Samsung Set For Record Sales and Profit! THANKS GSIII

Our favourite Korean consumer electronics behemoth, Samsung, looks set to post another record quarterly profit on the back of its latest offering the 4G Galaxy SIII smartphone and Galaxy Note tab/phone hybrid.

The company is forecasting a $AU7 billion September-quarter profit, off the back of $45 billion in 3 month sales. That profit forecast is slightly ahead of the average forecast by 16 analysts surveyed by Reuters. Samsung shares were up 0.3 per cent in early Korean trade, and are up almost 30 per cent so far this year.

Analysts say provisions for the $US1 billion payout to Apple for patent breaches, as well as increased competition from Apple’s iPhone 5 are likely to see Samsung’s profit tail off a little in the last quarter of the year to somewhere closer to $AU6 billion.

“The biggest risk for Samsung is competitive product line-ups from its rivals such as iPhone 5s,” KB Investment and Securities analyst Byun Han-Joon told Reuters. ”Because handsets drive most of its profits, for Samsung one misstep in handsets could result in losses for the whole group.”

However, most are expecting the profit to bounce back again, setting new records by mid-next year. Samsung’s official results for the September quarter will be released on October 26 :: More on our favourite behemoth »»»»

Samsung Slips Passed Apple on 4G

The war between Apple and Samsung over design and technology patents has cast Samsung as the underling, while Apple is painted as pushing at the edges of innovation. Ahh what a short sighted world we live in, I’d argue with such commentary, going so far as to say that most commentators have things wrong, very wrong.

While Samsung may have a little eggroll on it’s face over claims of plagiarism, the Korean consumer electronics behemoth is definitely no slouch on the technology front, winning the much more important war on patent innovations, particularly when it comes to 4G and it’s application in the mobile device wars.

4G isn’t so much a new technology but  a better use of existing technologies, Samsung has been working on 4G since 2005 and has pretty much perfected it’s use in mobile devices. The higher and more responsive – up to 10 x 3G – bandwidth of 4G is well suited to tablets and smartphones.

In Australia, Telstra has the largest geographic coverage in 4G and has been upgrading mobile cell towers to 4G since 2010, with a consumer roll-out from late in 2011. The benefits of running mobile devices on 4G are real, the simultaneous speed is pretty outstanding :: Read the full article »»»»

UPDATED! Apple vs Samsung vs Apple vs Samsung

Just hours apart, two separate courts – one in the USA and another in South Korea – have handed down absolutely opposing views on the war that is Apple vs Samsung, or should that be Samsung vs Apple?

A South Korean court has handed down a split ruling over Samsungs claim that Apple infringed it’s intellectual property, ruling that some element of the iPhone do indeed use patented Samsung telecommunication technology. The court also ruled however that Samsung had – as Apple has been ranting – copy Apples interface for it’s early Galaxy phones and tabs.

The South Korean court found that both companies shared blame, ordering Samsung to stop selling 10 products including its Galaxy S II phone and banning Apple from selling four different products, including its iPhone 4.

Meanwhile across the pacific in San Jose, California, a US jury has found in favour of Apple in a case that was expected to take years to settle, Apples copycat rant has just landed it a $US1 billion dollar win! However, the US ruling runs much deeper than just a huge compensation payout, BILLIONS of dollars in future sales hang in the balance for both tech-behemoths :: Read the full article »»»»

Google to Open Online Tablet PC Store

Our favourite internet behemoth – Google – is planning to open an online store to sell tablet PCs directly to consumers, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal. Google’s online store would offer tablets made by Samsung and Asus based on Google’s Android software, according to the WSJ report.

Google briefly sold a specially-designed Android smartphone – Nexus One – directly to consumers in 2010, but closed the store after four months saying it had not lived up to expectations. Google now relies on retail and carrier partners to sell Android smartphones made by a variety of handset makers and Android has become the world’s No.1 smartphone operating system, ahead of iPhone-maker Apple Inc. Read the full article »»»»

Samsung Phablet: The Galaxy Note Set to Sell 10 Million Units in 2012

Reuters Jeremy Wagstaff describes it as “a piece of toast” it’s wearing labels like “a device for elephants and a throwback to the good old brick of the 1980s” Snickering aside, Samsung has sold 5 million Galaxy Note phone/tablets and plans on selling 10 million units this year.

Galaxy Note is much more than a freak hit! Tech-consumer, design experts and gadget analysts reckon the surprise success of the “phablet” marks a much deeper shift in the fast-paced world of mobile devices. Launched in late November 2011, the Samsung Galaxy Note is a standout product. The most obvious thing about the Note is its size. Its 5.3 inch screen is almost as wide as the iPhone’s screen is long.

…then there’s the stylus. Apple’s co-founder, the late great Steve Jobs famously ridiculed the idea of using a pen to interact with a screen, Samsung however has embraced pointy ended accoutrements, they’ve partnered with Japan’s übercool Wacom, the market leader in digital pen technology, to come up with something less clunky than, well chunky!? Granted the stylus or s-pen is still kind of chunkyish, try writing or sketching with your finger!! Read the full article »»»»

SMARTEN UP: HTC One Family 2012

HTC’s new series of flagship smartphones in the form of HTC One X, S and V have overshadowed the competition in their launch at Mobile World Congress 2012. The quad-core smartphone from HTC apparently has almost everything to be the most desirable device on the smartphone market today? Among the three models showcased during the event, HTC One X is absolutely the top model of HTC’s trio of One series. HTC has packed an absolute monster in HTC One X delivering extraordinary performance. But can HTC take on the stalwart behemoths of mobile?

HTC launched the One Series in the hope of taking the fight to Samsung and Apple, the One Series, with it’s überfast graphic chips and advanced music and photography functions is hoped to dent a stitched up market. It’s a fight that HTC has been losing, sales slumped and investors dumped shares late in 2011 on concerns the firm had lost its edge.

The Taiwanese mobile tech maker is confident it’s new models – coming to market in April 2012 –  will turn around the ailing fortunes of the world’s No.5 smartphone maker, and help to boost its annual sales volumes above last year’s level. ”We are confident this year will be … a much better year,” Florian Seiche, chief of HTC’s European operations said, referring to the number of smartphones sold. ”Even with the Q1 not being the ideal fast start right out of the gate in January, which of course we would have preferred, even with that we are very confident,” Seiche told Reuters in an interview on sidelines of the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. Surprisingly the Ice Cream Sandwich operating system has jelled well with the phone and improvements to HTC Sense has made it a much cleaner, easier to use experience than the previous version. Read the full article »»»»