Hasta La Gadget!

Samsung set the bar a little lower than the final mark when it told investors its expectations earlier this month, posting $7.4 billion in operating profits for Q3 and $5.97 billion in net income. This handily bests the $7.28 billion profit it told investors to expect, nearly doubling what it made over the same period last year. Why the jump? You can blame the Galaxy S III, which increased shipments “significantly due to global expansion,” the company says. Indeed, smartphone sales are credited to Sammy’s quarter over quarter leap in revenue. Consumer electronics sales also boosted profits a fair deal, achieving “industry leading profitability” in the TV market, according to Samsung, who cited growth both in the consumer space, and in the sales of OLED panels for televisions, tablets and high-end smartphones.

The company’s semiconductor sales, on the other hand, dropped by eight-percent in the face of weak PC demands. Samsung expects demand for PC DRAM and other high value-added chip products to remain weak, but optimistically notes that the sector is still profitable, and may pick up as new devices come to market. Got the basics? Great — dive into the details and charts at the source link below, or read on for Sammy’s official Q3 press release.

Continue reading Samsung makes $7.4 billion in Q3 profits, surpasses expectations

Filed under: Cellphones, Misc, Home Entertainment, Samsung

Samsung makes $7.4 billion in Q3 profits, surpasses expectations originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 25 Oct 2012 20:02:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If you’re in the market for a new Android 4.0 ICS tablet, be sure to check out this new V801 Dual Core from Onda. Priced at just $139.99, the device offers a 8.0-inch 1024 x 768 capacitive multi-touch display, a 1.5GHz Amlogic AML8726-MX Cortex-A9 dual-core processor, a Mali-400 GPU, a 1GB DDR3 RAM, an 8GB of flash storage, a microSD card slot (up to 32GB), a 0.3MP front-facing camera, 1080p Full HD video playback support, 3G external support, WiFi and runs on Android 4.0 ICS OS. [Product Page]

ECS has come out with a new ATX motherboard, the A970M-A Deluxe. Based on AMD 970 + SB950 chipset, the board supports for AM3+ & AM3 processors, and features four DDR3 DIMM memory slots (up to 32GB), two PCI-Express x16 Gen2.0 slots, two PCI-Express x1 slots and two PCI slots. Connectivity-wise, it has five SATA 6.0 Gbps, one eSATA 6.0 Gbps, two USB 3.0, eight USB 2.0 and Gigabit Ethernet. Unfortunately, there’s no word on pricing yet. [ECS]

With Apple just ending its conference call for its quarterly results, Strategy Analytics has published its numbers on global tablet sales for the quarter. Apple and the iPad remain in the lead with 57% of all shipments, but just as Apple missed sales expectations on the iPad, it also is losing some market share in the tablet market overall, with Android picking up the slack to reach an all-time high of 41% of shipments on overall shipments of just under 25 million units.

Strategy Analytics says that shipments were up by 43% on the same quarter a year ago, when they totaled 17.2 million. That’s not actually as impressive as it might sound. The year before, they were up by 289% compared to 2011 annually in Q2 2011. In fact, this is the slowest growth rate Strategy Analytics has seen; it started marking numbers in Q2 2010.

Although Google’s Nexus 7 and Amazon’s forked-Android tablets have been creating a lot of buzz, Strategy Analytics notes that anticipation for a new iPad model — which in fact was only announced this week — cooled buying somewhat. The other major factor is lingering economic uncertainty, which is impacting consumer spending for more than just tablets.

“Demand for tablets slowed due to ongoing economic uncertainty and consumers holding off purchases in anticipation of multiple new models, like the iPad Mini, during the upcoming Q4 holiday season,” writes Peter King, Director at Strategy Analytics.

Strategy Analytics calls Apple’s 14 million iPad shipment for the quarter “disappointing”. It’s also a clear decline of 7% on the same quarter a year ago. And because the tablet market, even more than the smartphone market, has been a two-horse race when it comes to platforms, Apple’s loss has been Android’s gain. “Apple’s slowdown allowed the Android community to make gains,” King writes.

Android’s 41% this quarter (10.2 million units shipped, double the number last year) is a big leap from the 29% share it had a year ago.

And as it was the case in the earlier days of smartphones, there was no single vendor on Android that is coming close to Apple in terms of volumes, points out Neil Mawston, executive director at Strategy Analytics.

The jury still out on whether Samsung will be able to repeat its eventual domination in tablets as it has in smartphones, especially since Amazon is now shipping its tablets globally, and Asus is behind the Nexus 7.

That could all change in the next couple of quarters, with the introduction of Windows 8 — although as it does in smartphones, Microsoft has a long way to go. SA notes that in this last quarter, shipments of Microsoft-powered tablets accounted for only 2% of the global total.

Strategy Analytics notes that these numbers are for tablets-only and not e-book readers.

Logitech has added another wireless keyboard to its range namely the Wireless Touch Keyboard k400r. Powered by 2x AA batteries, the keyboard features a 2.4GHz radio frequency (works up to 10 meters), a built-in 3.5-inch multi-touch touchpad, left/right mouse buttons, 84 keys and a unifying receiver. The Logitech Wireless Touch Keyboard k400r will start shipping from November 2nd for 4,980 Yen / $62 (Windows XP/Vista/7/8/RT OS support). [Product Page]