There is no reason why Samsung would want BlackBerry. BlackBerry has had a wild couple of days as rumours surfaced that Samsung was willing to buy BlackBerry for around $7.5bn or $14.4 per share. This is what was responsible for a 29% rally in the share price only to be almost all given back today...
Duck in danger becomes chicken and egg. Samsung has at last launched a handset based on Tizen’s software. The device is called the Z1, has been launched in India and will cost just over $90. It was 5 months ago that Samsung delayed its handset yet again citing the need to “enhance the ecosystem” (see...
Lenovo offers far more value than Xiaomi. Following the acquisition of Motorola Mobility from Google, it looks very much as if Lenovo has realised that to get a thriving handset business one needs vast investment. Lenovo has announced that is considering a public listing of its mobile device business at some point in the future....
Office 365 is reaping the rewards of change. Microsoft’s change in attitude towards Office software is starting to reap real rewards. Only 12 months ago, in order to use Office a user had to have Microsoft Windows as its operating system. On iOS and Android, third party applications were available where a user could read...
Android Lollipop is still nowhere to be found. Despite being launched over 7 months ago, with availability for the last 4 months, Lollipop devices are still not appearing in the wild. Google’s own developer website revealed that in early January Kit-Kat (4.4) and Jelly Bean (4.3) were present on 85% of all devices visiting Google...
Huawei now has the eggs but can it bring home the bacon? One of the most interesting developments at CES was the emergence of understanding by Huawei that it needs an ecosystem to make money. Huawei and Stanford University spin-out, Omlet, have announced a collaboration to create an open social ecosystem on Huawei devices. Omlet...
Some relief as handsets did not worsen materially. Samsung reported Q4 14A preliminary results that beat expectations but were not enough to lead me to believe that the worst is over. Q4 14E revenues / EBIT were KRW51tn-KRW53tn / KRW5.0-KRW5.4tn compared to consensus at KRW52.2tn / KRW4.8tn. RFM was more conservative on the revenue outlook...
Costs in line with sales allow HTC to survive HTC reported its first YoY growth in 4 years but the figures show that it is still only just hanging on by the skin of its teeth. Q4 14A Revenues / EBIT were NT$47.9bn / NT$180m (US$1,500m / US$6m) compared to consensus at NT$45bn / LOSS...
Samsung Smart Home will live or die in software. Samsung headlined day 1 at CES but its press conference was pretty subdued with a distinct lack of new and exciting ideas. Instead what was presented was an evolution of its current line-up of Televisions now to be using phosphor-based LED dots (Quantum Dots) as backlights....
Richard is founder, owner of research company, Radio Free Mobile. He has 16 years of experience working in sell side equity research. During his 11 year tenure at Nomura Securities, he focused on the equity coverage of the Global Technology sector.
Xiaomi – Circumnavigation.
Xiaomi must have exclusive services to succeed. Xiaomi is following in the footsteps of its rivals in building an ecosystem via purchasing small shareholdings but this is not enough. Most recently, Xiaomi has purchased 2.98% of productivity software company Kingsoft for $68m. This is in addition to a $205m purchase of a 1.98% stake in...