After years of accusations of being proxy spies for Chinese military and intelligence agencies, Huawei CEO Ren Zhengfei says his company is exiting the US market. In an interview provided to French journalists, the CEO of the worlds largest telecommunications equipment provider says his company will no longer fight to stay in the US market.
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Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt expressed his shock at reports that the NSA tapped into the internal communications links between Google servers, describing it as “outrageous” in an interview with the Wall Street Journal. The claim was made as part of the ongoing PRISM revelations.
It’s really outrageous that the National Security Agency was looking between the Google data centers, if that’s true. The steps that the organization was willing to do without good judgment to pursue its mission and potentially violate people’s privacy, it’s not OK …
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Photo: ibtimes.com
Samsung has beaten its earlier forecasts for both revenue and profit in Q3, reporting new records for both at $9.56B profit on revenues of $55.59B.
Samsung had earlier reported that it had sold more than 40 million Galaxy S4 handsets in the first six months, but advised today that most of its mobile growth was in lower-end models, while high-end growth is slowing …
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Samsung is predicting a record $9.4B profit for Q3 in its latest earnings guidance, on estimated revenues of $53.9B. While both figures are estimates rather than confirmed results, Samsung’s earnings guidance is usually pretty much spot-on. If confirmed, this will build on the company’s record numbers in Q2.
HTC, in contrast, reported its first ever loss, as it warned back in July. Its revenue of $1.6B was lower than even its lower-end forecast, and it lost $101M – the company’s first ever loss in its 16-year history.
Bloomberg attributes the wildly differing performances to sales of mid-market handsets in growth markets like India and China.
While HTC has focused a revival on its flagship One handset and $12 million marketing deal with actor Robert Downey Jr., Samsung has expanded its range of mid-priced smartphones such as the Galaxy Golden and S4 Mini to capture sales in China and India …
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Hugo Barra, Google’s former VP of Android product development, says his move to Xiaomi was planned long before it emerged that Sergey Brin was romantically involved with his former girlfriend.
In an interview with AllThingsD, Barra said that the opportunity to play a key role in the global expansion of the company dubbed ‘the Apple of China’ was one he could not resist.
“To me, right away, it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, truly a dream job, this idea of building a global company which could be as significant as Google from the ground up,” said Barra. “It was just something that I will never come across, with a team whom I know, with a company that has DNA similar to my own and, on top of that, to live in Asia for at least some period of time” …
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In an interview with the Korea Times, Samsung executives respond to Apple’s recent announcements in typical Samsung fashion. In order to better compete with Apple in China, Samsung confirmed that it would focus more on the huge Mainland market.
For example, the company says it has received clearance from Chinese authorities to sell TDD-LTE devices, to enable Samsung to offer phones that work on the world’s largest carrier, China Mobile. As a result of “changing market situations” (i.e. Apple), Samsung is accelerating its schedule for releasing these Chinese-friendly devices. Apple is expected to announce a partnership with China Mobile to sell the iPhone before the end of the year.
In addition, Shin, Samsung’s co-CEO announced that Samsung’s next Galaxy phones will feature 64-bit architectures, to rival the A7 in the iPhone 5s.
“Not in the shortest time. But yes, our next smartphones will have 64-bit processing functionality,” Shin said, adding he followed the media coverage of Apple’s new iPhone.
Shin’s noncommittal reply indicates that although 64-bit chips are on the roadmap, they will not arrive this year. Meanwhile, the iPhone 5s ships on September 20th.
While it is easy to make fun of Samsung for stereotypically copying everything Apple, it is important to remember that they are also likely making Apple’s 64-bit A7 processors.
HTC’s former VP of Product Design Thomas Chien (photo: HTC blog)
Taiwanese company HTC has not been having a happy time of late. Senior departures, including its COO; a halving of market share since 2011; former UK execs setting up a rival company; disappointing Q2 financials; and the possibility of the first ever loss in the company’s history in Q3.
But the latest saga in the company’s troubles read more like the plot of a soap opera than real-life. First, several of HTC’s former lead designers were arrested last week on suspicion of fraudulent expenses claims and leaking of trade secrets. Now Engadget reports that one of those arrested, ex-VP of Product Design Thomas Chien, may have been involved in a conspiracy with a Chinese municipal government to use both the trade secrets are purloined cash to create a rival smartphone company in China …
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Photo: foreignaffairs.com
The WSJ reports that HTC is now working on a custom smartphone operating system designed specifically for the Chinese market.
HTC Corp is developing a mobile software system specifically for Chinese consumers, people familiar with the project say, as part of a big China bet that the Taiwanese smartphone maker hopes will help revive sliding sales.
While the reality is likely to be some kind of Android variant, rather than a completely new OS like Samsung’s Tizen, it does have all the hallmarks of a somewhat desperate move by a company which somehow manages to combine a superb flagship handset with less than stellar financial performance. With morale faring no better, it had even been briefly suggested that HTC might have been planning to exit the smartphone market.
China is a juicy target for all smartphone manufacturers, as China’s emerging middle-class create a market beyond the largely budget handsets that currently make up the bulk of sales in what is now the world’s largest smartphone market. Even Apple, which has so far been content to operate exclusively at the top end of the market, appears to be eyeing China in particular with the iPhone 5C it is expected to announce on 10th September.
But it would be a gamble for HTC, ploughing resources into a country in which it is currently nowhere. A recent Canalys report into smartphone market shares in China showed that HTC was buried somewhere in ‘Other’.
The WSJ suggests thatHTC may be playing the long game, viewing the move as a diplomatic one rather than hoping for short-term financial benefit.
The project is seen by HTC insiders partly as an effort to forge political and business ties in China, since third-party operating systems have little chance of actually competing against the dominance of Android and Apple’s iOS. In the second quarter, Android held 79% of the global smartphone market, while iOS snagged 14.2%, according to market research firm Gartner. No other operating system captured more than 4%.
If so, the question remains what HTC’s strategy is to ensure that it has a long-term.
Photo: HTC Chairwoman Cher Wang, and Alice Sun’s blog post
A recent rumor that HTC was withdrawing from the smartphone market, and that the company would be offered for sale, have been denied by the company. HTC recently warned of a possible loss in Q3 following disappointing Q2 results.
The rumor was started by a post on the the Chinese microblogging site Weibo by EE Times Chinese analyst Alice Sun, a commentator with a generally good track-record. However, rumors of a denial swiftly followed, and Engadget has now received what appears to be a definitive denial of the sale – though interestingly no specific response is made to the suggestion that HTC is pulling out of smartphones …
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We heard in October that Google had plans to further reduce Motorola’s workforce after cutting around 20 percent, or roughly 4,000 jobs, in August. The Wall Street Journal reported today on an email from Google that confirmed the company is beginning to cut around 1,200 employees (a little over 10 percent of its current total headcount):
Motorola MSI -0.74% staffers were informed by the company via email this week that “while we’re very optimistic about the new products in our pipeline, we still face challenges.” The company email added that “our costs are too high, we’re operating in markets where we’re not competitive and we’re losing money.”
As for where the cuts might take place, we previously reported that Motorola, which was unprofitable for 14 of its last 16 quarters, planned to reduce its operations in Asia and India, but today’s report said the layoffs would hit workers in the United States, China, and India. Google also warned that further restructuring might be necessary and significant costs could be involved.
In a recent piece from The Wall Street Journal highlighting Google executives’ fear that Samsung is gaining too much dominance, Android chief Andy Rubin said the purchase of Motorola was “a kind of insurance policy against a manufacturer such as Samsung gaining too much power over Android.”
Google has been accused today of having too much power with the Android operating system in China, according to a white paper published by a group from China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. Reuters reported today that the technology ministry said “Google had discriminated against some Chinese companies developing their operating systems by delaying the sharing of codes.”
The white paper also claimed the country’s R&D in the mobile operating space is “too dependent on Android” and that there is an opportunity for China to develop its own operating systems.
The paper pointed to Baidu Inc., Alibaba Group, and Huawei Technologies as companies developing their own operating systems and claimed that Google has deals in place that “restrain the business development of mobile devices of these companies.”
[tweet https://twitter.com/CNBC/status/266973350025367553]
Many reports are coming in that Chinese users are having trouble accessing a number of Google’s web products. There is no word on the exact cause of the service disruptions, but The Wall Street Journal noted Google’s Transpareny Report website shows “a precipitous drop in traffic in China starting more than eight hours ago,” although the site doesn’t list the services as completely inaccessible in the country. Google provided a statement to WSJ confirming the interruptions do not appear to be on its end:
“We’ve checked and there’s nothing wrong on our end,” a Google spokeswoman said in a prepared statement.
The Washington Post reported “Users with special VPN (virtual private network) services,” which many Chinese users take advantage of to access banned sites like Facebook, are still able to access Google’s services.
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Google announced today on the Official Gmail Blog that it is adding improved support for languages with a number of new input tools that provide one-click access to language and keyboard layouts. According to Google, 100 virtual keyboards, transliteration, and IMEs are included in the update. The introduction of the new tools means Gmail now supports typing in 75 languages:
Finding the right words can be difficult, especially across languages, and once you choose them, finding a way to typethem can be even harder. Try emailing family in Germany, chatting with friends in China or adding a Russian business partner’s name to your contacts and you may find yourself limited by the language of your keyboard…That’s why today we’re adding more than 100 virtual keyboards, transliteration and IMEs—collectively called input tools—in Gmail. These tools enable you to type in the language and keyboard layout you’re accustomed to, making it easy to keep in touch with family, friends and coworkers from any computer. You can even switch between languages with one click.
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Analytics firm Flurry has dissected developer ratios for Apple and Google’s mobile platforms as their respective annual conferences are on the horizon, and research findings show the two companies boast a joint market cap of about $750 billion.
The study compared developer support for iOS versus Android by examining data collected from more than 70,000 companies across more than 185,000 mobile apps. The bar graph below illustrates developers’ loyalty to Apple: For every 10 apps that developers build, only three are for the Android operating system.
“While Google made some gains in Q1 2012, edging up to over 30% for the first time in a year, we believe this is largely due to seasonality, as Apple traditionally experiences a spike in developer support leading up to the holiday season. Apple’s business has more observable seasonality,” explained Flurry in a blog post.
Flurry further cited iOS as the more attractive platform to developers due to its stronghold on the tablet market share. The pie chart below represents a sample size exceeding 5 billion total user sessions. It reveals the Galaxy Tab and Amazon Kindle Fire sit at “very distant second and third places in terms of consumer usage.”
Another comparison on revenue generated by top apps for both Android and iOS uncovered the difference in revenue generated per active user is four times greater on iOS than Android. Flurry noted that for every $1 earned on iOS, a developer could expect to earn about 24-cents on Android.
Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference is June 11 to June 15 in San Francisco, while Google’s I/O conference is June 27 to June 29 in the same California tech-hub city.
Google made headway on its $12.5 billion Motorola Mobility acquisition late last week when China finally gave the pending merger an O.K., and today the soon-acquired company filed an 8-K form with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that specified the deal’s transaction will close either May 22 or May 23.
According to TechCrunch:
So what happens next? A ‘listening tour,’ a source tells us, with new management visiting the whole of the operation, ‘seeing what everyone does, then making decisions.’ One decision that may be close at hand has to do with headcount: we have heard that there will be layoffs coming imminently — with one person close to the situation even putting the number as high as 30 percent of Motorola’s staff, worldwide. At the same time, more details are emerging about the conditions that China put on the deal: they include a guarantee that Android would remain free and open source for the next five years.
Research firm Gartner released its numbers today for “Worldwide Mobile Device Sales” during Q1 2012. There are not many surprises in the report when it comes to Apple, but Gartner estimated Samsung sold 38 smartphones during the quarter, which is less than the 42.2 million estimated by IDC earlier this month and more than the 32 million by IHS iSuppli. With Apple confirming 35.1 million iPhones sold during the quarter, Gartner’s numbers put Samsung as the both the No. 1 smartphone and overall mobile device vendor. The report also noted Samsung and Apple together accounted for 49.3-percent of the global smartphone sales, which is up from just 29.3 percent in Q1 of last year:
“The continued roll-out of third generation (3G)-based smartphones by local and regional manufacturers such as Huawei, ZTE, Lenovo, Yulong and TCL Communication should help spur demand in China. In addition, the arrival of new products in mature markets based on new versions of the Android and Windows Phone operating systems (OSs), and the launch of the Apple iPhone 5 will help drive a stronger second half in Western Europe and North America. However, as we are starting to update our market forecast we feel a downward adjustment to our 2012 figures, in the range of 20 million units, is unavoidable.”
On the platform side, Gartner’s report estimated both Android and iOS accounted for 79 percent of global smartphone sales—up from just 53.3-percent in Q1 2011. Of that 80 percent, Android grabbed 56.1-percent, which is slightly higher than the 51 percent of the United States market, according to estimates from comScore earlier this month. Apple took in the remaining 22.9-percent, which is less than the 30.7-percent comScore estimated for the U.S. market:
Gartner analysts said the smartphone market has become highly commoditized and differentiation is becoming a challenge for manufacturers. “At the high end, hardware features coupled with applications and services are helping differentiation, but this is restricted to major players with intellectual property assets. However, in the mid to low-end segment, price is increasingly becoming the sole differentiator. This will only worsen with the entry of new players and the dominance of Chinese manufacturers, leading to increased competition, low profitability and scattered market share.”
According to a report from Chicago Business (via The Verge), Google is considering moving Motorola Mobility’s main offices to Chicago. The report claims sources have confirmed the company is looking for 500,000 square feet of office space in downtown Chicago that could house up to 3000 employees, more than enough room for Motorola’s new headquarters. The report said those 3,000 employees would likely be relocated from Motorola’s current Libertyville HQ, but not involve those from its River North location:
Among the handful of sites under consideration are upper floors of the landmark Merchandise Mart in River North and Fulton Market Cold Storage, a large warehouse that’s slated for redevelopment in the West Loop, according to a source familiar with the matter… Top real estate executives from Google’s Mountain View, Calif., headquarters have toured several downtown sites over the past several month.
ChicagoBusiness said acquiring the property is still dependant on Google completely closing the acquisition with approvals from regulators in China. Apart from its main campus in Mountain View, Google is no stranger to downtown offices with about 3,000 employees currently calling downtown Manhattan home at the company’s second largest World offices.
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(<a href='http://images.fastcompany.com/upload/googwash.jpg' target='_blank'>via</a> FastCompany)
Google spent $5.03 million lobbying in Washington last quarter.
According to the company’s lobbying report (PDF), the search engine’s lobbying efforts focused on the regulation of Web-based privacy, advertising, and competition, including International tax reform.
CNET’s Lance Whitney explained that Google only spent $3.76 million lobbying in Q4 2011 and $1.48 million Q1 2011, but attributed the recent surge in expenses mainly to one Congressional bill:
The search giant devoted lobby dollars to H.R. 1389 – Global Online Freedom Act of 2011, a Congressional bill designed to prevent U.S. companies from cooperating with repressive foreign governments in using the Internet for censorship and surveillance. Google has of course squared off in the past with China over the censorship of its search results.
The company lobbied for H.Con.Res. 114, a bill ‘expressing the sense of Congress that the United States should preserve, enhance, and increase access to an open, global Internet.’
It is worth noting that Apple only spent $500,000 lobbying last quarter.
According to analytics service StatCounter, which measures billions of hits monthly across 3 million websites, Android now accounts for over 24 percent of mobile device usage in China—more than double the amount of iOS devices. The report of the top eight mobile operating systems in China shows Android usage spiked in February 2012 and took Android from 23.08-percent in January to 25.89-percent in February. Over the same period, iOS grew just one percent to 12.79-percent. While the month-to-month increase alone is not shocking, noteworthy is the fact Android came in at just 6.87-percent in October 2011. Meanwhile, iOS hovered around 12 percent since March 2011.
Apple is making a big push for its mobile devices in China this year, and the growth for both iOS and Android is obvious with China now the No. 1 country for activations on both platforms. In January 2011, China accounted for just 8 percent of total activations for iOS and Android. According to Flurry, China now accounts for 24 percent of activations as of March 2012 with the United States coming in at No. 2 with 21 percent.
Reports surfaced in China that claim Apple plans to integrate Baidu into iOS next month as the country’s possible default search function—suggesting iOS aims to become less dependent on Google’s services.
According to Chinese news website Sina Tech (machine-translation):
Sina Technology News on March 26 morning news, according to informed sources, Apple iOS operating system next month will be formally introduced Baidu search, Baidu and Apple between cooperation component in the China region.
Google’s Susan Creighton revealed last fall that two-thirds of the Mountain View, Calif.-based Company’s mobile search comes from Apple iOS devices.
Meanwhile, recent speculation claims Apple is moving to an in-house Mapping solution that would replace Google Maps. The firm also recently removed its publish to YouTube option in QuickTime for Mountain lion. If these latest rumors deem true, Apple’s move to Baidu would further indicate a significant effort to reduce Google’s presence in iOS.
Google launched its Street View galleries this past week for Amazon and Thailand without a hiccup, but the Internet giant was not-so lucky elsewhere, as it has faced many obstacles over its mapping applications throughout the globe—especially in Asia.
Reuters published a lengthy reported today detailing how Google often meets hurdles worldwide, such as the recent debacle on its privacy policy, and it fully described the Mountain View, Calif.-based Company’s tenacious attempts to chart the streets and landscapes of Asia while consistently meeting privacy, political, and cultural barriers.
For those that live under a rock: Google Street View is a service highlighted in Google Maps and Google Earth that offers panoramic views of streets. It launched in 2007 in the United States and has expanded to many cities and rural areas worldwide.
A round up of Asia’s criticisms is below.
China now holds the No. 1 spot for Android and iOS activations.
Mobile analytics firm Flurry released new data that depicted the Chinese market skyrocketing from No. 11 in 2011 to No. 1 for smartphone activation, thereby bumping the United States to No. 2.
The statistics are staggering: China accounted for 8 percent of Android and iOS activations in January 2011, while the United States held a big slice of the pie with 28 percent. The tables have turned, however, as China passed the U.S. and now boasts 24 percent of activations by March 2012 (end-of-the month projections included). Meanwhile, the United States slipped to 21 percent.
More information is available below.
We sat down with Google Enterprise Vice President Amit Singh in his Mountain View office this week to discuss the direction and plans of the Google Enterprise team. While he did not share the all-important revenue numbers with us, he did shine a light on Google Apps’ impressive growth across all of its markets.
Singh was a two-decade alumnus of Oracle when he came with many, many others to the GooglePlex last March to help Dave Girouard and the Enterprise Team sell to big business. Oracle announced this week very disappointing earnings that has thrown the stock price off almost 15 percent. Meanwhile, Google Apps is growing like gangbusters; Perhaps Singh’s timing is good.
9to5Google: Hi, Amit. I assume we’re here to talk about your big GM announcement.
Singh: We have no big announcements today but look forward to a whole assortment of announcements in mid-January. We tend to announce new customers after implementation rather than after sign up. Here’s a hint: we’re growing very big in South America…and Asia, where we’re building three monster data centers in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore that should all be online in the next 12-18 months.
9to5Google: Speaking on that, Apps has had a pretty solid year. It seems like you have a big announcement almost every week and new features added to Google Docs every day.
Singh: It has been incredible across the board. We are seeing double the daily signups and about 5,000 organizations per day vs. 3,000 per day at the beginning of the year [those numbers also seems to point to bigger signups] and a lot of those are paying users.
9to5Google: You mentioned the new Hong Kong data center and it appears that Google’s plan for China is to deal with Hong Kong’s system. But what about users in China? Certainly international organizations have to be wary of Google’s relationship with greater China.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RaJgw62intI]
Google’s Eric Schmidt was recently featured in an interview with CNN’s Erin Burnett giving a rare behind-the-scenes look at Google’s second largest World offices in downtown Manhattan. While giving a tour and an exclusive interview, Schmidt explained that one of Google’s strengths is their “lack of direction.”
Schmidt also described the building that holds about 3,000 employees, and he said its staff is split “half and half” into sales/marketing and high quality engineering. He called the office the “world’s best engineering center.” Viewers got a glimpse at the desks of programmers, including some of the Google Docs team, cafeterias, hallways with fake subway grates, meat locker conference rooms, and “huddle rooms” designed to look like New York City apartments.
Viewers also learned some of Schmidt’s views on North Korea, and China’s “horrendous censorship laws”. When asked whether or not “the next Bill Gates or Steve Jobs” would be born in China or the United States, Schmidt responded:
