­BlackBerry Z10

Research in Motion has held its much vaunted relaunch and amongst all the expected announcements for its new OS and smartphones was one surprise as the company decided to change its name. Research in Motion is henceforth to be called BlackBerry – even more tightly tying the company into the success or failure of its operating system.

The company’s CEO, Thorsten Heins made the announcement: “From this point forward — we are BlackBerry. One brand. One promise. Our customers use a BlackBerry, our employees work for BlackBerry, and our shareholders are owners of BlackBerry.”

The company also showed off its latest make or break OS, and two new handsets.

China has become the world’s largest supplier of smartphones after it shipped 224 million units in 2012.

Citing official data, the Xinhua news agency reported that the country also added 50.9 million Internet users in 2012, bringing the total to 564 million at the end of last year

During 2012, over 730,000 Chinese apps were launched on Apple iOS platforms, and the number of apps in China Mobile’s online Mobile Market approached 150,000, according to a statement from the China Academy of Telecommunication Research.

The number of mobile Internet users increased 18.1 percent to 420 million, with mobile phones becoming the primary channel for using the Internet in China.

Local software production and development can spur economic growth in Africa and other developing economies, says a report by the UN Conference on Trade and Development.
The ‘Information Economy Report 2012’ shows that information and communications technology (ICT) software and services are dominated by the developed world but developing economies are catching up.
It says that piracy, poor ICT infrastructure and inadequate protection of intellectual property rights are some of the major challenges hindering ICT software development and service expansion in developing regions such as Africa.
However, for Africa and the Middle East the biggest challenge to the software industry is limited access to venture capital.

­Huawei and Vodafone have announced the successful trial of 2 Tbit/s optical fiber transmission technologies on Vodafone’s live network. The field trial achieved 2 Tbit/s transmission capabilities of over 3,325km.

The link used in the trial was on Vodafone’s backbone network, passing through a few cities across middle and south Germany.

This provides a data highway capacity 20-times higher than current commercially deployed 100Gbit/s systems and has a speed equivalent to downloading 40 HD videos in one second. This marks an important step forward for optical transport technology advances beyond 100G.

Huawei has published preliminary financial figures, and said that revenue for 2012 rose by eight percent to RMB220.2 billion (US$35 billion), while net profit jumped by a third to RMB15.4 billion (US$2.45 billion).

About 70% of Huawei’s revenue was generated from serving telecommunications operators, including 45 of the world’s top 50.

The 2012 results audited by KPMG will be outlined in the company’s annual report, which will be released in April.

Huawei’s CFO Cathy Meng announced the results and said that the earnings disclosure is part of the company’s ongoing commitment to be more open and transparent with stakeholders. The company has come under criticism over the opaque nature of its ownership, which has fueled the ongoing concerns about the company’s alleged links with the Chinese military.

The company says that it is owned by its employees, but this appears to be a holding company limited to Chinese nationals with very limited shareholder rights as would be normally understood in such a situation.

Looking at the financial results, Meng said that the financial results were based “on strictly controlling G&A expenses and allocate more resources to bolster the front line and ensure continuous improvements on customer delivery and service quality,” said Ms. Meng. “In addition, Huawei continued its ongoing management transformation, raising combined operating efficiency with an integrated financial services program.”

The company invested 29.9 billion (US$4.76 billion) on R&D in 2012, accounting for more than 13% of the year’s revenue.

Huawei’s Carrier Network business group generated sales revenues of RMB160.3 billion. Huawei’s Consumer business group recorded robust sales revenue of CNY 48.4 billion, with sales continuing to grow in developed markets including Europe and Japan. Huawei’s Enterprise business group further developed its portfolio and won contracts, generating sales revenue of RMB11.5 billion.

Two-thirds of Huawei’s overall revenue came from outside China. Among the overseas revenue, the Asia-Pacific region saw revenue of RMB37.4 billion, while Europe, Middle East and Africa recorded RMB77.4 billion and the Americas contributed RMB31.8 billion. The domestic market China recorded RMB73.6 billion.

Ms. Meng concluded with a projection that Huawei expects its overall revenue to grow 10-12% in 2013.

US Patent War: Huawei, Samsung, Nokia, ZTE under Scrutiny

­The U.S. International Trade Commission (US ITC) has decided to carry out an investigation into claims by InterDigital that it wireless patents are being infringed by a number of mobile phone manufacturers.

The companies named in the complaint, which was filed at the start of this year, include Samsung, Nokia, ZTE and Huawei.

InterDigital Communications has made the standard request that the USITC issue an exclusion order and cease and desist orders.

The ITC’s Chief Administrative Law Judge will assign the case to one of the USITC’s six administrative law judges (ALJ), who will schedule and hold an evidentiary hearing.

According to the complaint, the asserted patents generally relate to wireless devices and systems with 3G and/or LTE capabilities.

In particular, the ‘966 and ‘847 patents relate to improvements to the way a mobile device gains access to a cellular CDMA system. The ‘970 patent relates to a technique for communication between user equipment and one or more wireless networks. The ‘151 patent relates to an improvement in the provision of control information to devices operated in a wireless communications environment, such as on an LTE-based wireless communications network. The ‘830 and ‘636 patents relate to improvements to the way a subscriber unit gains access to a cellular CDMA system. Lastly, the ‘406 patent relates to improved automatic power control for a CDMA system.

­Ericsson has reported a net loss of SEK6.3 billion (US$990 million) after it was hit by a write down of SEK8 billion on its ST-Ericsson joint-venture and took a tax charge of SEK500 million.

Revenues for the quarter rose by 5 percent to SEK 66.9 billion ($10.5 billion) as the recently acquired Telcordia operation added sales of SEK 1.1 billion in the quarter, split 50/50 between segments Global Services and Support Solutions.

Ericsson’s CEO, Hans Vestberg commented: “During the year profitability was negatively impacted by operating losses in ST-Ericsson, the ongoing network modernization projects in Europe as well as the underlying business mix,with a higher share of coverage projects than capacity projects.”

For the full year, revenues were flat YoY at SEK 227.8 billion (US$35.8 billion) with growth in Global Services and Support Solutions, while Networks sales declined partly due to the 40% decline of CDMA equipment sales.

­Fitch Ratings says LG Electronics still faces an unfavourable macro-economic environment and intensifying competition in its core businesses, notwithstanding the turnaround in the company’s operating results and financial profile during 2012.

LGE reported an EBIT margin of 2.2% (2011: 0.7%) and EBITDA grew 65%, lowering gross debt to KRW6.5trn at end-2012 from KRW7.4trn at end-2011. LG Display, a key subsidiary, returned to profitability with an EBIT margin of 3.1% in 2012 while almost doubling its EBITDA to KRW5.4trn. As a result, Fitch estimates LGE’s financial leverage to have improved to about 2.5x at end-2012 from 4.4x at end-2011. In its analysis, Fitch proportionally consolidates LGE’s two major operating subsidiaries, LG Display and LG Innotek.

South Korea’s LG Electronics has posted a fourth-quarter loss of KRW468 billion (US$429 million) which reflects a fine related to the cathode-ray tube pricing issues imposed by the European Commission in December. Fourth quarter 2012 consolidated revenues were KRW 13.50 trillion.

The LG Mobile Communications Company reported a 7 percent unit increase quarter-on-quarter in mobile handset shipments to 15.4 million with more than half of the units coming from smartphones.

Samsung Galaxy Camera

Samsung Galaxy S111 Mini

Samsung Electronics, the world’s leading electronic manufacturer has assured its consumers in Nigeria of an exciting 2013 with the introduction of innovative products that will add value to their lives. Among the products that the company’s top executives believe will shape the coming year are the newly introduced Samsung Galaxy S III Mini, which is a compact version of its rave-making flagship phone, Galaxy S III, and the recently unveiled ‘connected camera’, Samsung Galaxy Camera.

Global Mobile Ecosystem

Nokia Growth Partners (NGP), a global venture firm, today announced the launch of its third fund with a further US$250 million long term commitment from Nokia.

Nokia Growth Partners will continue to invest in high potential businesses within the mobile ecosystem in the U.S., Europe and Asia. NGP also announced its expanded presence in China with the appointments of David Tang as managing director and Lu Guo as principal.

“Over the past decade, Nokia has developed an innovative venturing strategy,” said Timo Ihamuotila, Nokia executive vice president & chief financial officer. “Our ongoing commitment to Nokia Growth Partners reinforces Nokia’s support for a vibrant mobile ecosystem and our determination to collaborate with industry innovators to build great mobile products.”

­Nokia has released its fourth-quarter and full year financial reports – and announced that for the fourth-quarter of the year, revenues fell by 20% to EUR8.04 billion (US$10.7 billion), and net profits jumped to EUR255 million (US$340 million) compared to a loss of EUR1.08 billion a year ago.

For the full year, sales were down by 22 percent to EUR30.18 billion, but the net loss came in at EUR3.8 billion.