Tag: Qualcomm

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.

Intel to carry on subsidising tablets

Posted on November 24, 2014 by - News

Internet of ThingsThe attempt by Intel to penetrate the tablet market has cost it dear in subsidies over the last two years.

But it appears that the chip giant hasn’t given up the ghost on such a plan and, according to Taiwanese wire Digitimes, is likely to pour more cash into the venture.

Intel’s problem is that it has faced overwhelming competition on price from companies that use microprocessors from Mediatek and Qualcomm, based on designs from British chip designer ARM.

Even though Intel has several ARM licences, it declines to use those to compete and wants the market to realise the important part it plays in the mobile arena.  Or, to put it differently, Intel is a proud company and doesn’t want to lose face.

The subsidies to vendors have been aimed at tablets with screen dimensions of 10 inches and below, but Digitimes now says it may well extend those subsidies to tablets 12 inches and below.

Intel cannot afford not to be in the tablet business because it wants to be a key player in the so called Internet of Things.  Last week the chip giant said it was going to merge its mobile and comms businesses with its PC business, which will effectively disguise the hole in its profit and loss statements in the future.

Get ready to wear a smart shirt

Posted on November 18, 2014 by - News

fobwatchA survey from Gartner said that less wearable electronic devices for fitness will ship in 2015 because of confusion in the marketplace.

While 70 million wearables will ship in 2014, that figure will fall to 68 million next year.

That is because the entry of smartwatches into the marketplace will have overlap in functionality.

But the figure is set to rise again in 2016 because lower cost machines will be available along with a variety of different designs.

The push to get people to use fitness wearables is being funded by a number of industry giants including Qualcomm, Apple, Google, Samsung, Microsoft, Nike and Intel.

Gartner sys the five main form factors are smart wristbands, sports watches, other fitness monitors, heart rate monitor chest straps and so called smart clothes.

This last category has the biggest potential for growth, according to Gartner and so-called “smart shirts” are no becoming available.  The research firm didn’t say whether the next step will be “smart pants”.

While smartwatches will come in many different price range, those costing $150 or over are likely to include accelerometers and gyroscopes but unlike health wristbands will have to tell the time and have the capacity to send and receive texts.

Apple knocks Google off top spot

Posted on November 18, 2014 by - News

prismThe internecine war between Google and Apple took a further twist when it emerged that the Cupertino company now holds the pole position on indoor location technology likely to be widely used in shops.

ABI Research said that “Apple has taken the bull by the horns” in the retail market with several firms vying to win the war.  Technologies using LED from ByteLight, Qualcomm and Philips and magnetic field  technology from companies like IndoorAtlas are going to change the way shops look.

Apple leads the way with its iBeacon, otherwise known as Bluetooth Smart or BLE.  Other vendors can license this name for their own products.

Electronic shelf labels using protocols like NFC and BLE are set to increase and app companies are filling the gaps.

Patrick Connolly, a senior analyst at ABI said the world is likely to see the first deployments of light systems next year.

Connolly said: “The widespread availability of BLE beacons makes it very easy for retails to deploy a light system to test the water and measure shopper acceptance.”

He added that Zebra/Motorola, Ruckus and Aruba will combine wi-fi with BLE and other location technologies.

Qualcomm has China crisis

Posted on November 6, 2014 by - News

china-syndrome-one-sheet1Qualcomm is facing a little trouble in Big China as it is starting to look like its antitrust investigation is going pear shaped. Meanwhile problems collecting royalties could harm its business in China next year.

To make matters worse it is facing similar investigations in the United States and Europe.

Qualcomm should be making a large profit in China. The country is expanding high-speed 4G network is driving demand for smartphones with leading-edge technology.

But it looks like Qualcomm could face a fine of more than $1 billion in China as a result of the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) investigation, and the company could be forced to make concessions that would hurt its highly profitable business of charging royalties on phones that use its patents.

Qualcomm admitted that it faces a new probe by the European Commission about rebates and other financial incentives in the sale of its chips. Another preliminary investigation by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission concerns a potential breach of licensing terms.

Qualcomm President Derek Aberle said that his company was co-operating with the Chinese to come up with potential ways to resolve the problem.

Qualcomm has also been struggling to collect licensing revenue from some device makers in China, including local manufacturers the US chipmaker has done little or no business with in the past.

But the fear is that concessions on royalties that Qualcomm is forced to make in China could spread to manufacturers in other countries.

Qualcomm said it was difficult to predict the outcome of the U.S. and European investigations.

The European probe is separate from a four-year-old complaint to the European Commission from a subsidiary of Nvidia over alleged patent-related incentives and exclusionary pricing by Qualcomm.

Qualcomm forecast revenue for fiscal 2015 of between $26.8 billion and $28.8 billion. Analysts on average expected $28.91 billion.

The chipmaker reported revenue of $6.69 billion for its fiscal fourth quarter, ended Sept. 28, up 3 percent from the year-ago period. Analysts on average had expected $7.016 billion.

Qualcomm posted fourth-quarter net income of $1.89 billion, up 26 percent from a year ago.

Nvidia wrestles with ARM connections

Posted on September 23, 2014 by - News

arm-wrestlingARM Holdings Chief Executive Officer Simon Segars defended his smartphone graphics technology which Nvidia claims it invented.

Nvidia is currently taking Samsung Electronics and Qualcomm to court for using the technology in its phones and accusing both companies of infringing its property patents on graphics chip technology.

Nvidia said Samsung devices made with graphics technology from ARM, Qualcomm and Imagination Technologies illegally use its intellectual property, or IP.

Segars said that the company stood behind its IP and will work with its partners when something like this happened.

Nvidia is not suing ARM or Imagination yet but it did say it would ask the US International Trade Commission to prevent shipments of Samsung devices containing ARM’s Mali or Imagination’s PowerVR graphics architectures, as well as Qualcomm’s graphics technology.

Nvidia has to play this carefully. Nvidia depends on ARM’s technology to make its Tegra chips for tablets and cars.

Segars said that it did “create a bit of a curious situation… But we do a lot of business with a lot of people.”

4G phones enter price war phase

Posted on September 22, 2014 by - News

SnapdragonFierce competition in the smartphone chipset and microprocessor market means prices of devices are likely to drop next year.

Smartcom, Qualcomm, Marvell and Broadcom are all competing in offering 32-bit quad core devices all hovering around the $8 to $9 mark.  They are eyeing up Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 210 which costs $9 in bulk, according to suppliers that have talked to Digitimes.

It’s interesting that Intel doesn’t seem to be involved in this price war because it’s usually the first on the block to trigger price wars.  That could indicate its tardiness in joining the smartphone fray.

There is growing demand for 64-bit eight core units which as part of the bill of materials cost around $15-$20.  Four core CPUs cost around $12-$15.

All of this means a scrabble on behalf of the component suppliers which may well lead to cheaper overall bills of materials for smartphones.

Apple’s iPhone6 will be tricky to fix

Posted on September 19, 2014 by - News

maxresdefaultGadget repair firm iFixit has voided the warranty on an iPhone 6 to see what was under the bonnet and found that it would be a major headache to repair.

Apparently to get inside you have to extract two proprietary Pentalobe screws, and then lever the entire front display assembly away from the rest of the body with a suction cup, being careful not to rip the TouchID sensor wire clean off. Apple clearly does not want anyone looking inside or fixing it themselves.

The battery is bigger than previous iPhones — it has a 2915mAh battery, which is nearly double the 1560mAh cell in the iPhone 5S. However, it smaller than most Phablets, which means that it lacks the juice of its rivals. The Galaxy Note 3 has a 3200mAh up its sleeve.

The iPhone 6 also has a disappointing 1GB of RAM. Most high-end Android phones have 2-3GB.

iFixit technicians also discovered a Murata (6981.T) wifi module, a Broadcom touchscreen controller, and chips from Skyworks, Avago and TriQuint.

The phones are Apple’s first to include NFC radio chips used for the new Apple Pay mobile payment platform. The NFC chip in the iPhone 6 Plus comes from NXP Semiconductors (NXPI.O).

NXP also supplies a motion co-processor, key to making the iPhone’s sensors work without draining its battery.

As in other iPhones, Apple has designed its own main processor with technology licensed from ARMand in this device it is the A8 chip.

The iPhone 6 Plus opened by iFixit also included a NAND flash memory chip, used for storing music and photos, made by SK Hynix.  Apple in the past has depended on multiple companies to supply its memory chips.

 

Chinese give Qualcomm a novel suggestion

Posted on September 11, 2014 by - News

Tchinaflaghe Chinese government, which is currently about to release its antitrust watch-dogs onto US chipmaker, Qualcomm has come up with a novel way for the outfit to avoid trouble.

Qualcomm has been told that if it helps Chinese companies become so competitive that they can give the company a good kicking, then the watchdogs will be sent back to their cages.

Lu Wei, the head of China’s State Internet Information Office, was speaking at a panel http://www.weforum.org/ during a World Economic Forum event in Tianjin, China, where Qualcomm’s executive chairman Paul Jacobs was also among the speakers.

Lu told Jacobs that Qualcomm made $24 billion in revenue during the company’s last fiscal year, with nearly half of it from China.

“This means China is a good place to make money… we should make money together. You should work alongside Chinese companies to make money.”

China’s National Reform and Development Commission has been investigating Qualcomm since last November, on industry complaints that the company has been overcharging Chinese clients to use its patents.

Qualcomm said the company had 70 Chinese vendors using its 4G LTE patents, and another 120 vendors for its 3G CDMA patents.

Jacobs replied that his company had been helping Chinese companies to deliver new products to the market. This includes working with over 90 Chinese companies to build devices.

“I feel like it has been a win-win between Qualcomm and Chinese companies, Chinese customers and I hope that continues far into the future,” Jacobs said.

Qualcomm releases Snapdragon 210

Posted on September 11, 2014 by - News

qualcomm-snapdragonQualcomm has released its new Snapdragon 210  chip which should mean more LTE smartphones running high-quality video.

Sticking two fingers up at its rival MediaTek, Qualcomm has built a 28-nm chip for the entry-level market. It has based around a 1.1 GHz quad-core Cortex-A7 CPU, Adreno 300-series GPU, supports up to 8 megapixel cameras, and has a resolution of up to 720p.  Not huge but you are trying to watch a movie on a screen the size of a beer mat.

It supports HD Video with high efficiency video coding support and supports the usual USB, Bluetooth, single-stream 802.11n WiFi, and NFC standards.

Qualcomm claims this is the first LTE-Advanced chipset to target the sub-US$100 phone category.

It is clear that Qualcomm wants to be the first of the starting blocks with this sort of technology.  The world is slowly moving to LTE but most of it is happy with its 3G phones.

 

Nvidia sues Qualcomm and Samsung

Posted on September 5, 2014 by - News

nvidia-gangnam-style-330pxNvidia has sued Qualcomm and Samsung for infringing its patents on graphics processing technology.

Nvidia said Qualcomm and Samsung had used Nvidia’s patented technologies without a licence in Samsung’s mobile devices and the Galaxy Note 4 and Galaxy Note Edge.

Nvidia said Samsung devices made with graphics technology from Qualcomm, Britain’s ARM and Imagination Technologies infringed on its patents.

Nvidia Chief Executive Jen-Hsun Huang said that the pair were using Nvidia technology free and were shipping an enormous number of devices.

Nvidia did not say it is suing Imagination – part owned by Apple –  or ARM  – started by Apple really, but it did say it is asking the US International Trade Commission to prevent shipments of Samsung devices containing ARM’s Mali or Imagination’s PowerVR graphics architectures, as well as Qualcomm’s graphics technology.

However, since Imagination technology is also found under the bonnet of Apple’s iPhones, it could be that Nvidia plans to sue Apple.

It is clear that Apple was not a legal cage that Nvidia wanted to rattle yet. Huang said he was focused on Samsung and Qualcomm, and continues to have “productive conversations” with many other companies out there.

In other words the cunning plan is to take out Qualcomm and Samsung and the others will pay a lot of money to make Nvidia lawyers go away.

Samsung has said it will fight Nvidia, while the others have not made a comment.

Intel poaches Qualcomm exec

Posted on September 1, 2014 by - News

cracking-eggs-mFashion bag and bracelet maker Intel is attempting to prove that it is serious about mobile by headhunting one of Qualcomm’s gadget makers.

Amir Faintuch is a senior executive at Qualcomm’s networking and connectivity businesses Atheros, which we were surprised to discover has nothing to do with one of the three musketeers.

It is unusual for Intel to look outside its own company for senior executives and the hiring is being seen as a portent that the company is serious to sort out its struggling mobile business.

Faintuch will be an Intel a senior vice president and co-general manager of the Platform Engineering Group.

Intel spokesman Chuck Mulloy said Faintuch will  be among Intel’s dozen or so most senior executives and will co-manage the Platform Engineering Group with Josh Walden, a manufacturing technology expert who previously led the group.

Mulloy said that Faintuch brings experience designing “system on chips,” or SoCs, which combine features like modems, Wi-Fi and memory.  Chipzilla is still a little short on the expertise needed for designing SoCs.

“We want to accelerate our success rate with SoCs and get the designs aligned and the roadmaps aligned to do that. We’ve made good progress but there’s more to be done. Amir has extensive management experience and a strong resume,” he said.

Since taking over in 2013, CEO Brian Krzanich has made a number of sweeping changes designed to counteract a slump in PC sales, including opening Intel’s cutting-edge factories to other chipmakers willing to pay for access to them.

Still the traffic between Intel and Qualcomm has not been one way. In fact Qualcomm is seen as a nicer place to work. In 2012, senior executive Anand Chandrasekher, a 25-year Intel veteran, jumped over to Qualcomm to become the outfit’s chief marketing officer.

Nadella kowtows to China

Posted on August 28, 2014 by - News

kowtowMicrosoft CEO Satya Nadella appears to be packing his suitcase to visit China in late September in a move which might be an attempt to sort out the government’s rejection of his company’s software.

Although China runs on pirated versions of Windows XP, the government has forbidden its civil servants from using anything more modern than Windows 7.  The idea being that it will be releasing a homegrown version of Linux which it will expect everyone to use.

At the same time, the Chinese are investigating Redmond for playing monopoly behind the bamboo curtain.

Nadella has a lot to talk about with the government, although it is not clear if he will meet with any Chinese government representatives as part of his visit, or try to resolve problems with the State Administration for Industry and Commerce (SAIC), one of China’s antitrust regulators.

Foreign CEOs often pay calls on the world’s second-largest economy to strengthen business and political ties and Nadella is following Qualcomm’s President Derek Aberle who also looked to end his company’s woes in China.

The shy and retiring Steve Ballmer, did occasionally go to China in his 14 years as CEO, but that was mostly to speak loudly and carry a soft stick about piracy. Ballmer sulked in 2011 that Microsoft got more revenue in the Netherlands than China.

EU watchdog bites Qualcomm’s rump

Posted on August 27, 2014 by - News

AnubiIt looks as if the EU is going to back Nvidia’s complaint against Qualcomm and investigate the chipmaker for alleged anti-trust shenanigans.

Nvidia has been moaning about Qualcomm for nearly four years and the investigation coincides with a similar case in China into the chipmaker’s monopoly practices.

If found guilty of breaching EU rules, the company could face a fine of up to $2.5 billion.

Reuters said that the Commission may open a case after the summer.

The case centred on the British mobile phone chipmaker Icera which was bought by Nvidia in 2011.

While no one said what happened to Icera, it appears that the company accused Qualcomm of using patent-related incentives and exclusionary pricing of chipsets to discourage customers from doing business with it.

No one seemed to care that much and the issue appeared to have faded from the Commission’s agenda. However, a recent case where Europe’s second-highest court in June upheld a record 1.1 billion euro EU fine against Intel for abuse of its dominant market position made the regulators realise that they were sitting on a nice little earner.

Companies can be fined as much as 10 percent of their global revenues for breaching EU antitrust rules.

But the case is a long way off being resolved and anything could happen. In 2010, the EU competition authority scrapped a four-year probe into Qualcomm after Ericsson and Texas Instruments withdrew their objections against the company.

Qualcomm is in denial

Posted on August 15, 2014 by - News

bad-dogQualcomm, under investigation for possible monopolistic practices in China, said it had no direct financial links with an antitrust expert.

Zhang Xinzhu, a member of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) and one of China’s leading antitrust experts was sacked from a government advisory post after state media reported he had received payments from Qualcomm.

Qualcomm is being investigated by the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), one of China’s three antitrust regulators, over how the company licenses its patents and prices its chipsets.

The chipmaker did not hire Zhang directly. When it was investigated by the NDRC it hired Global Economics Group to produce an economic analysis for submission to the regulator. Global Economics Group employed Zhang Xinzhu.

The official Xinhua News Agency reported on Wednesday that Zhang had been fired from the State Council’s expert commission on competition issues for taking “huge rewards” from Qualcomm. The implication was that Qualcomm had been bribing Zhang to suggest that the regulators should be nice to the American chipmaker.

Qualcomm paid Global Economics its standard rates for the firm’s services,” Trimble said, and did not have “any financial dealings” with Zhang directly.

Qualcomm’s analysis was submitted to the NDRC in May and had three principal authors, including Zhang.

The Chinese said that Zhang had “contravened work discipline” and been removed from his position on the anti-monopoly committee.

The news agency said “certain multinational companies” had been attempting to delay antitrust probes, including spending money to gain support on experts groups and complaining of being picked on for being foreign.

“Against this backdrop, hiring relevant ‘experts’ from government departments to ‘speak on behalf of foreign companies’ is a violation of discipline … This matter should be gotten to the bottom of and bought to light,” Xinhua said.

The 21-member anti-monopoly academic experts group from which Zhang was dismissed was established in 2011. The group is seen to serve the principal role of providing the bureaucracy with the supporting arguments needed to justify its industrial policy aims.

But Zhang has been critical of the NDRC, and claimed that the regulator had acted outside of its jurisdiction and misused antitrust principles. It appears that the regulator, might just want him out of the way.