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Research in Motion (RIMM) this afternoon reported fiscal Q4 revenue for the three months ending in February that missed analysts’ estimates, but beat on the bottom line. The current quarter forecast was short of estimates.
Q4 revenue was $5.56 billion, yielding EPS of $1.78.
Analysts had been modeling $5.64 billion in revenue and $1.76 in earnings per share.
The company sold 14.9 million BlackBerry smartphones, it said, which was toward the upper end of its projected range. Gross profit came in at 44.2%, ahead of the 43.6% reported in the prior quarter.
For the fiscal Q1 ending in May, the company sees $5.2 billion to $5.6 billion in revenue and EPS of $1.47 to $1.55. Analysts have been modeling $5.64 billion and EPS of $1.65.
RIM said it expects gross profit to decline in Q1 to 41.5%.
RIM said its Q1 forecast was “wider than normal” to allow for some uncertainty surrounding developments in Japan.
For the full year ending February of 2012, RIM sees EPS “in excess of” $7.50, well ahead of the average of $6.81.
RIM shipped 14.9 mln Blackberrys in Q1
Acer aims to ship 5-7 million tablet PCs in 2011
Yen-Shyang Hwang, Taipei; Willie Teng, DIGITIMES [Thursday 24 March 2011]
Telecom service provider AT&T has announced that it will carry Acer's Iconia Tab A501 4G tablet PC. Acer expects tablet PC shipments in 2011 to reach 5-7 million units, and aims to grab a 10% share of the global market, according to company chairman JT Wang.
The Iconia Tab A501 supports a 10.1-inch panel, Android 3.0 and Nvidia Tegra 2 dual-core processor. The device is scheduled to hit the market in the second quarter.
Verizon Wireless reportedly is interested in Acer's other tablet PC, the Iconia Tab A500, according to industry sources.
ZTE to launch LTE products in U.S. later this year
By Phil Goldstein Comment | Forward | Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn
ORLANDO, Fla.--ZTE will release LTE products in the U.S. market in the second half of this year, a senior executive said, bolstering its position in a marketplace where it has found more favor with its handsets than in the infrastructure market.
The Chinese handset and infrastructure vendor cannot confirm its LTE carrier partners or even what kind of LTE devices it will release just yet, said Jeff Ji, Executive Vice President and General Manager of ZTE USA. However, the company sees mobile broadband products as a prime opportunity for expansion in the U.S. market.
T-Mobile USA just announced an HSPA+ 1 mobile hotspot product made by ZTE and Ji said the company plans to release a new USB modem for T-Mobile's HSPA+ 42 network, which will be launched first in Las Vegas, New York City and Orlando, and will expand to 140 million POPs in 25 markets by mid-year.
In an interview with FierceWireless, Ji said that in 2010, ZTE had 14 product SKUs for the North American market, including 11 in the U.S., and he said the company expects to double that to at least 28 North American SKUs this year. The company--which was the world's No. 4 handset maker in the fourth quarter--according to research firm IDC, looks forward to releasing handsets with T-Mobile this year as well as AT&T Mobility (NYSE:T), though Ji declined to say if they will be smartphones. Ji did confirm that next month Alltel will launch multiple ZTE products.
ZTE is also interested in potentially using Microsoft's (NASDAQ:MSFT) Windows Phone 7 platform. Ji said that recent comments by a ZTE U.K. executive criticizing the platform were a misquotation and that ZTE is currently doing research and development work on the platform, though he declined to say when the company might release a Windows Phone product. So far, ZTE has leaned heavily on Google's (NASDAQ:GOOG) Android platform.
"We're open to both," Ji said, adding that the company looks at carriers' roadmaps and right now Android outweighs Windows Phone.
So far ZTE has been able to expand in Europe but has been stymied in its attempts to crack the U.S. equipment market. ZTE and its larger Chinese rival Huawei lost out on a multibillion-dollar network modernization contract with Sprint Nextel (NYSE:S). Sprint selected Alcatel-Lucent (NASDAQ:ALU), Ericsson (NASDAQ:ERIC) and Samsung for the deal, which is worth $4 billion to $5 billion, and is expected to take three to five years to complete. ZTE has said it feels it was excluded for political reasons amid a swirl of concerns about possible national security risks posed by Chinese companies building U.S. telecommunications networks.
Ji said that ZTE has not decreased its commitment to the U.S. infrastructure market and continues to work with a wide range of operators. However, he allowed that the company's work in the handset market could eventually translate into better relations with U.S. carriers. "Of course, that will help," he said. "It's not just a specific product or products. It's the trust and credibility of two companies."
To that end, ZTE just launched a new website dedicated to the U.S. market. The site includes information on mobile device support, channel partner opportunities and information about ZTE and its U.S. subsidiary. Ji said that the launching of the website is indicative of ZTE's increased handset activity and also serves as a new avenue for ZTE to communicate with potential business partners.
AT&T Inc. (T) said it entered a definitive agreement with Deutsche Telekom AG (DTE) to acquire T- Mobile USA in a cash-and-stock transaction currently valued at approximately $39 billion.
The agreement has been approved by the Boards of Directors of both companies, Deutsche Telekom said in a statement.
interesting article laying out need for baseband expertise (think:IDCC)
QCOM, NVDA: UBS Lays Out Landscape Of Tablet, Phone Wars
Posted by Tiernan Ray
UBS Securities’s chip analyst Uche Orji just hosted a pretty interesting conference call regarding the battle for mobile chips, starting at 11 am, Eastern. The call featured a presentation by Linley Gwennap, the founder of consulting firm The Linley Group, and also a contributor to Microprocessor Report, which is one of the best chip newsletters around, in my opinion.
Gwennap concludes that Qualcomm (QCOM) has a strong position, based on the fact that it has baseband radio chip capabilities, which will be important for any smartphones, and based on the company having invested in dramatically improving its graphics performance capabilities.
Nvidia (NVDA), on the other hand, is at risk of losing an early lead in tablet chips, while having a weak position in phones. The company has no baseband expertise, and will have to develop such to move from what is essentially “zero” market share in phone processors in 2010.
Nvidia has chips in some brand-new phones, such as Motorola Mobility‘s (MMI) “Atrix” phone, but overall it has won very few deals. Further out, Nvidia, argues Gwennap, will have to have expertise in baseband radios, as Qualcomm does.
Gwennap predicted lots of mergers and acquisitions in coming years as chip makers without baseband radios combine with makers of basebands.
As for tablets, Nvidia’s had a lead over other vendors with dual-core processors, but with other vendors planning to rapidly roll out quad-core parts in the coming year, such as Qualcomm’s “Krait”-based processors, and Texas Instrument’s (TXN) “OMAP5,” Gwennap predicts that Nvidia’s “Kal-El” quad-core chip may not enjoy the same lead in the next round of tablets.
As you can see from the image pasted below from Gwennap’s slide deck, he sees both TI and Qualcomm rapidly catching up with Kal-El.
Gwennap spent no time on Intel (INTC) in his formal presentation. When asked about Intel’s forthcoming “Medfield” processor, Gwennap emphasized the challenges facing the company. ARM Holdings (ARMH), the company that licenses CPU designs to Nvidia, Qualcomm, TI and others, has vastly improved performance while maintaining power savings in chip designs. That has put the onus on Intel to improve price and performance per watt after years of setting the status quo in PCs.
“Now the shoe is on the other foot: if Intel is going to go into the smartphone market, what is it going to take to convince a manufacturer to go over to Intel? Is it going to take performance that’s 50% better? 100% better? That’s a pretty high bar.”
As for TI, and Broadcom, both are seen as being at a disadvantage. TI is set to lose business at Nokia (NOK) as the latter transitions to using Microsoft’s (MSFT) software. And TI got out of baseband radios even though it looks like that capability will be increasingly important in smartphones. Broadcom has effectively “ignored smarphones and tablets,” as far as Gwennap is concerned.
Marvell Technology Group’s (MRVL) announced “some impressive products,” said Gwennap. However, “I’m starting to get worried that I’ve just not seen the design wins coming out of the other end of the pipeline,” said Gwennap. “For whatever reason, they’re not able to get traction.”
Gwennap was also asked about Taiwan’s Mediatek, which primarily serves the lower end of the cell phone and smartphone market. Gwennap observed that this is not a bad place to be, as the low end is currently where much of the unit volume growth is, worldwide
HTC chief expects 1Q11 sales to reach 8.5 million units, says paper
EDN, March 17; Willie Teng, DIGITIMES [Thursday 17 March 2011]
Smartphone vendor HTC expects 8.5 million units in sales for the first quarter, generating NT$94 billion (US$3.18 billion) in revenues, according to a Chinese-language Economic Daily News (EDN) report, citing company CEO Peter Chou.
Shipments in January and February were very strong, pushing first-quarter shipments above previously projected targets, he added.
Chou made the remarks on March 16 at a technology conference in Taipei organized by Merrill Lynch.
short interest down a tweak:
02/28/2011 7,733,338 (0.87) 1,780,715 4.34
02/15/2011 7,801,530 5.65 1,153,381 6.76
That contract has IDCC paying Option, not the other way around.
Taiwan market: HTC smartphone sales growing over 100% in 1Q11
Daniel Shen, Taipei; Steve Shen, DIGITIMES [Thursday 3 March 2011]
Thanks to cooperation with Chunghwa Telecom (CHT), sales of HTC's smartphones in the Taiwan market have increased over 100% on year so far in 201, and the company's monthly sales are likely to surpass those of Nokia in the first half making HTC the top handset vendor in the local market in terms of sales volume and value, according to Jack Tong, vice president of Asia Pacific at HTC.
HTC's handset sales in the local market in the first quarter of 2011 have reached half of the total handsets shipped in 2010, Tong added, noting that sales in the entire Asia Pacific region have also increased at a similar pace.
HTC outperformed all other brand-name vendors to take up the number one ranking in the local market in terms of sales value in December 2010, and now aims to overtake Nokia as the top ranking vendor in terms of sales volume in the first half of 2011, Tong stated.
For Microsoft and Nokia, Difficult Choices After Smartphone Deal
By KEVIN J. O’BRIEN
BARCELONA, Spain — With so much uncertainty surrounding Nokia’s smartphone alliance with Microsoft, one thing is becoming clear: Both companies will have to make some difficult changes, a top Microsoft executive said on Thursday.
The companies are still working out the details of the agreement they announced last Friday for Nokia to use Microsoft software in its phones, said Aaron Woodman, the director for mobile communications business at Microsoft.
Among the most basic questions include where to build a factory that will make the new phones, which chips to use inside them and how to adapt software and hardware that incorporates the two companies’ technologies.
“This is not a matter of spending a long weekend and matching our software to their handsets,” Mr. Woodman, who has been with Microsoft for 13 years, said during an interview at the Mobile World Congress, the industry’s largest convention being held here this week. In the auto business, he noted, it takes six years to get a car from conception to showroom floor.
The software business moves much faster, Mr. Woodman said, but he declined to shed light on when Nokia, the world’s largest cellphone maker, would start selling the first phones with Microsoft’s Windows Mobile operating system.
The Nokia chief executive, Stephen Elop, has promised “significant volumes” in 2012 and is pushing for the first models to reach the market later this year.
The alliance will test both companies, said Rajeev Chand, a wireless analyst at Rutberg, an investment bank in San Francisco that focuses on the wireless industry.
“I would call this a daunting challenge,” Mr. Chand said in an interview at the convention. Because of the thorny decisions that will have to be made quickly, Mr. Chand said, “Our general sense is that this is going to be truly difficult.”
Mr. Woodman said Microsoft’s cooperation with Nokia would bring significant benefits to both. With global data from Navteq, the digital map company owned by Nokia, Microsoft will be able to enhance the mapping service of its Bing search engine, he said. Bing has superior mapping detail in the United States but not abroad, Mr. Woodman said. Data from Navteq would put Bing on a par with Google Maps around the world, he said.
Nokia, which shipped 450 million phones last year, will use its leverage over suppliers to rapidly bring down the price of Windows Mobile phones, which have tended to be priced at the top range of the smartphone segment.
“Nokia’s ability to leverage its supply chain will bring Windows Mobile to a bigger market,” Mr. Woodman said.
For Nokia, Microsoft will be able to use its brand recognition to help improve the Finnish company’s market share in the United States, where it is in the low single digits, far behind Samsung, the market leader, Mr. Woodman said.
Nokia was the market leader in the United States as recently as 2002.
“I think we can help reintroduce Nokia into the North American market,” Mr. Woodman said.
Investors remained skeptical on Thursday, almost one week after Nokia and Microsoft announced their alliance. Nokia’s share price was trading at 6.65 euros, or $8.99, in Helsinki, Finland, 21 percent lower than it was before the announcement.
But Mr. Chand, the analyst at Rutberg, cautioned that investors might be overly pessimistic. Wireless companies want a third operating system to help them avoid becoming dependent on Apple and Google, the maker of the Android system adopted by numerous smartphone makers, he said. Although wireless companies attending the convention were muted in their support of the alliance, Mr. Chand said they would embrace the phones if they were good and if customers demanded them.
“You have to keep in mind that this is early days,” Mr. Chand said. “Remember that three years ago, there was no Android. The market sentiment is so negative on this alliance right now that it probably means that it is going to succeed.”
Acer to also launch WP7-based smartphones in 2011
Daniel Shen, Barcelona; Steve Shen, DIGITIMES [Thursday 17 February 2011]
Acer plans to launch Windows Phone 7 (WP7)-based smartphones in 2011 in addition to Android-based models and projects its total shipments of smartphones to reach several million units for the year, according to Aymar de Lencquesaing, president of Acer's Smart Handheld Business Group (SHBG).
Acer is currently displaying two new Android-based smartphones, the Liquid mini and beTouch E210 at the Mobile World Congress (MWC), in addition to a series of Iconia tablet PCs and new netbooks, including the Aspire One 522 and D255.
Sales of Acer's smartphones have been steady in Europe and Asia Pacific but were lagging behind other branded handset vendors in the North America market as the company does not offer CDMA models there, Lencquesaing explained. However, Acer has recently teamed up with Rogers to promote its smartphones in Canada.
Based on its product roadmap, Acer will launch 7-10 new smartphones each year, Lencquesaing said.
Motorola's mobile phone division is in the process of relocating to San Diego.
hhmmmm.........
Tablets: Much Bigger Than You Think, Says Morgan Stanley
Posted by Tiernan Ray
This is a new one on me, folks — a “blue paper” is what Morgan Stanley calls its 96-page report today on the prospects for tablet computing, authored by numerous analysts, including Kathryn Huberty, Mark Lipacis, Adam Holt and Ehud Gelblum.
The big picture: people don’t appreciate how big tablet computing can get, write the authors. They project shipments of more than 100 million by 2012. (To put that in perspective, analysts have been projecting Apple (AAPL) may ship between 30 and 40 million units of its iPad this year, and the entire industry may ship 50 million, according to several published estimates I’ve seen.)
The team did multiple surveys that they say canvased 8,000 consumers and 50 corporate CIOs. The findings show, they write, that tablets are set to be taken up by two thirds of corporations in 2011, either through direct purchase or allowing employees to take up the machines personally within the firewall. And the writers were “surprised,” they note, by what the data said about International demand: “While consensus views the tablet market as largely a U.S. consumer phenomenon, the international consumer survey data surprised us.”
Demand in major developed economies, phrased in the survey as “extreme interest in purchasing a tablet in the next 12 months, was higher than in the U.S., with only 11% of U.S. respondents surveyed saying yes, but 15% in France, 16% in Japan, 18% in Germany, 20% in the U.K., and a whopping 41% in China. And the overall international demand was 21%.
Last quarter 61%, but the final number is not out until tomorrow.
IDCC: Institutional Ownership: 65%
Nokia Says It Will Get 'Billions' From Microsoft
By NICK WINGFIELD
Nokia Corp. will receive "billions of dollars" in financial support from Microsoft Corp. over the early years of their partnership to help market and develop Nokia phones using Microsoft's Windows Phone operating system, according to Nokia Chief Executive Stephen Elop.
In an interview, Mr. Elop outlined the Microsoft payments and other benefits Nokia will receive as a result of the deal between the two companies, under which Nokia will adopt Windows Phone as its main smartphone operating system. Although Nokia will pay Microsoft an undisclosed royalty for licensing the Windows Phone software for Nokia handsets, Mr. Elop said Nokia will see "very substantial reductions" in operating expenses, including layoffs, because it will no longer need to spend as much to develop mobile software on its own.
The Finnish phone maker's shares fell sharply Friday after the deal was announced, in part because of a perception that Microsoft had won the upper hand in the deal. While Mr. Elop conceded Nokia has challenges in regaining lost ground in the mobile market, he said Nokia's still-commanding market share in the handset business gave it a strong bargaining position in talks with Microsoft as well as with Google Inc., maker of the Android mobile-phone operating system.
Mr. Elop said executives at both Microsoft and Google recognized that an alliance with Nokia could have a decisive impact on their mobile fortunes, and were willing to cut deals favorable to Nokia as a result.
"We're the swing factor," Mr. Elop said. "We can swing it to Android or swing the industry over to create a third ecosystem."
A Microsoft spokesman said the company won't comment on the financial terms of the deal. Mr. Elop talked by telephone from Barcelona shortly before a Nokia news conference at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.
Mr. Elop said the payments Microsoft agreed to make to Nokia as part of the deal will go toward ensuring the success of the Windows Phone devices Nokia makes, including marketing and research-and-development costs aimed at distinguishing Nokia phones from rivals. "Microsoft has placed a value on our decision to go in one direction and not another," he said.
He said Nokia will also be able to tap into new sources of advertising revenue through the Microsoft deal. Mr. Elop added that the pact will allow Microsoft to receive the benefits of Nokia's broad intellectual-property portfolio in the mobile market to strengthen Windows Phone, though he declined to describe the financial terms of that aspect of the agreement between the companies.
Mr. Elop said an acquisition of Nokia by Microsoft was "never on the table" in the discussions between the two companies. He said substantial portions of Nokia's business include lower-end handsets aimed at emerging markets, such as India, on which Microsoft is less-focused.
Read more: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704657104576142333949999402.html#ixzz1DrqRmH00
Apple Inc. is developing a new line of iPhones and considering an overhaul of its online file-storage service to make it easier for customers to access entertainment files and personal photos and videos, people familiar with the matter said.
One of the people, who saw a prototype of a new iPhone several months ago, said the new device is intended to be sold alongside the current line of iPhones and would be about half the size of the iPhone 4. The phone, one of its codenames is N97, would be available to mobile carriers at about half the price of Apple's main line of iPhones, the person said.
Apple also is exploring a major overhaul of its MobileMe online storage service, the people familiar with the matter said. The service currently requires an annual subscription payment of $99 to $149. Apple is considering making Mobile Me a free service that would serve as a "locker" for personal memorabilia like photos and videos, eliminating the need for consumers' devices to carry a lot of memory, the people familiar with the situation said.
MobileMe could become a focal point for an online music service that Apple has been developing for more than a year, the people said.
MobileMe and the new line of iPhones are among Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs's top priorities, and he has been closely involved in the development efforts despite going on medical leave in January, one of the people said. The person said the new iPhones and the revamped MobileMe service are intended for release this summer, though those plans could change.
An Apple spokeswoman declined comment. Bloomberg news services earlier reported that Apple is working on a smaller, less-expensive iPhone.
Read more: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704657104576142262842435544.html#ixzz1DrfBm1nL
HTC posts NT$35 billion in January consolidated revenues
Press release, February 10; Willie Teng, DIGITIMES [Thursday 10 February 2011]
Smartphone vendor HTC on February 10 reported January consolidated revenues of NT$35.014 billion (US$1.21 billion), up 213.44% on year.
Acer aims to ship 40-45 million notebooks, 5 million smartphones in 2011
Yen-Shyang Hwang, Taipei; Adam Hwang, DIGITIMES [Wednesday 9 February 2011]
Acer expects to ship 40-45 million notebooks and five million smartphones in 2011, the company said at a February 8 press conference.
Demand in the US and Europe is steady, and that in the China is increasing, Acer indicated. As a result, first-quarter 2011 consolidated revenues are expected to rise sequentially by about 3%. Mainly because shipments of tablet PCs will begin in March-April, consolidated revenues for the second quarter will increase on quarter, Acer noted.
Acer's combining of the PC business unit of China-based Founder is progressing ahead of schedule, Acer indicated. Through the combination, Acer expects the proportion of its consolidated revenues from the China market to rise from 10% in 2010 to 13% in 2011 and its China market share for notebooks from the fourth largest in 2010 to the second largest at the end of 2011, the company pointed out.
Since its Taiwan-based ODMs Quanta Computer, Compal Electronics, Wistron and Pegatron Technology will start trial production at their respective plants in Chongqing City, western China, in the second quarter of 2011, Acer expects production there to account for 20% of its total notebook shipments in the third quarter and 40% in the fourth, Acer indicated. Notebooks will be shipped from Chingqing to the China market as well as overseas markets via rail or marine routes, Acer noted.
As Sandy Bridge-based models account for about 20% of its notebooks shipped and to be shipped in the first quarter of 2011, and corrected chipsets will arrive next week, Intel's recently announced defect problem will affect its first-quarter consolidated revenues by only 1-2%, Acer explained.
Worldwide mobile data traffic exploding, nearly tripled in 2010, Cisco says
January 31, 2011 | 9:00 pm
The air is almost as thick with data as it once was with the smoke of the Industrial Revolution, with increasingly dense billows of bits traveling between the world's billions of mobile devices.
In 2010 alone, the amount of mobile data sent was 2.6 times what it was in 2009. And by 2015, people will send 26 times more mobile data than they do now, according to Cisco's annual Global Mobile Traffic Forecast.
That will mean 6.3 exabytes per month, said Suraj Shetty, Cisco's vice president of worldwide service provider marketing. "That's the equivalent of every man, woman and child on Earth sending 1,000 text messages every second," he said.
Yipes, better upgrade my plan!
Cisco says two-thirds of that data traffic will come from mobile video, as more people begin making video calls, sending each other clips they've recorded, and watching longer-form television and movies on their cellphones and tablets.
For a little perspective: Mobile traffic in 2010 was three times as large as all the world's combined Internet traffic in 2000. In short, mobile broadband is getting big -- everywhere.
"There are regions in the world where they have mobile Internet connectivity but are not on the electrical grid," said Doug Webster, Cisco's senior director of service provider marketing. "The Internet is breaking the electrical barrier."
The growth of mobile networks will come with an increase in wireless speeds too. The global average is about 200 kilobits per second now, but as more so-called 4G networks are erected around the world, the average will increase by a factor of 10, to about 2.2 megabits per second. That's on the low end of what home broadband brings today -- pretty astonishing, considering it includes mobile networks in all of the world's developing countries.
But not all of the data explosion is going to come from the rise in smart phones and tablets. In 2015, Cisco predicts, most of the mobile traffic will still come from laptops and netbooks (56%), while smart phones will account for about 27%, and tablets only about 3.5% of the traffic growth.
Cisco makes its predictions by pooling various sources, including data compiled by research firms, polling its own infrastructure of Internet servers, and sampling the data habits of more than 390,000 users who run Cisco's Global Internet Speed Test smart-phone application.
Ericsson Rises Most in More Than a Month as Sales Beat Analysts' Estimates
By Diana ben-Aaron - Jan 25, 2011
Ericsson AB, the world’s largest maker of wireless networks, rose the most in more than a month in Stockholm trading after fourth-quarter sales beat analysts’ estimates.
Revenue rose 8 percent in the period to 62.8 billion kronor ($9.6 billion), exceeding the 59.5 billion-kronor average estimate from 36 analysts. Net income rose to 4.32 billion kronor from 314 million kronor in the year-earlier period, the Stockholm-based company said today in a statement.
“They beat top-line expectations especially in the core area, wireless networks, and that’s what people will focus on,” said Haakan Wranne, a Stockholm-based analyst at Swedbank Markets.
Chief Executive Officer Hans Vestberg boosted sales by 14 percent in the network-equipment division as Ericsson completed its first full year with new capacity acquired from Nortel Networks Corp. Additionally, phone companies upgraded their mobile broadband networks to cope with demand for music, video and Internet access on smartphones.
Ericsson expects the “strong uptake for mobile broadband to continue in 2011,” CEOVestberg said in the statement. Low- end smartphones and tablets will help drive the growth, he said.
Ericsson shares rose as much as 4.1 percent, the biggest gain since Dec. 16, and traded 3.9 percent higher at 80.10 kronor at 9:48 a.m. in Stockholm.
“After almost two years of missing expectations, Ericsson’s revenues finally beat” estimates in the fourth quarter,” Nomura International Plc analysts including Stuart Jeffrey wrote in a note to investors.
Global Markets
Component supply problems have eased, although deliveries still have not caught up, the company said.
Global services sales declined 1 percent on exchange rates, while sales of managed services gained 5 percent as phone companies outsourced their network management to cut costs.
North America remained Ericsson’s biggest market and grew 49 percent, slowing from triple-digit growth earlier in the year. Northern Europe and central Asia, China and northeast Asia also grew. Sub-Saharan Africa declined the most as operator budgets tightened, followed by southeast Asia and India.
The company, based in Stockholm, faces challenges from competitors including China’s Huawei Technologies Co., which says it intends to overtake Ericsson. Equipment prices have declined even after Nortel assets were taken over by Ericsson and other companies, cutting out a competitor.
Wireless Market
The wireless equipment market won’t recover to its record 2008 level of $43 billion until after 2015, according to the most recent estimates by Redwood City, California-based Dell’Oro Group. The global wireless gear market was probably worth about $34 billion in 2010, analyst Stefan Pongratz said by e-mail.
Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications AB, the mobile-phone venture with Sony Corp., last week posted fourth-quarter net income of 8 million euros ($10.7 million), missing analyst estimates as an outdated product portfolio hurt Christmas sales.
The company’s chipmaking joint venture, ST-Ericsson, reported a net loss of $177 million on lower sales.
Apple Plans Service That Lets IPhone Users Pay With Handsets
By Olga Kharif - Jan 24, 2011 9:01 PM PT
Apple Inc. plans to introduce services that would let customers use its iPhone and iPad computer to make purchases, said Richard Doherty , director of consulting firm Envisioneering Group. Photographer: Tony Avelar/Bloomberg
Apple Inc. plans to introduce services that would let customers use its iPhone and iPad computer to make purchases, said Richard Doherty, director of consulting firm Envisioneering Group.
The services are based on “Near-Field Communication,” a technology that can beam and receive information at a distance of up to 4 inches, due to be embedded in the next iteration of the iPhone for AT&T Inc. and the iPad 2, Doherty said. Both products are likely to be introduced this year, he said, citing engineers who are working on hardware for the Apple project.
Apple’s service may be able to tap into user information already on file, including credit-card numbers, iTunes gift-card balance and bank data, said Richard Crone, who leads financial industry adviser Crone Consulting LLC in San Carlos, California. That could make it an alternative to programs offered by such companies as Visa Inc., MasterCard Inc. and EBay Inc.’s PayPal, said Taylor Hamilton, an analyst at consultant IBISWorld Inc.
“It would make a lot of sense for Apple to include NFC functionality in its products,” Crone said.
The main goal for Apple would be to get a piece of the $6.2 trillion Americans spend each year on goods and services, Crone said. Today, the company pays credit-card processing fees on every purchase from iTunes. By encouraging consumers to use cheaper methods -- such as tapping their bank accounts directly, which is how many purchases are made via PayPal -- Apple could cut its own costs and those of retailers selling Apple products.
Natalie Harrison, a spokeswoman for Apple, declined to comment.
Adding Features to Phones
“NFC is definitely one of the technologies that’s getting a lot of attention, but ultimately the consumer is going to choose,” said Charlotte Hill, a spokeswoman for PayPal, owned by San Jose, California-based EBay. Elvira Swanson, a spokeswoman for San Francisco-based Visa, said the company is “excited to see NFC mobile devices coming into the market.”
Ed McLaughlin, chief emerging payments officer at MasterCard, said the company is “running the world’s fastest payment network, and that doesn’t need to be re-created.” MasterCard sees NFC “as an opportunity to partner with organizations” and already has run NFC payment trials around the world.
The recently passed Durbin Amendment makes the timing right for a push by Apple, Crone said. The regulation, which will go into effect this summer, may limit debit-card fees paid by retailers and lets them encourage consumers to use one payment method over another.
Competing With Android
Under Apple Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook, who’s handling day-to-day operations as Chief Executive Officer Steve Jobs takes medical leave, the iPhone is adding features that will help it compete with phones that use Google Inc.’s Android software. Samsung Electronics Co.’s Nexus S phone, which runs Android, can read information from NFC tags. Nokia Oyj, the world’s largest maker of mobile phones, has pushed NFC adoption for years, though the technology has been slow to take off.
“Apple could be the game-changer,” Doherty said.
Apple is considering starting a mobile payment service as early as mid-2011, Doherty said. It would revamp iTunes, a service that lets consumers buy digital movies and music, so it would hold not only users’ credit-card account information but also loyalty credits and points, Doherty said.
Using the service, customers could walk into a store or restaurant and make payments straight from an iPad or iPhone. They could also receive loyalty rewards and credits for purchases, such as when referring a friend, Doherty said.
Targeted Advertising
Apple also could use NFC to improve how it delivers mobile ads to customers’ handsets and charge higher fees for those ads, Crone said. NFC would let Apple’s iAd advertising network personalize ads to the places where a customer is spending money. That could double or triple the ad rates that Apple charges, Crone said.
Apple has created a prototype of a payment terminal that small businesses, such as hairdressers and mom-and-pop stores, could use to scan NFC-enabled iPhones and iPads, Doherty said. The company is considering heavily subsidizing the terminal, or even giving it away to retailers, to encourage fast, nationwide adoption of NFC technology and rev up sales of NFC-enabled iPhones and iPads, he said.
To help get ready for NFC, Apple last year hired Benjamin Vigier, who worked on the technology at mobile-payment provider MFoundry. It also has applied for a patent on a system that uses NFC to share information between applications running on various Apple devices
Pegatron is expected to ship 12-15 million CDMA iPhones in 2011
Monica Chen, Taipei; Joseph Tsai, DIGITIMES [Tuesday 18 January 2011]
Taiwan-based notebook maker Pegatron Technology has recently started shipping its Apple CDMA iPhones orders with total volume is estimated to be around 12-15 million units in 2011, helping to cover the company's notebook manufacturing business, which has recently suffered loss of orders, according to sources from upstream component makers.
Since the company was still in the process of reorganize in 2010 after spin-off from Asustek Computer, while new orders from notebook vendors such as Acer were still limited, Pegatron saw its 2010 revenues dropped 8.1% on year to only NT$424.84 billion (US$14.64 billion), the sources noted.
Pegatron originally only forecasted internally to ship about 10 million CDMA iPhones in 2011 , but as demand continues to stay strong, the company has recently increased its internal shipment forecast to 12-15 million units, the sources added.
Broadcom, CSR settle patent litigation
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Broadcom Corp. (NASDAQ:BRCM) and CSR plc said Monday that they have agreed to settle all litigation between the companies and their affiliates. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed. The semiconductor firms had sued each other for alleged patent infringement. "The parties will seek to dismiss their various pending actions in U.S. District Court, and the U.S. International Trade Commission," the firms said.
Intel to pay Nvidia $1.5 billion in settlement
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) - Intel Corp. (NASDAQ:INTC) and Nvidia Corp. [s:nvda] have signed a cross-licensing agreement and resolved outstanding pending disputes between the two chip giants. As part pf the deal, Intel will pay Nvidia $1.5 billion over the next five years.
HTC Fourth-Quarter Profit Beats Estimates on Android Mobile Phone Sales
By Tim Culpan - Jan 6, 2011
HTC Corp., the world’s largest maker of handsets using Google Inc. Android and Microsoft Corp. Windows operating systems, more than doubled profit after new models spurred sales to a record.
Fourth-quarter net income climbed to NT$14.6 billion ($500 million) from NT$5.5 billion a year earlier, the Taoyuan, Taiwan-based company said in a statement today. The average of 19 analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg was for profit of NT$13.4 billion.
Android’s growing market share and a high-definition version of HTC’s Desire phone boosted sales while maintaining prices in the past three months. The debut last quarter of Windows Phone 7 models and the release of fourth-generation handsets may help sustain sales growth, according to Steven Tseng, an analyst at RBS Asia Ltd.
“Flagship models like the Desire HD are driving sales,” said Taipei-based Tseng, who recommends investors buy the HTC stock. “The average selling price is strong because demand is there for high-end models.”
Fourth-Quarter Sales
HTC’s fourth-quarter consolidated sales more than doubled to NT$104 billion, from NT$41 billion a year earlier, it said. The average of 14 analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg was for consolidated revenue of NT$101 billion. HTC forecast a record NT$100 billion in consolidated sales for the period.
The stock added 1.2 percent to NT$907 at the 1:30 p.m. close of trade in Taipei before the earnings announcement. The company’s market value has more than doubled in the past 12 months, exceeding $25 billion, making it Taiwan’s fourth-largest listed company.
HTC said Oct. 29 it expected to ship 9 million handsets in the three months ending December, surpassing its previous 6.8 million-unit record in the prior quarter. HTC didn’t report shipments today and will hold a conference call by the end of January to provide further details and outlook.
Android garnered 40.8 percent of the market for new smartphones bought in the U.S. during the six months to November, Nielsen Co. said in a Jan. 3 statement. That’s ahead of Apple Inc.’s iOS and Research in Motion Ltd.’s BlackBerry, according to the statement.
HTC released both high definition and keyboard-equipped versions of its Android-powered Desire handset during the quarter, while also unveiling five handsets using Microsoft’s new Windows Phone 7 system.
The HTC Inspire 4G, announced yesterday, will be released on AT&T Inc.’s fourth-generation high-speed network by the end of this quarter.
HTC’s stock is rated “buy” from 28 of 35 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg. Six recommend “hold” and one suggests investors sell.
Change in Directors or Principal Officers
Item 5.02 Departure of Directors or Certain Officers; Election of Directors; Appointment of Certain Officers; Compensatory Arrangements of Certain Officers.
On December 30, 2010 and January 4, 2011, the compensation committee (the "committee") of the board of directors of InterDigital, Inc. (the "company"), after considering information on total compensation for the company's executive officers, competitive conditions, accomplishment of company goals, and individual performance, (i) established annual base salaries for fiscal year 2011 for, among other executive officers: William J. Merritt, President and Chief Executive Officer; Scott A. McQuilkin, Chief Financial Officer; Lawrence F. Shay, Executive Vice President, Intellectual Property, and Chief Intellectual Property Counsel; Mark A. Lemmo, Executive Vice President, Corporate Development; and James J. Nolan, Executive Vice President, Research and Development (collectively, the "named executive officers"), (ii) approved one-time awards of restricted stock units ("RSUs") to certain named executive officers under the company's 2009 Stock Incentive Plan (the "2009 plan"), (iii) approved fiscal year 2010 short-term incentive awards to, among other executive officers, the named executive officers and (iv) determined the payouts earned with respect to performance-based cash awards previously granted under the company's long-term compensation program ("LTCP") to, among other executive officers, the named executive officers.
The following fiscal year 2011 base salaries were approved for the named executive officers:
William J. Merritt, President and Chief Executive Officer: $550,000 Scott A. McQuilkin, Chief Financial Officer: $322,900 Lawrence F. Shay, Executive Vice President, Intellectual Property, and Chief Intellectual Property Counsel: $351,900
Mark A. Lemmo, Executive Vice President, Corporate Development: $322,900 James J. Nolan, Executive Vice President, Research and Development: $281,700
On December 30, 2010, upon further assessment of the individual performance by certain named executive officers during fiscal year 2010, the committee approved a one-time award of three thousand (3,000) RSUs to each of Messrs. Shay and Nolan and a one-time award of two thousand (2,000) RSUs to Mr. McQuilkin. Each such award was granted under the 2009 plan on December 30, 2010 and will vest annually, in three equal installments, beginning on the grant date.
On January 4, 2011, following the assessment of the company's achievement of its fiscal year 2010 goals and individual performance during fiscal year 2010, the committee approved the following short-term incentive awards to the named executive officers pursuant to the company's short-term incentive plan, which are expected to be paid in February 2011.
William J. Merritt, President and Chief Executive Officer: $367,500 Scott A. McQuilkin, Chief Financial Officer: $139,144 Lawrence F. Shay, Executive Vice President, Intellectual Property, and Chief Intellectual Property Counsel: $165,273
Mark A. Lemmo, Executive Vice President, Corporate Development: $111,408 James J. Nolan, Executive Vice President, Research and Development: $99,324
One hundred percent (100%) of all the short-term incentive awards set forth above will be paid in cash.
According to the terms of the performance-based cash awards under the January 1, 2008 through December 31, 2010 LTCP cycle, each named executive officer's target amount was established as a percentage of his effective base salary as of January 1, 2008, and payouts are based on the company's achievement of certain pre-established performance criteria during the January 1, 2008 through December 31, 2010 LTCP cycle period. On January 4, 2011, the committee reviewed the performance criteria and accomplishments for the January 1, 2008 through December 31, 2010 LTCP cycle period and approved the following cash payouts to the named executive officers:
William J. Merritt, President and Chief Executive Officer: $559,000 Scott A. McQuilkin, Chief Financial Officer: $227,750 Lawrence F. Shay, Executive Vice President, Intellectual Property, and Chief Intellectual Property Counsel: $293,260
Mark A. Lemmo, Executive Vice President, Corporate Development: $261,754 James J. Nolan, Executive Vice President, Research and Development: $193,794
On January 4, 2011, the committee also approved, effective with the LTCP cycle that began on January 1, 2011, the increase of the target payout amount for Mr. Merritt under the LTCP to 125% of his base salary.
Apple, RIM, HTC to account for 50% of global smartphone shipments in 1Q11, say Taiwan makers
Daniel Shen, Taipei; Steve Shen, DIGITIMES [Tuesday 28 December 2010]
Taiwan-based makers or handsets or components, based on orders received, have estimated that Apple, RIM and HTC will ship, respectively, 19-20 million, 14-15 million and 8-9 million smartphones in the first quarter of 2011, together sharing more than 50% of global smartphone shipments of 80-85 million units.
Apple is also expected to replace RIM as the second-ranked smartphone vendor with a 20-25% global market share, followed by RIM, Samsung Electronics and HTC, commented the sources, noting that Samsung and HTC are expected to each grab 10% or more.
But some other sources in the industry also have questioned if the estimated market share is too high for each vendor, as it means that these vendors and Nokia (30%) will account for 90% of the global smartphone market in the first quarter of 2011.
Sources: Industry sources, compiled by Digitimes, December 2010
Verizon Will Offer Motorola Phone for 4G Network
By SPENCER E. ANTE
Verizon Wireless will distribute a smartphone made by Motorola Inc. to run on its speedy new 4G network next year, the carrier's chief operating officer, John Stratton, said in an interview Tuesday.
The comments mark the first time the carrier has identified a handset maker for the closely watched launch and represent an important vote of confidence in Motorola, which could soon be competing with Apple for the attentions of its most important carrier.
Verizon Wireless, a joint venture of Verizon Communications Inc. and Vodaphone Group PLC, launched its high-speed, fourth-generation network earlier this month, but has yet to introduce any mobile phones that can use it. The network, which employs a technology called Long-Term Evolution, promises wireless Internet connections that are as fast as land-based cable modems or fiber optic technology.
"We've got LTE smartphones around the horizon," Mr. Stratton said. "Motorola will be right there."
Motorola has previously said it would make devices that work on LTE networks in 2011, but declined Tuesday to comment on the specific timing or distribution of those devices.
The timing and price of the new phone couldn't be learned. At a wireless technology conference in October, Verizon Communications President Lowell McAdam said there will be half a dozen smartphones and tablets compatible with LTE on display at the Consumer Electronics Show in January, and that they would appear at retailers in the first half of next year.
Schaumburg, Ill.,-based Motorola's mobile-phone unit is facing questions from investors about its reliance on Verizon as a distributor as it prepares for life as a stand-alone company on Jan. 4.
Over the past two years, Motorola and the country's largest wireless carrier have formed a close relationship based on their mutual support of Google Inc.'s smartphone operating system, Android. Motorola only produces Android smartphones.
Investors worry that could leave Motorola exposed if Verizon gets the iPhone early next year as people familiar with the matter have said.
Verizon has tapped several Motorola smartphones to feature in its Droid lineup, the devices that Verizon brands as the high end of its Android slate and supports with extra marketing efforts.
Mr. Stratton said the collaboration has made Motorola a very important partner for the New York company.
"Over last 13 months, they have done a very good job in supporting our business and have worked their way up into almost a preferred vendor," Mr. Stratton said. "They have been driving our Droid strategy."
This fall, Verizon Wireless began selling the Droid Pro, another Motorola smartphone aimed at the business market.
So far, Mr. Stratton said the company is happy with the results. "It's been doing very well," he said.
Motorola will split itself into two publicly-traded companies early next year. One company, called Motorola Mobility Inc. will concentrate on selling mobile devices and cable set-top boxes to consumers. The other, called Motorola Solutions Inc. will focus on selling mobile devices and computers to the corporate and government market.
RIMM: expect Q4 unit shipments 14.5M-15M
Research in Motion Guides Above Estimates
Posted on: Thu, 16 Dec 2010 16:18:24 EST
Symbols: RIMM
Dec 16, 2010 (EarningsWhispers Guidance Summaries via Comtex) --
Research in Motion Ltd. (NASDAQ: RIMM | PowerRating) said it expects fourth quarter earnings of $1.74 to $1.80 per share on revenue of $5.50 billion to $5.70 billion. The current consensus earnings estimate is $1.61 per share on revenue of $5.41 billion for the quarter ending February 28, 2011.
This earnings guidance summary was provided by EarningsWhispers, a leading provider of earnings expectations - including corporate guidance announcements and analysts' expectations that differ from published estimates. http://www.earningswhispers.com
For full details on Research In Motion Ltd (RIMM) RIMM. Research In Motion Ltd (RIMM) has Short Term PowerRatings at TradingMarkets. Details on Research In Motion Ltd (RIMM) Short Term PowerRatings is available at This Link.
And the new CDMA version of the iphone is made by a licensee.
Apple, Nokia, others bid for Nortel's patent treasure trove
By Mike Dano
Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL), Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) and Nokia (NYSE:NOK) are rumored to be among those bidding for Nortel Networks' patents, according to a Reuters report, a sale that could net up to $1 billion for Nortel's creditors.
Citing unnamed sources familiar with the auction, Reuters reported that final bids for the patents are due within the next few weeks. Nortel's 4,000 patents have been separated into six groupings covering different kinds of technologies, including LTE.
Though key patents are sometimes bought and sold, the sheer volume of patents up for sale make Nortel's auction relatively unique in the wireless industry. Patents represent a key--although often shadowy--component of many vendors' businesses, since companies looking to build wireless devices or networks must first obtain licenses to key patents covering the wireless technologies. Indeed, companies like InterDigital and Qualcomm (NASDAQ:QCOM) have made licensing a major part of their revenues.
"It's unusual for an asset like that to come to market," InterDigital CEO William Merritt told Reuters. InterDigital has confirmed it is part of a consortium bidding for Nortel LTE patents that cover a system to increase wireless speed and capacity.
Thus, the possible presence of Google and Apple in the bidding process is notable, and could reflect their desire to gain a more solid foothold in a patent-licensing business that has long been dominated by the likes of Nokia, Motorola (NYSE:MOT), Ericsson (NASDAQ:ERIC), Qualcomm, Alcatel-Lucent (NYSE:ALU) and other wireless veterans. Research In Motion (NASDAQ:RIMM) has also expressed interest in Nortel's patents.
Indeed, disputes over patent licenses are a common occurrence in wireless. Recent legal battles have pitted Nokia against Qualcomm, HTC against Apple and Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) against Motorola, among others.
Nortel filed for bankruptcy early last year, and has since been selling off parts of its business to the likes of Ericsson and others in order to pay back creditors. Nortel's patents are among the last of its holdings.
HTC November revenues hit record for second time straight
Daniel Shen, Taipei; Adam Hwang, DIGITIMES [Tuesday 7 December 2010]
HTC has reported consolidated revenues of NT$38.484 billion (US$1.258 billion) for November 2010, hitting a monthly record for the second consecutive time.
HTC's November consolidated revenues were 4-10% higher than the originally expected NT$35-37 billion, according to investors. HTC is expected to generate consolidated revenues of NT$33-35 billion in December, resulting in fourth-quarter figures of NT$105 billion which is higher than HTC's forecast NT$100 billion, the sources pointed out.
HTC's shipments of Android and Windows Phone 7 smartphones have been short of demand and its booming shipments will continue and reach 8.5 million units in the first quarter of 2011, the sources indicated.
In order to increase shipments of smartphones, HTC will invite its suppliers of chips, touch panels, software, casings, phone camera modules and PCBs to attend the HTC Partner Strategy Summit on December 9 in Taipei in an attempt to secure sufficient supplies of components.
Not Nortel, they bought Novell IP.
Infineon 4th-quarter net jumps, sales up 55%
TEL AVIV (MarketWatch) -- Infineon Technologies AG, (PINK:IFNNY) (FRANKFURT:DE:IFX) the Neubiberg, Germany, chipmaker, reported fiscal fourth-quarter net income jumped on 55% higher sales. For the quarter ended Sept. 30, earnings reached 390 million euros ($531.1 million), or €0.33 euro a share, from €11 million, or €0.01, in the year-earlier quarter. Earnings from continuing operations were €193 million versus €10 million. Revenue rose to €942 million from €609 million. For fiscal 2010, Infineon's board declared a dividend of 0.1 euro a share. For the first quarter of fiscal 2011, Infineon sees revenue even with or down slightly from fourth-quarter 2010. Full-year revenue should rise 10%.
Nokia's Market Share Slips Below 30% as Smaller Vendors Grow, Gartner Says
By Diana ben-Aaron - Nov 10, 2010
Nokia Oyj’s mobile-phone market share tumbled to its lowest ever as unbranded Chinese device makers gained ground on the low-end, while Apple Inc.’s iPhones advanced in smartphones, researcher Gartner Inc. said.
Gains by so-called “white-box” vendors who sell small runs of cheap phones prompted Gartner to raise its forecast for full-year industry growth to 30 percent from 13 to 15 percent earlier, Carolina Milanesi, an analyst with Gartner’s Egham, U.K. unit, said in an interview.
“Nokia feels the heat most because these guys are competing directly with them in emerging markets on the low end,” Milanesi said. “Nokia’s performance didn’t get worse, it’s that the market is much larger so the share comes down.”
The Finnish company’s share of unit sales to end users was 28.2 percent, down from 36.7 percent a year ago, the first time since the second quarter of 2004 that it dipped below 30 percent, Milanesi said. Market shares of Samsung Electronics Ltd. and LG Electronics Inc. also shrank as they retained their second and third rankings, the Stamford, Connecticut-based researcher said.
Apple rose to fourth place, edging out Research In Motion Ltd., Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications Ltd., and Motorola Inc. as smartphone sales nearly doubled, reaching 19.3 percent of all handset sales.
Taiwan’s HTC Corp. and China’s ZTE Corp. and Huawei Technologies Co. rounded out the top 10 vendors. The “others” category of phonemakers outside the top 10 expanded to 33 percent of the market.
Emerging Markets Sales
White-box vendors now sell through market stalls and mom- and-pop retailers in India, Russia, the Middle East and Africa and Latin America, where the operators don’t own the channel, Milanesi said.
“It’s not just an increase in connection numbers, because there our forecast has been in line, it’s more people who were forced before to buy a secondhand phone -- now they can buy a brand-new phone,” she said, likening the growth of white-box vendors to the way IKEA stores made new furniture inexpensive.
Global sales of all models of mobile phones to end users gained 35 percent in the third quarter to 417 million units, Gartner said. Smartphones sold 80.5 million units.
Symbian, Nokia’s main smartphone system, declined to 36.6 percent of unit sales while Google Inc.’s Android gained to 25.5 percent from 3.5 percent a year ago. As much as 80 percent of smartphone sales at Verizon Wireless were Android, which is also used on tablets, Gartner said. The researchers expect industry tablet sales to reach 54.8 million units next year.
Smartphones
Nokia kept its lead among smartphone brands with a 33.7 percent share compared with 39.3 percent last year, Milanesi said. Rival Android is used in handsets from more than a dozen vendors including Samsung, Sony Ericsson, Motorola and HTC.
ZTE, the world’s ninth largest handset vendor, has introduced an Android phone costing less than 100 pounds ($160) on an Orange prepaid plan in the U.K., Gartner said.
“We expect to see a good Android experience next year at the 200 to 250 euros price point because the technology cost is coming down,” Milanesi said. Low-cost Android devices may not give the same pleasure as expensive ones because of slower processors and inferior screens, she said.
Following are tables of total mobile-phone and smartphone sales, as well as market shares:
Worldwide Mobile Phone Sales:
Units Q3’10 Share Q3’10 Units Q3’09 Share Q3’09
(millions) (percent) (millions) (percent)
Nokia 117.5 28.2 113.5 36.7
Samsung 71.7 17.2 60.6 19.6
LG 27.5 6.6 31.9 10.3
Apple 13.5 3.2 7.0 2.3
RIM 11.9 2.9 8.5 2.8
Sony Ericsson 10.3 2.5 13.4 4.3
Motorola 9.0 2.1 13.9 4.5
HTC 6.5 1.6 2.7 0.9
ZTE 6.0 1.4 4.1 1.3
Huawei 5.5 1.3 3.3 1.1
Others 137.8 33.0 49.9 16.1
Total 417.1 100.0 308.9 100.0
Worldwide Smartphone Sales by Operating System:
Units Q3’10 Share Q3’10 Units Q3’09 Share Q3’09
(millions) (percent) (millions) (percent)
Symbian 29.5 36.6 18.3 44.6
Android 20.5 25.5 1.4 3.5
Apple iOS 13.5 16.7 7.0 17.1
RIM 11.9 14.8 8.5 20.7
Windows Mobile 2.2 2.8 3.3 7.9
Linux 1.7 2.1 1.9 4.7
Other 1.2 1.5 0.6 1.5
Total 80.5 100.0 41.1 100.0
Data,
While I also appreciate where you're going with this exercise, it really is almost disingenuous for two reasons. First, be it LG or Samsung these large deals were made with a gun pointed against IDCC's head. And unlike Russian Roulette, there were three or four bullets in the gun.
Why? In LG's case because they were the first major and breaking the logjam was absolutely critical. With Samsung, Nokia having been delayed, a loss would have been near death in a depression economy. Better to live to fight another day.
Secondly, giving what amounts to almost 20% imputed interest rates on prepaid discounts is not done because IDCC can invest the money in the bank and earn that rate of return. It is because these pricks sign contracts and then don't pay. 'Want your money IDCC-then sue me!'. So IDCC discounts for a fast pay with a big trigger that non-payment invalidates a long term license.
These are the reasons management keeps saying that having cash in the bank makes for better discussions going forward. Not that your numbers are wrong, but in the hopes that the future doesn't mirror the past.
Ron Shuttleworth – M Partners
Okay. Pegatron is a 3G licensing correct?
Bill Merritt
Did you say Pegatron?
Ron Shuttleworth – M Partners
Yes.
Bill Merritt
Yes.
Ron Shuttleworth – M Partners
Okay. Have you heard anything back as it relates to their CDMA rollout in for H1 2011. Have you been getting any – have you been receiving any indications from then on the impact on your license agreement with them?
Bill Merritt
You know what I have seen in effects with respect to Pegatron is in fact there was a report yesterday on their expected shipments of CDMA 2000 products as well. So that was a good information in the press about their, their expectation.
Ron Shuttleworth – M Partners
All right. But your current license is with them it’s a prepaid license or is it a fixed and prepaid or what’s the structure there?
Bill Merritt
I think it’s.
Scott McQuilkin
It’s mostly variable.