Apple drop out of top five APEJ Smartphone race

Underperforming Apple has suffered another major setback as it has dropped out of the top five of the Smartphone race in the APEJ (Asia Pacific Excluding Japan) region due to the strong performance of Chinese vendors, according to a report published by IDC.

The study suggested that the Chinese vendors are tightening their grip over the APEJ market owing to their considerably inexpensive handsets.

IDC predicated that the Smartphone shipments in the region will nearly double up by 2017 but the Californian manufacturer won’t have a significant share in that.

The analyst firm said that the Smartphone sales in APEJ in the second quarter of 2013 were dominated by Samsung that shipped 28 million units to secure 24% market share. Overall, 119 million units were shipped in the APEJ in Q2 2013. The Smartphones sales outnumbered featured phones for the first time in the period between April-June to grab 53% share of the overall mobile industry.

Apple’s fall in the APEJ region, where it single-handedly ruled for several years, did not appear as a big surprise as it has been consistently struggling against Samsung in almost all other big markets. A research firm, Strategy Analytics (SA), last month reported that the overall market share of the California-based company hit a three-year low during Q2 2013 as it recorded only 31.2 million shipments compared to Samsung’s 76 million Smartphone units.

In APEJ all leading Chinese players such as Coolpad, Lenovo, ZTE and Huawei are responsible for Apple’s downfall, IDC said.

IDC in its study reported that the people in APEJ are gradually moving towards the homegrown brands as they accounted for 38% of Q2 2013 volumes, up from 20% in the second quarter of 2012, and 7% in the same period of 2011. The examples of these rising brands IDC believes are i-Mobile and GNET (Thailand), Lava and Micromax (India), K-Touch and Xiaomi (China), Q-Smart (Vietnam), i-Mobile and GNET (Thailand) and  S-CSL (Malaysia).

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Samsung unveils Exynos 5 Octa chip with ARM technology

Samsung has launched its latest top-of-the-range smart device processor – Exynos 5 Octa – which it says has 20% more power than its predecessor.

The South Korean electronics giants claimed that the four 1.3GHz Cortex-A7 cores and as many 1.8GHz ARM Cortex-A15 processors in the chip allow it to boast 20% more CPU processing power than in the earlier Exynos 5410, used to power some versions of its Galaxy S4 handset.

The firm said that the mobile chip is capable of almost doubling the graphical prowess of the devices. The chip uses a new image-compression solution to reduce the power consumption.

The extremely powerful chip offers “desktop-quality” video editing and supporst 1080p high-definition video playback at 60 frames per second, it said.

Exynos 5 is the first production-ready chip to feature ARM Holding’s latest GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) architecture. The potential of GPUs has not remained limited to video games graphics and they are widely being used to handle the general computing tasks today.

Though GPUs are relevantly slower at performing single calculations than CPUs, their advantage is that they can carry numerous calculations at the same time. Specifically they are capable of handling the highly “parallelizable” tasks such as running augmented reality apps and applying filters to photographs effectively.

Using GPU isn’t very popular among the smart device manufacturers and the vast majority of smart devices use ARM-designed CPUs. The Cambridge-based ARM accounted for about 20% of the overall Android phone sales last year.

The newly-developed chip will replace Exynos Samsung’s current octa-core processor as the firm’s flagship chip. Octa-core processor was used in Samsung’s flagship device Galaxy S4 but despite of its remarkable success, Exynos chips failed to attract the attention of most of tech firms, who continue to favor Qualcomm Snapdragon and Nvidia Tegra chipsets.

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Smartphone shipments in India grow 167% between Jan-Apr

Smartphone shipments to India grew by 167% in January-April from the same period a year earlier, the latest report released by research firm Cyber Media Research (CMR) has stated.

According to the report, nearly 10 million Smartphones were shipped within the South Asian country during the first three months of 2013.

South Korea-based Samsung retained its top-spot in Smartphone shipments by selling some 4 million units during January-April and making up about 40% of the total market share.

The homegrown companies Micromax and Bangalore-based Karbonn, who operate within the Rs 7000 to Rs 16,000 price point, occupied the second and third places respectively at 19.3% and 8.6% market shares respectively. This was the first time in the country’s history that two major domestic Smartphone manufacturers came in among the top three positions.

Cyber Media said the skyrocketing growth rate of the Smartphone is an indication that an increasing number of mobile phone users are migrating from feature phones to the entry-level Smartphones which offer internet browsing and content downloading. The feature phones witnessed a growth rate of just 2.4% during the three month period.

Nokia retained the leadership in the overall mobile shipment in the country, making up 20.3% of the market share, while rival Samsung pursed closely behind with 14.2%, up from 5% a couple of years ago.

The total number of mobile handset shipments in India for the first four months of 2013 propelled to 4 million units, up 11% compared with the same period last year.

The Smartphone users in India have now reached 108 million (calculated based of 850 million mobile phones users in the country), the report said.

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Samsung launched mid-range Android Galaxy Core Smartphone in India

Samsung has officially released its mid-range Android Smartphone – Galaxy Core – in India. The flagship device will be available for sale at a best buy price of Rs. 15,690 (€ 200) from July 1.

Packed with strong hardware features like 4.3-inch screen with a 480×800 resolution, 1GB of RAM, a 1.2GHz dual-core processor, 5-megapixel rear camera and a VGA front facing camera, the new flagship device runs on Google’s Android 4.1 Jelly Bean operating system. The 8GB of internal storage of the phone can be expanded through a microSD card. The phone supports up to 480p video playback.

The connectivity options of the device include Bluetooth 3.0, Wi-Fi, and Global Positioning System (GPS).  The phone comes with an 1800mAh battery and the FM Radio functionality. Thanks to the smart dual-SIM functionality of the device, the users can receive calls on one SIM card even when they are operating the second SIM.

The device also features the high-end Smart Stay function that uses the advanced facial recognition to identify when a user is looking away from the phone and when the user is, it dims the screen and powers down the other active components to save the battery life. The Smart Alert feature notifies the user about the messages and missed calls instantly when the phone is picked up.

Galaxy Core is currently available in white and black color will soon offer additional colors.

As a special introductory offer, the company is offering a Digital Wallet of Rs. 5000 valid for 90 days applicable on Games, with the device. The user can subscribe the service by sending SMS ‘MyOffer’ to 56886, getting a link for my Services and launching the application.

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Samsung to launch faster Galaxy S4 Smartphone

Electronics giant Samsung has announced its plans to launch an enhanced version of its epic Galaxy S4 Smartphone that will transmit data almost twice of the normal speed.

The CEO of a South Korean company J.K. Shin, while speaking to Reuters on Monday, said the phone will be available for sale in South Korea by the end of this month.

The new S4 will be a bit more expensive than the current one, said Shin, adding the company is in talks with a number of carriers to introduce the device into the other countries.

The as-yet unnamed Smartphone will use LTE-Advanced 4G technology, an upgrade from conventional 4G called Long Term Evolution or LTE, to offer speed of up to two times that of the existing LTE device. The Qualcomm chips used in the latest flagship device will be compatible to the upgraded networks.

Thanks to LTE-Advanced, a movie which currently takes three minutes to download, will take a little more than one minute, said Samsung.

Samsung released a string of variations of smash-hit Galaxy S4 including Galaxy S4 Active and Galaxy S4 Zoom following its global launch in April this year.

The original S4, an Android-powered device with the 5-inch full HD Super AMOLED display and a dual camera function, has surpassed all of its predecessors to reach 10 million sales in less than a month, which made it the most successful handset ever launched by the company.

Samsung, who emerged as the leader of the Smartphone market last year by selling over 400 million phones, will unveil its new Galaxy devices at an event in London on June 20.

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Samsung sell over 10m Galaxy S4 Smartphones in first month

Samsung Electronics Galaxy S4 marked its introduction into the global market with a remarkable note as the company says they have sold more than 10 million units in less than a month.

In just the first month, sales of the new Smartphone from Samsung, has surpassed all of its predecessors.

The Galaxy S III had taken 50 days to reach the 10 million mark following its release last year. Galaxy S II reached the mark in five months while Galaxy S accomplished the milestone in seven months.

Galaxy S4 is currently available in 115 countries and will be introduced to 155 countries in cooperation with 327 partners, said Korean electronics giants, who emerged as the leader of the Smartphone market last year by selling over 400 million phones.

The Research firm IDC said that the massive success of Galaxy S4 will help Samsung to sustain its position in the Smartphone market.

Android-powered Galaxy S4 has a 5-inch full HD Super AMOLED display and a dual camera function which allows the user to use both front and rear cameras simultaneously.

Currently, S4 is only available in white and black color, or as Samsung likes to say White Mist and Black Forest. But soon it will be available in more colors including Brown Autumn, Blue Arctic, Purple Mirage and Red Aurora, announced Samsung.

Apple’s iPhone 5 — the main rival of Galaxy S4 — sold about five million devices in the opening weekend of its launch, but the amount disappointed investors, who were expecting much higher sales. The market analysts had predicted nearly eight-million sales for Apple iPhone 5 on the first weekend.

For more information on the world of mobile apps head to MWC 2014 in Barcelona, scheduled to be held from 24-27 February, 2014. Contact EAS for best in high quality accommodation, marketing and event management.  For further information, click here.