about-electronics.eu

BBC: Nokia has reported a loss for the July to September quarter after sales sank by almost a fifth.

The company made a net loss of 913m euros ($1.4bn; £838m) for the period, compared with a profit of 1.1bn euros for the same quarter last year. This included a write-off of 908m euros reflecting the fall in value of its Nokia Siemens Networks division.

Nokia has suffered as mobile phone makers like Apple have developed more popular smartphones, analysts say. Net sales fell to 9.8bn euros compared with 12.2bn euros a year ago.

Chief executive Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo said that sales “were constrained by component shortages”.

Despite the fall in sales, Nokia said it had maintained its overall global market share in mobile devices at 38%. It said it had increased market share in Europe, Latin America, the Middle East and Africa.

“This was offset by lower market share in Greater China, Asia-Pacific and North America,” Nokia said.

The company estimates that global mobile phone sales in 2009 will fall by 7% from 2008. “Overall, I have to say it is kind of a mixed bag with a negative bias. I think that the big picture doesn’t look that well,” said Thomas Langer at West LB.

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Pioneer: Start planning your route before stepping into your car with Pioneer’s free NavGate FEEDS iPhone application.

Use the Google Maps interface of your iPhone to find your destination and transfer it via Bluetooth for easy, turn-by-turn directions on Pioneer’s AVIC-F10BT or AVIC-F310BT NavGate systems.

Using the iPhone app, you can:

• Run a point of interest (POI) search on your iPhone using Google Maps, drop a pin at the location and then send it to your NavGate for automatic routing
• Take a photo of your current position (or even receive a photo from a friend), create geo-tag data and send it to your NavGate for automatic routing.

Any POI you send from your iPhone will be saved on the NavGate as a contact.

NavGate Feeds for iPhone is compatible with the AVIC-F10BT and AVIC-F310BT.

For more:

• Download the free iPhone application from iTunes
• Find out more about NavGate Feeds

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BBC: Japanese electronics groups Hitachi, Casio and NEC have announced plans to merge their mobile phone operations to cut costs and become more competitive.

The three companies, which are relatively small players in the mobile phone market, will share both technology and resources.

By next year, NEC will own 71% of the new business, with Casio owning 20% and Hitachi holding a 9% stake. The merger will create Japan’s second largest mobile phone maker.

Analysts say there could be further consolidation in the competitive Japanese mobile phone market.

Record loss Casio and Hitachi created a joint mobile phone venture in 2004. It makes handsets for Japanese mobile carriers KDDI Corp and Softbank Mobile Corp, while NEC makes phones for NTT Docomo and Softbank.

All three companies have suffered badly during the downturn. NEC is in the process of cutting 20,000 jobs worldwide, while Hitachi recently announced that it expects to make a loss of 270bn yen ($3bn; £1.8bn) this year. The firm made a loss of 787.3bn yen last year – a record for a Japanese manufacturer.

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NaviGadget: One of the biggest digital map makers, Navteq, is going to be using data from Nokia to enhance its traffic reports.

Nokia, which purchase Navteq last July gathers data anonymously from millions of Nokia phones to enhance its map and traffic data. The data will expand Navteq’s real-time traffic service to include secondary roads in addition to the primary roads it covers now.

It will also improve arrival times and route planning on navigation devices using Navteq maps. TeleAtlas, Navteq’s main map competitor already does something very similar by collecting data from TomTom GPS devices.

In addition Google just started with the crowdsourcing of traffic data, now providing traffic information on side streets as well as freeways.

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NaviGadget: There’s a new video out about the TomTom car kit that we’ve been waiting for.

As you already know the car kit is an optional hardware add-on to the TomTom GPS navigation app for the iPhone – however it should enhance your GPS navigation experience by a lot.

First off the car kit brings in its own GPS receiver – a GPS receiver better than the one in the iPhone. Secondly it includes a microphone and a speaker for hands free calling.

Third, it lets you charge your phone as you’re driving, and fourth – it lets you stream your music to your car stereo.

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Engadget: It’s out with the old, in with the new over at Sony Ericsson as it tries to revamp both its image and its lineup in the face of stiff competition, weak financials, and an unfocused platform strategy.

President Hideki Komiyama intends to retire at the end of the year, and stepping up to fill his shoes will be the current head of Ericsson Silicon Valley, Bert Nordberg.

To get the dude up to speed, he’ll become co-president as of September 1 and take over sole control of the operation on October 15. Speaking of October 15, that’s also the date that Sir Howard Stringer — yes, the one and only chairman and CEO of Sony — will take over the chairmanship of Sony Ericsson’s executive board from outgoing Ericsson CEO Carl-Henric Svanberg.

Whether this signals a power shift in the joint venture from Ericsson to Sony is unclear, but they’ve specifically mentioned in a press conference today to announce the moves that they need to “address [their] smartphone weakness” — and yes, we’d agree. Do exactly that, Bert Nordberg.

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TWICE: After many delays, the Garmin GPS/smartphone, or Nuvifone, is on track to launch in the U.S. in the fourth quarter and will be accompanied by an advertising campaign, said Garmin.

On a conference call today with analysts, Garmin reiterated that its Nuvifone, originally due in the third quarter 2008, is in final testing with U.S. carriers.

Garmin would not reveal how many carriers are testing the product. The previously announced Garmin-Asus Nuvifone G60 (based on a closed, Linux-based system) is already starting to ship in Asia, and the M20 (based on Windows Mobile 6.1) will ship in August in Asia, said Garmin.

On a global basis, the Nuvifone should contribute $100 million to $200 million to Garmin revenues this year, said the company. In reporting on its second-quarter earnings, Garmin told analysts it expects its unit sales in personal navigation devices (PNDs) for the full 2009 to be flat with 2008, although average selling prices will be down by 16 percent.

PND unit sales for the quarter grew in the U.S. and Asia but were offset by a 20 percent decline in unit sales in Europe, said the company.

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Electronista: The number of 3G phone users in the US should overtake those in Japan for the first time in the space of two years, a new TeleGeography study says.

Although Japan has had the largest 3G base since becoming the first country to get the speed in 2001, it’s expected that the sheer number of users in the US will eclipse Japan’s by 2011.

The delay comes partly because of very quick adoption in the Asian country, where about 85 percent of all its users have 3G hardware. The anticipated US gain will come partly through population, as the US has more than twice Japan’s population and therefore has an edge in reaching a market that’s still largely unsaturated. Most Japanese carriers, such as NTT DoCoMo or KDDI, are seeing a less than 4 percent growth rate.

However, the increasing popularity of the iPhone and other smartphones are contributing to a surge in demand for 3G in the US, whose phone preferences had normally skewed towards simple phone-first designs like the Motorola RAZR that didn’t need 3G. Dominance in 3G customers isn’t expected to last for long, however, as the expansion of 3G in China is poised to give the even larger country the edge by 2013.

Faster networks already exist in China through carriers like China Unicom but should get a larger boost through the introduction of the government-backed TD-SCDMA standard on China Mobile, which with over 415 million customers eclipses the entire US population. It’s unclear if specific devices will have any impact on the Chinese market.

Although Apple is nearing an iPhone 3GS deal with China Unicom that may be finalized soon, smartphones may get a bigger help in China through the government’s support for the Android-based Open Mobile System and its expected use with phones from HTC, Lenovo and others on at least China Mobile’s network.

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Apple: Apple has announced financial results for its fiscal 2009 third quarter ended June 27, 2009. The Company posted revenue of $8.34 billion and a net quarterly profit of $1.23 billion.

Gross margin was 36.3 percent, up from 34.8 percent in the year-ago quarter.

International sales accounted for 44 percent of the quarter’s revenue.

Apple sold 2.6 million Macintosh computers during the quarter, representing a four percent unit increase over the year-ago quarter. The Company sold 10.2 million iPods during the quarter, representing a seven percent unit decline from the year-ago quarter.

Quarterly iPhones sold were 5.2 million, representing 626 percent unit growth over the year-ago quarter.

“We’re making our most innovative products ever and our customers are responding,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “We’re thrilled to have sold over 5.2 million iPhones during the quarter and users have downloaded more than 1.5 billion applications from our App Store in its first year.”

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The Washington Post: The world’s top cell phone maker Nokia cut its profitability and market share forecasts due to tough competition, sending its shares sharply lower on Thursday.

Nokia, whose rivals include Apple , Samsung and RIM , now sees second-half underlying operating profit margin at its key phone unit at the first-half level of 11.3 percent, compared with analysts’ consensus expectations of 17.4 percent in a Reuters poll.

Nokia also cut its forecast for 2009 market share at its phone business, seeing it now on a par with last year, compared with an earlier forecast for a rise.

Analysts said a sharp fall in Nokia’s average sales price, and the cut in outlook implies increasingly aggressive pricing.

“Handset makers are being really, really aggressive,” said Gartner analyst Carolina Milanesi. “A lot of companies cannot really afford it: Sony Ericsson, Motorola, to some extent LG.”

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Electronista: In some good news for local cell phone manufacturers, the European Union’s plan to introduce new taxes for handsets sold throughout Europe has been scrapped, says a Wednesday report.

The new taxes would have raised prices customers pay for new phones and most likely lowered the sales numbers of an already falling market. The decision came from Sweden, which hosts the rotating presidency of the EU, and will mean the Customs Code Committee will continue to treat cell phones as duty-free items.

The proposed tax plan, presented in December, had smartphones reclassified as “multi-functional devices,” which would add a 14 percent tax to handsets with TV receivers and 3.7 percent to those equipped with GPS capabilities. As expected, phone manufactures opposed the tax, with local phone giants Nokia and Sony-Ericsson especially vocal on the issue.

Companies like Apple would have been affected as all iPhone 3G and 3GS phones have built-in GPS receivers. The taxes and resulting drop in sales would supposedly put workers at risk in Europe, as many handset makers operate manufacturing plants in countries that include Britain, Finland, Hungary, Romania and Estonia.

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TechDigest: It will be mini-USB and should go some way to reducing the absurd number of chargers that end up in landfills every year. The 10 companies who control 90% of the European phone market have signed a deal which will see mobile phone chargers become universal by 2010.

The group, which includes Apple, Sony Ericsson, Nokia, Samsung, LG and NEC, has agreed to a harmonisation that will see mobile phones charged by mini-USB adaptors.

The move is not only good for people who have drawers full of various charges – it’s great news for the environment too. Every year there are 185million phones sold in the EU and therefore around 185million chargers as well. The majority of these chargers become useless after upgrading to a new phone – even, in some cases, if users stay with the same brand.

The idea is that, after an unspecified time following the release of the universal charger, chargers and phones will be sold separately. The move only applies to smartphones and is only for the EU at the moment. Hopefully, the rest of the world will follow suit soon after. They should do – not only would it save them money because they won’t have to manufacture and package chargers for every phone they sell (I can’t see them reducing the price of phones just because it ships without a charger) it will also be good for their green-credentials.

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