Wearable tech will be everywhere at this year’s Olympics
It’s almost time. The 2016 summer Olympics are less than a week away, with the opening ceremony scheduled for August 5th. This year’s event, which runs through August 21nd, takes place in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where the organizers have reportedly struggled to prepare for the games. Whether Rio is ready or not, some of the world’s best athletes will be there to compete for gold medals in just a few days. Naturally, technology will have a presence at the Olympics. That includes wearables designed to make life easier and safer for Olympians as well as others supposed to help in training. Read on in the gallery below to learn about eight different pieces of gear the athletes will be using.
Apple Urges Supreme Court Not to Send Samsung Case Back to Lower Court
Apple has urged the U.S. Supreme Court to rule against Samsung’s request to send a longstanding patent lawsuit between the two companies back to lower court for further proceedings, reports Reuters.
Apple told the court that its South Korean rival has “no evidence” that design patent damages should be based on anything less than the value of an entire smartphone, according to court documents filed on Friday. The Supreme Court agreed to hear Samsung’s case in December.
Samsung argued that it has been hit with “excessive penalties” for allegedly copying the design of the iPhone. The company claims that the penalties were unfair because Apple was awarded damages from the total profits of the product, while the infringing patent only applied to a component of the smartphone rather than the whole device.
Apple was awarded nearly $1 billion in damages in 2012, but a significant part of the decision was reversed in 2015, leaving Samsung owing $548 million. Samsung has already paid the $548 million, but could win its money back if the ruling is overturned. The patent lawsuit dates back to 2011.
Tags: Samsung, lawsuit
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When will LG’s smartphone patience run out?
LG is happy to announce that, thanks to its home appliance and entertainment divisions, it’s made a record quarterly profit. But the company is less delighted to concede that its mobile division has suffered another weak quarter, ostensibly down to lukewarm sales of the LG G5. But LG’s problems run a lot deeper than just an underwhelming flagship: It hasn’t booked a profit since the second quarter of 2015. Even then, it was making a measly 1.2 cents in profit on every handset it sold, which wasn’t much to write home about.
Of course, LG’s mobile division has been written off before. Back in 2013, profits fell off a cliff, but the company was able to pull back from the brink the following year and make some cash once again. But there’s a substantial difference between what happened then and what’s going on now. Firstly, this drop is deeper and longer than the last one. More importantly, the smartphone market is radically different from how it was just a year or two ago.
IDC has published its latest research on the state of the smartphone industry and the results don’t bode well for companies like LG. Growth has effectively stalled, mirroring reports from earlier in the year claiming that the smartphone boom is effectively over. The issue is simple: Everyone who can afford a smartphone already owns one, and they aren’t worried about upgrading on a fixed, 24-month cycle. People are holding onto their devices for an average of 30 months, because most decent handsets don’t turn into hot garbage precisely 730 days after buying it.
Lg handset sales vs. operating income
Samsung, LG’s Korean rival, has been able to ride through the rough tides to see its quarterly shipment volumes increase. But for the most part, a lot of the handset business is now being subsumed by a handful of Chinese companies. As a result, once-hallowed brands like HTC, LG and Sony no longer make “top five handset makers” list, having been replaced by Huawei, Oppo and Vivo, the latter two of which have the same parent company, BBK Electronics.
Those three Chinese companies managed to ship 32.1, 22.6 and 16.4 million handsets in the last three months, a combined total of 71.1 million smartphones. LG, which is backed by an enormous manufacturing conglomerate and has significant brand recognition, managed just 13.9 million in the same period of time. These firms are even stealing Apple’s lunch, whose shipments dropped 15 percent since the same quarter in 2015.
iCharts
LG has said that it’s working on a new V-Series device, which is likely a follow-up to the V10 from last year. That phone earned some middling praise when it first came out, but even so, is one new handset likely to recapture LG’s fading glory? These days, almost all smartphones are good enough, and it’s not as if highly profitable flagship devices have a monopoly on exciting features anymore. If most people are satisfied with a OnePlus 3 that costs $399, then why spend another $50 or so on a G5?
Unlike HTC, LG is backed by an enormous manufacturing conglomerate, so it’s not likely it’ll need to ever pull out of the smartphone business. But there’s a question as to how long its leadership will tolerate triple-digit losses before taking action. Sure, Nokia, Blackberry and others all hung on for years of pain, hoping that things were about to turn around. But history has shown that it’s difficult to pull out of a death spiral once you’re already in one.
Perhaps it won’t be long before someone decides to scale back its mobile arm to Sony-esque proportions, releasing one or two devices each year to keep the factories working. What’s clear, however, is that a lot of these companies that were once considered pillars of the Android market have found themselves slow to adapt to a new world order.
Source: IDC, LG
Samsung Doubles Apple’s Share of Smartphone Market as Customers Await iPhone 7
The latest data from market research firm IDC reveals that Samsung shipped nearly twice as many smartphones as Apple in the fiscal third quarter. Android-based Galaxy smartphone shipments totaled an estimated 77 million, compared to 40.4 million iPhones, during the three-month period that ended in late June. For Apple, the fiscal third quarter is seasonally its lowest of the year.
Samsung was the most popular smartphone vendor in the quarter with a leading 22.4 percent market share, nearly double Apple’s 11.8 percent market share. Samsung experienced 5.5 percent year-over-year growth on the strength of the Galaxy S7 launch in March, whereas Apple declined 15 percent compared to the year-ago quarter as customers await the iPhone 7 series in September.
One bright spot for Apple was the lower-priced iPhone SE, although the iPhone’s average selling price dropped to $595 compared to $662 last year:
Apple’s second quarter saw the Cupertino-based giant ship 40.4 million iPhones, representing a 15.0% year-over-year decline from the 47.5 million units shipped last year. The new 4-inch iPhone SE proved successful in both emerging and developed markets as the new SE has captured many first-time smartphone buyers as well as Android users switching over to the Apple ecosystem. The success of the cheaper SE did, however, have an impact on the overall average selling price (ASP) for an iPhone in the quarter. The ASP for an iPhone was $595, down 10.1% from $662 one year ago. As smartphone competition continues to escalate and upgrades continue to slow, Apple will look to drive sales with a newly designed iPhone 7 combined with their upgrade program come this fall.
Apple also ceded market share to Chinese rival Huawei, which ranked third among smartphone vendors with an estimated 32.1 million shipments and 9.4 percent market share. Huawei manufactures Google’s popular Nexus 6P and introduced new dual-camera P9 and P9 Plus smartphones in April, but its presence in the United States and other regions is still limited compared to China.
Chinese rivals OPPO and Vivo rounded out the top five smartphone vendors with quarterly sales of 22.6 million and 16.4 million units respectively. OPPO in particular saw explosive 136.6 percent year-over-year growth over the three months, increasing its market share to 6.6 percent compared to 2.8 percent in the year-ago quarter. Vivo had 9.1 percent market share, an 80.2 percent year-over-year change.
Worldwide smartphone shipments totaled an estimated 343.3 million units in the quarter, an increase of only 0.3 percent from the year-ago quarter, when vendors shipped an estimated 342.4 million units. The relatively flat growth is the result of market saturation and lengthening upgrade cycles, which vendors have attempted to offset by offering incentives such as the iPhone Upgrade Program.
On Wednesday, Apple CEO Tim Cook said the company recently sold its 1 billionth iPhone.
Tags: Samsung, IDC, Apple, Huawei
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Samsung Reports Highest Profit in Two Years on Robust Galaxy 7 Sales
Samsung reported its best earning results in two years on Thursday as the company’s Galaxy S7 phones outperformed all expectations, despite slowing growth in the overall smartphone industry (via The New York Times).
The South Korean company announced a 8.14 trillion won ($7.22 billion) operating profit on revenue of 50.94 trillion won ($45.2 billion), up 18 percent from the previous year.
The firm’s key mobile division, which accounts for more than half its revenue, experienced “substantial earnings improvement” as its high-end Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge phones enjoyed expanded sales, despite competition from Apple’s iPhones and by lower-end devices from Chinese rivals like Xiaomi and Huawei.
Samsung forecast “solid” performance for the rest of the year despite increased competition as “other companies release new mobile devices”, thanks to strong demand for its components, such as OLED displays, which the company expected to increase “substantially”.
The company is also betting on an uptick in revenue generated by next week’s unveiling of its Galaxy “Note 7” smartphone, which is thought to feature an edge-to-edge curved screen, an iris scanner, and potentially a USB Type-C port.
Samsung Galaxy Note7 in (from l to r) Black Onyx, Silver Titanium, and Blue Coral pic.twitter.com/QiePUEG9GP
— Evan Blass (@evleaks) July 1, 2016
The good news for Samsung came two days after its arch-rival Apple revealed its second consecutive year-on-year declines in quarterly revenue and iPhone sales, although the reported dips were smaller than analysts predicted.
In stark contrast to the marked popularity of Samsung’s high-end devices, Apple’s lower-cost iPhone SE was the bright spot in the Cupertino company’s earnings call, gaining more traction than expected and going some way to soothe investor’s concerns over growth.
Prior to the earnings call, Apple stock had lost more than a fifth of their value over the year amid mounting concerns about the slowdown. Despite worries, Apple’s shares jumped as much as 7.5 percent on news of its Q3 results, as investors remained optimistic in the run-up to the company’s iPhone 7 launch this September.
According to a recent report by Kantar Worldpanel, Samsung’s Galaxy S7 devices accounted for 16 percent of mobile purchases made by U.S. customers this year, while only 14.6 percent opted for an iPhone 6S or iPhone 6S Plus.
Growth in the smartphone industry will slow to 3.1 percent this year, down from 11 percent last year and 28 percent in 2014, according to researcher IDC.
Tag: Samsung
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Samsung’s mobile division is the company’s top earner
Samsung’s operating profits really did reach 8.14 trillion won ($7.2) like it expected, marking the second quarter of 2016 as its strongest in two years. The Korean corporation has released its detailed earnings report for Q2, where it also revealed a 50.94 trillion KRW ($45 billion) revenue, up by 2.40 trillion from same period last year. Samsung credits its increase in earnings to the strong sales of both the Samsung S7 and S7 edge, as well as to its profitable mid- to low-end models, including the Galaxy A and J series. According to Strategy Analytics, the company shipped 78 million smartphones this quarter.
In fact, the chaebol’s mobile division remains its top earner for two quarters straight — it notched an operating profit of 4.32 trillion KRW ($3.8 billion), more than double from the same period in 2015. Samsung says it expects to maintain its high-end smartphone sales the second half of 2016 with the release of a “new large-screen flagship smartphone.” The company is, of course, talking about its next Galaxy Note, which it’s slated to unveil on August 2nd in NYC.
Source: Samsung
Samsung HDR update improves the color in its high-end TVs
Samsung is rolling out a firmware update for its 2016 lineup of quantum dot SUHD TVs that adds an “HDR+” setting, giving them more and brighter colors, deeper blacks and improved contrast. It significantly enhances HDR content from providers like Netflix, Amazon and YouTube, and will also improve regular, standard dynamic range video. The result is punchier images and highly granular control for experts, according to Samsung.
As a reminder HDR, or “high dynamic range” video expands the maximum light and dark levels and number of shades in between. As a result, you can see more detail in shadows and light areas along with a wider color gamut. Samsung’s SUHD TVs also have 10-bit panels, meaning they can display up to a billion colors — many times more than a regular HDTV — if the source content supports it.
Samsung says the new feature “uncovers previously hidden images from darker content scenes” with native HDR video, while increasing the contrast ratio in brighter scenes to to add more detail. It adds that picture experts can now customize brightness, contrast and gradation “to the finest degree.” The upgrade is available for all of Samsung’s 2016 SUHD TVs and will roll out to other HDR models by September.
Source: Samsung
Samsung fires back at Huawei with its own patent lawsuit
Huawei filed a lawsuit against Samsung back in May, accusing the Korean corporation of infringing on some of its 4G-related patents. Now, it’s Samsung that’s on the offensive: according to Reuters, it has filed a lawsuit of its own against Huawei for a very similar reason. The Korean chaebol sued Huawei in its home country (China) a couple of weeks ago for allegedly infringing on six of its patents. A spokesperson said the company tried to “resolve this matter amicably” but didn’t elaborate on the nature of the affected intellectual properties.
Huawei didn’t demand money when it filed its lawsuit and asked for a cross-licensing deal instead. Analyst Lee Do-hoon told Reuters that Samsung probably isn’t looking to be paid either. He said both sides might have ulterior motives: Huawei’s is to boost its reputation. “If you look at the patent battle with Apple and Samsung… it ultimately created a lot of benefits for Samsung in a kind of an advertisement,” he explained. Samsung’s motive, on the other hand, might be to compel Huawei to settle as soon as possible.
Source: Reuters
New Galaxy S7 Active smartphones won’t leak, says Samsung
It’s official: the Samsung Galaxy S7 Active isn’t quite as rugged as it was originally advertised. Well, it wasn’t, but it is now. Following failed underwater tests from both Consumer Reports and CNET, Samsung looked into the phone’s production process and found manufacturing problems that were compromising its water-resistance. Fortunately, the issue has been resolved. From here on out, the Galaxy S7 Active is expected to be sufficiently water-tight.
Although the production process is fixed now, there’s no real way to tell how many units in the wild are effected, though Samsung told Consumer Reports that “compared to the total number of devices sold, it was tiny.” Even so, the company says it will replace any S7 Active with water damage through the warranty period, or up to one year after the device is purchased. Unfortunately, this replacement does not apply to phones that haven’t been damaged, making it difficult for current S7 Active owners to know if it’s safe for them to take their phones in the water.
It’s never good when you have to treat your rugged phone with kids gloves.
Source: Consumer Reports
Without a new Apple Watch, smartwatch shipments decline in Q2
Until now, the smartwatch market had seen year-over-year growth each quarter since the devices made their debut. For Q2 2016 though, that wasn’t the case. Global smartwatch shipments were down 32 percent, totaling 3.5 million gadgets during the period. That figure is down from 5.1 million of the wearables shipped during the second quarter of 2015. Apple still led the pack with 1.6 million units, but it was the only top-selling company to experience an annual decline. It’s worth noting that Q2 2015 was when the Apple Watch launched and there hasn’t been an updated model yet.
Speaking of new devices, the lack of updated hardware is a key reason the for the drop in numbers. Improvements to Apple’s watchOS were announced back at WWDC, but they won’t arrive until this fall. There’s a new version of Android Wear on the way as well. Combine that with no new model from the top company and buyers are waiting to nab a wearable if they haven’t done so already. As IDC points out, Apple’s share of the market is nearly half (47 percent), so when it sees a decline that shift significantly impacts the entire segment of devices.
IDC also notes that only a select few traditional watchmakers have delivered a more modern spin on the timepiece. The likes of Casio, Fossil and Tag Heuer have done so, but the analytics company expects the smartwatch market stands to benefit if more of those companies join the tech OEMs that are cranking out the devices at a solid pace. A little brand recognition goes a long way.
That 32 percent figure may also seem like a significant drop, but that has to be considered alongside the overall size of the smartwatch market. 3.5 million total units shipped in a quarter for all vendors is still quite small when compared to other gadgets like phones. Sure, smartwatches have yet to take hold like handsets have, but the comparison shows that those wearables continue to be a niche item. In terms of other top-5 companies, Samsung still ranks number 2 behind Apple thanks to the Gear S2 and its ability to function without being tethered to a phone. Lenovo sits in third after nabbing Motorola as the Moto 360 continues to be a top choice for Android Wear fans who prefer a circular display.
Source: IDC (Business Wire)
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