturer of telecommunications equipment, Huawei.
Lei claimed that Xiaomi shipped over 60 million phones in 2014, an increase of 227 percent compared to 2013.
But while Xiaomi might well be making waves and causing its competitors some alarm, it’s doing so using a model which doesn’t yield big profits. Estimates are that its margins are in the low single digits.
Although Xiaomi remains a private firm, it is receiving investment from a number of big names in Asia and Reuters claimed the market value of the company is as much as $45 billion.

 

Smartphone brands cleared by Taiwan’s watchdog

Posted on December 31, 2014 by - News

White Puppy-02Tawian’s watchdogs have cleared China’s Xiaomi and other smartphone brands of breaching data protection laws after national security concerns triggered a government probe.

The National Communications Commission said all the 12 brands it had tested, which also included handsets sold by Apple, Samsung, LG and Sony , did not violate the laws.

James Lou, an NCC official who was involved in the testing, said the commission, however, would request mobile phone makers make information transmission more secure.

The probe was started over concerns that the Chinese handset makers Huawei and ZTE were being used as snooping tools by the Chinese.

Taiwan is a bit sensitive to security matters involving China, which is its largest trading partner, but has never renounced the use of force to take back what it deems a renegade province.

Xiaomi, whose budget smartphones are popular throughout Asia, was previously accused of breaching data privacy. In August, the company said sorry and changed a default feature after a Finnish security company said Xiaomi collected address book data without users’ permission.

Taiwan’s government began performing independent tests on Xiaomi phones after media reports said that some models automatically send user data back to the firm’s servers in mainland China.

The probe was then widened to include local and foreign handsets. The NCC report said handsets made by HTC Corp, Asustek, Far EasTone, Taiwan Mobile and InFocus Corp, whose handsets are made by Taiwan’s Hon Hai Precision Industry were also cleared of breaching the data protection laws.

EU 4G speed trials completed

Posted on December 23, 2014 by - News

indy1909EE, Qualcomm and Huawei have completed a 4G trial which aimed to speed up internet connection and reliability on mobile gear.

The three said that they managed to achieve download speeds of up to 410Mbps when going downhill and with the wind behind it.

It is the first time that LTE Category 9 testing has been tried in Europe and should dramatically improve EE mobile broadband speeds across greater areas.

The test has proved the operator can aggregate 20MHz of 1800MHz spectrum with another 20MHz of 2.66GHz, and a third carrier of 15MHz of 2.6GHz.

Apparently they conducted the test using QTI’s Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 processor and an integrated LTE-Advanced modem, on Huawei’s commercial infrastructure solution across EE’s LTE-A 4G+ network. Double sided sticky tape was not used and apparently the tests were conducted in front of a responsible adult.

Qualcomm said that transitioning from Category 6 to Category 9 LTE-A connectivity will mean 1.5x faster peak download speeds, swift application response times, reliable connectivity and connections to the fastest networks.

EE claimed that using its remaining 15MHz of the 2.6GHz spectrum enables the fastest speeds and an increase in capacity across its network.

EE’s director of network services and devices, Tom Bennett said that working closely with Qualcomm and Huawei on the next generation LTE Category 9 connectivity enabled the company to make full use of our spectrum holdings, and continue to offer world class network capabilities, innovating to stay one step ahead of operators in Europe.

Huawei described the test as “a truly ground breaking moment” in the move towards the 5G era. However, none of the firms confirmed when these speeds will become a reality.

 

Sales of smartphones soar

Posted on December 15, 2014 by - News

android-china-communistEmerging markets worldwide have accounted for the growth of smartphones in the third quarter of this year, growing by 20 percent.

Gartner said Samsung lost market share, but Chinese manufacturers are showing positive growth.

Altogether, sales of smartphones accounted for 301 million units shipping in the third quarter.

Roberta Cozza, research director at Gartner, said in the third quarter smartphones represented 66 percent of the total mobile phone market.  She thinks that by 2018 nine out of 10 phones will be smartphones.

Western Europe saw a decline in growth of 5.2 percent, but the USA saw high growth of 18.9 percent, fuelled by the launch of the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus.

In terms of market share, Samsung holds 24.4 percent of the market, Apple holds 12.7, Huawei holds 5.3 percent, Xiaomi has 5.2 percent of the market and Lenovo five percent.

As far as operating systems are concerned, Android ruled the roost in the third quarter (83.1%), Apple was next with 12.7 percent, Windows only held three percent and Blackberry 0.8 percent.

Cozza said: “The smartphone market is more than ever in flux as more players step up their game in this space.  With the ability to undercut cost and offer top specs, Chinese brands are well positioned to expand in the premium phone market too.”

Asian servers threaten US hegemony

Posted on December 15, 2014 by - News

lenovo-logoA report said that increased production by major Chinese vendors will topple US players from their grip on the server market.

Digitimes said that Lenovo, Huawei and Inspur are likely to ship a total of two million units in 2015, knocking Dell off the number two slot.

Earlier this year, Lenovo bought IBM’s X86 business and that means the company is likely to ship a million server boxes in 2015.

Meanwhile HP, the market intelligence firm said, will show a decline in server shipments of 10 percent this year.

By the end of next year, the combined shipments worldwide from Chinese vendors is likely to amount to nearly 20 percent.

Meanwhile, the multinationals are threatened by ODMs (original design manufacturers) like Quanta, which are squeezing the Dells and HPs of this world by selling units direct at a knockdown price.

5G planning starts

Posted on December 10, 2014 by - News

oldfoneWhile most people haven’t even moved to 4G phone networks yet, manufacturers are already talking about standards for the next faster generation of 5G phones.

Major vendors are engaging with the formal standards process, according to ABI Research.  Those include Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson, Huawei, Intel, Qualcomm, Samsung, mobile operators and academic bodies.

Research director Philip Solis sad: “These companies are all waving their 5G flags, although 5G definitions and visions remain very vague.  But this is not merely marketing. These companies are most certainly putting a stake in the ground that will leverage their, work, competitive strengths, and, most crucially, patents.”

He said that Qualcomm in particular is keeping its head low, but other vendors such as Apple and Google are getting actively involved.

Solis said that efforts by vendors to use their patents will be fiercer than for 4G.

But despite the competitive edge, Solis said that companies are working together “so the standardisation process can hit the ground running”.

Smartphone shipments slow right down

Posted on December 2, 2014 by - News

threeiphonesShipments of smartphones worldwide slumped by 25.9 percent in 2014 and will fall again next year by 12.4 percent.

That’s the opinion of market intelligence company Trendforce which said 1.17 billion smartphones left the factories this year and 1.31 billion will ship next year.

The reason, according to Avril Wu, an analyst at Trendforce, is because the penetration rate “is already very high while the market is saturated”.

She said that Chinese brands will represent 17 percent of handset shipments in 2015 – with competition intense. Lenovo, Huawei, Xiaomi, Coolpad, ZTE and TCL are competing on price meaning their margins are as thin as a cigarette paper.  Trendforce thinks mergers and acquisitions over the next few years will be the inevitable conclusion of this trend.

Meanwhle, the iPhone 6 continues to sell well but brands using the Android and Windows operating systems find themselves competing on price.  This will continue in the coming year.

The 4G network, she says, is now in place and will mature next year, with Qualcomm taking the lead over Mediatek in the semiconductor infrastructure required.