Business News Holding

Tag: market-data

  • AppleTV To Get Investment


    Apple reaffirmed support for AppleTV after announcing first quarter sales of the digital media receiver were three times higher than for the same period last year.

    Presenting its Q1 financial results, Peter Oppenheimer, Apple’s senior vice president and chief financial officer, said they had beaten Wall Street estimates – with revenues surpassing USD $10bn for the first time in the company’s history.

    In the first quarter – which runs from 1 September through 31 December – revenues were up 5.94 per cent to USD $10.17bn and profits up 1.90 per cent to USD $1.61bn.

    When asked about AppleTV, acting CEO Tim Cook was fairly emphatic about the device’s future.

    "We still consider this a hobby, however, it is clear the movie rental business has helped AppleTV and there are more and more customers who want to try it," he said.

    "We fundamentally believe there is something here for us in the future. We will continue to invest in it."

    Strong video sales also helped the iTunes store to a record quarter.

  • Flat-panel TV Price Falls Factor In LG Losses


    Pricing pressure for flat-panel TVs was among the factors given as LG Electronics reported a net loss for the fourth quarter, ended 31 December.

    On a parent-company basis, LG reported sales of USD $4.84 billion for the quarter, an operating loss of USD $228 million and a net loss of USD $493 million.

    In the fourth quarter of 2008, sales on a global basis rose 22.5 per cent year on year to USD $9.82 billion and operating profit was USD $74.2 million, resulting in a profit margin of 0.8 per cent.

    For fiscal year 2008, annual sales on a global basis rose 20.8 per cent to a record USD $36.2 billion with operating profit at USD $1.56 billion.

    By operating unit, LG’s digital display company sales rose to USD $3.39 billion, an increase of 16.4 per cent from a year earlier.

    Sales of flat-panel digital TVs grew 22 per cent year on year and 26 per cent quarter on quarter, but PDP module sales declined 44 per cent year on year and 24 per cent quarter on quarter.

    Globally, operating profit saw a loss of USD $10 million primarily due to a sharp drop in the prices of TVs and slowdown in external sales of PDP modules.

    The company said it sees global demand in 2009 to be similar to 2008 as a result of growing low-end/small sized flat-panel TV demand in emerging markets and expects to expand its market share with stronger branding activities and product lineup.

  • South Korea's KT Absorbs Mobile Unit In Battle For customers


    South Korea’s fixed-line operator, Korea Telecom (KT), is to merge with its majority-owned mobile unit, KTF, the country’s second-largest mobile operator.

    The merger is an effort to offer bundled fixed and mobile services and increase its global exposure.

    KT’s move is seen as necessary if it is to compete with SK Telecom and LG Telecom.

    South Korea’s mobile and household broadband markets are approaching saturation and operators in the country are battling for customers.

    This has led to the offering of products bundling fixed-line, broadband, Internet TV and mobile services.

    The deal ends months of speculation and will see KT absorb the mobile unit, of which it owns 54 per cent.

    NTT DoCoMo, Japan’s largest mobile operator, also owns 11 per cent of KTF.

    The terms of the deal mean KTF shareholders will receive 0.719 of a KT share for every KTF share they own.

    KT is also to sell USD $253 million bonds exchangeable into its stocks to DoCoMo as part of the merger plan.

    The Japanese firm will transfer 60 per cent of its holding in KTF to KT.

  • Will GPS-enabled Smartphones Avoid Handset Slowdown?


    Demand for GPS-enabled mobile phones will slow in 2009 but will avoid the fall in shipments expected to affect handsets generally.

    At least that’s what ABI Research is predicting. It forecasts that feature-rich smartphones will post year-to-year unit growth through the current economic downturn.

    For 2009 that translates into a climb in shipments GPS-enabled phones to 240 million units, an increase of 6.4 per cent over 2008.

    This contrasts with a drop of 4—5 per cent for global handset shipments generally in 2009, according to a study by the researchers.

    For the period through to 2014, the analysts suggest demand for smartphones will increase at an average annual unit shipment rate of 19 per cent.

    ABI says this "surprising performance" will be driven by the ongoing demand for feature-rich smartphones, including the Apple iPhone 3G, RIM’s BlackBerry devices and Nokia N series phones among a growing list.

    During the period, the report says GPS chipsets will continue to penetrate this segment; nine of every ten smartphones will contain GPS ICs in 2014, compared with one in three in 2008.

    George Perros, senior analyst with ABI Research, said that falling component prices and increasing consumer awareness of handset locationcapabilities will keep demand for GPS-enabled phones healthy, in spite of the slumping global economic picture.

    Other factors that will continue the trend toward the inclusion of GPS functionality in handsets include the spread of open source operating systems such as Google’s Android.

    It provides application specific interfaces (APIs) that allow software developers to create location-based content for mobile devices.
    The report also highlights the continuing emergence of navigation and map-based applications for handsets.

    "As the quality of positioning technology in handsets improves and the cost of including it declines, GPS location technology will approach the status of a standard device feature," said Perros.

    "We are approaching the point where location awareness will be synonymous with smart devices, a point where personal navigation, social spatial knowledge, and location-specific contextual information will be assumed handset capabilities."

    If accurate, the report’s predictions will certainly be welcomed by smartphone manufacturers.

    We’d be interested in hearing your view on the figures.

  • Mobile Banking To Flourish – Security Still Issue


    More than 150 million mobile phone subscribers worldwide will carry out banking transactions on their handsets within three years.

    That’s the prediction of a Juniper Research report, which also expects that much of the growth in this area to come from mature markets.

    The analysts believe this will be down to users coming to rely on mobile banking rather than adoption in emerging markets where financial services are lacking.

    However, Howard Wilcox, a Juniper analyst, warns that security will be paramount to the continued success of the service.

    He said user perception will largely dictate whether the service is trusted, regardless of the reality of the strength of the security.

    Wilcox said that mobile banking is currently most advanced in the Far East, but there are growing numbers of mobile banking services being offered in North America and Western Europe.

    The developed nations of the Far East, North America and Western Europe are forecast to account for over 70 per cent of the mobile banking user base by 2011.

    "Transactional or "push" mobile banking is being offered increasingly by banks via downloadable applications or the mobile web, complementing existing SMS messaging services for balance and simple information enquiries," he said.

    "Mobile banking is a key element in banks’ distribution channel strategies as they compete to attract and retain customers."

    The Juniper report said a key element to the service’s growth in mature economies is the extra user convenience afforded.

    With many mature markets approaching, or already having exceeded 100 per cent capacity, mobile banking is an addition to the wide choice of applications and services accessible via the handset to make life easier, especially via smartphones such as the iPhone.

    Do you use your smartphone for banking transactions? We would be interested in hearing your experience of mobile banking services.

  • Can Nokia Rise To Apple's challenge?


    Nokia will see its share of the global smartphone market halved from 40 to 20 per cent by 2013, according to Generator Research.

    And who is going to be gobbling up Nokia’s lost business? Why Apple, of course.

    Generator believes Apple’s embryonic mobile business could knock Nokia from the top spot in the smartphone market and transform the mobile services market in the process.

    It predicts Apple could ship as many as 77 million iPhones in 2013 – while Nokia’s share would sit at just 38.5 million based on the analysts’ calculations.

    But is it likely the Finnish company will allow itself to be toppled so dramatically – even given the iPhone’s phenomenal success and Nokia’s continued under-performance in the US?

    Based on Generator’s analysis, the matter may be out of Nokia’s hands.

    Its report suggests that with cash reserves exceeding USD $25 billion, 33 per cent gross margins and the iPhone just about to enter its fastest-growth phase, Apple is extremely well placed.

    The iPhone-maker has the "resources, competencies and motivation" to invest in the mobile sector just at the time when the economic climate is forcing
    many established players in the mobile industry to cut back on product development.

    Generator adds that the impact on some incumbent players is likely to be substantial – not least Nokia’s.

    Andrew Sheehy, head of research at Generator, said the iPhone and App Store constitute a vertical platform for the delivery of advanced mobile services that will be developed in a similar manner to how Apple developed its digital music platform – including the iPod and the iTunes Music Store.

    "Outsiders are rewriting the mobile industry’s rulebook for how to deliver mobile services and the new rule number one is that you need a fully-integrated service development platform that has a rich API which is open to third party developers on favourable commercial terms," he said.

    "Right now, Apple has the best platform and the best-looking forward roadmap."

    Sheehy adds that Apple will use its financial strength and revenue velocity to try to get one or more design cycles ahead of the competition.

    "By that time the iPhone will include a range of different models, each addressing different market segments and the App Store will have developed to
    the point where third party developers have access to network assets that will allow them to write programs that can send messages and establish voice
    calls between different iPhones," he said.

    Fanciful ruminations or worryingly accurate (if you’re Nokia)? We would like to hear your comments.

  • Mobile WiMAX Revenues Grow – But Freeze Likely


    Worldwide mobile WiMAX infrastructure revenues nearly quadrupled in the third quarter of 2008 over the third quarter of 2007, according to the latest figures.

    Scott Siegler, senior analyst of Mobile Infrastructure research at Dell’Oro Group, said that with LTE still a couple of years away, WiMAX has become the first next generation technology with commercial service.

    “Mobile WiMAX revenues were very strong in the third quarter of last year, and we anticipate revenue for the fourth quarter to set another record," he said.

    "However, as we look into 2009, we expect the WiMAX market to be hit rather hard by the economic downturn."

    Siegler said building out brand new networks from scratch requires tens, if not hundreds, of millions of dollars of capital.

    He anticipate many network buildouts will be put on hold or delayed into 2010 as a result of the tightening in the credit markets, the increasing cost of capital and the decrease in demand for broadband data as consumer spending weakens.

    "With initial LTE rollouts coming in the 2010 to 2011 timeframe, these delays will shorten the time to market advantage WiMAX currently has over LTE,” he said.

    The report also shows that the top four Mobile WiMAX vendors in the quarter – Samsung, Motorola, Alcatel-Lucent and Alvarion – represented nearly 90 per cent of the total market.

  • Apple Signs USD $ 500 Million Deal With LG


    Apple and LG Display have agreed a deal that will see the South Korean electronics manufacturer supply flat panel displays for Macs and handheld products over the next five years.

    In exchange for a guaranteed supply of LCD screens until 2013, Apple will prepay USD $500 million to LG later this month.

    LG, which is the world’s second-largest maker of flat panel displays behind Samsung, presently supplies Apple with 70 per cent of its LCD panels.

    Prices for the parts, which have been falling rapidly during the recent global slowdown, are expected to begin rising again in the near future.

    In 2005, Apple made a similar deal with five memory suppliers which ensured the iPhone maker established a competitive edge in the digital media player and cell phone markets.

    In that agreement Apple prepaid a total of USD $1.25 billion to secure its supply of NAND flash memory.

    This type of strategic deal allows better prices to be obtained for components and can put pressure on competitors’ margins.

  • Digital Realty Wins Datacentre Leaders' Award


    Digital Realty Trust, the world’s largest wholesale datacentre provider, has been recognised for "Innovation in an Outsourced Environment" by the prestigious Datacentre Leaders’ 2008 Awards.

    Digital Realty Trust received the honor for a Turn-Key Datacentre that Digital Realty Trust delivered to IBM to support growth of the company’s hosting business in France.

    The Datacentre Leaders’ Awards recognise innovation and reward excellence in facility design and operations in the UK and across Europe.

    Bernard Geoghegan, senior vice president at Digital Realty Trust, said it was an honor to receive the award, particularly for the IBM project.

    "By establishing its new datacentre in our Turn-Key Datacentre facility in Paris, IBM was able to eliminate capital requirements and meet all of its rigorous technical and financial objectives for the project," he said.

    The Turn-Key Datacentre facilities provide state-of-the-art environments for supporting mission critical infrastructure, with advanced cooling, power, redundancy, and sustainability features to ensure that critical applications are available while optimising energy efficiency.

  • CA Targets DLP With Purchase Of Orchestra


    CA has bought New York-based Orchestria Corporation, a leading provider of data loss prevention (DLP) technology.

    The company intends to develop and sell Orchestria’s information-centric DLP product in the rapidly growing DLP market.

    More ambitiously, it says it plans to transform the way organizations think about DLP, identity management and information security overall.

    A CA statement said: “Organizations and auditors need to know who has access to data and what they can do with it at a role or user level.

    “By using Orchestria’s DLP technology with CA identity and access management solutions, organizations will now be able to consolidate and strengthen their security postures by including information-centric policies in the process of centrally managing users and roles, and their access throughout the enterprise.”

    Dave Hansen, corporate senior vice president and general manager, CA Security Management, said the acquisition would allow CA to deliver one of the broadest and most advanced information security solutions in the market today and address the demand for a new generation of identity and access management.

    “We are continuing our aggressive plan to deliver to our customers a comprehensive solution for identity and access management to help meet their security, compliance and privacy needs,” he said.

    Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.