Hasta La Gadget!

Stephen Elop’s first quarterly results as Nokia CEO have just come out, and while the company’s still growing, others seem to be speeding ahead of it. Nokia’s reporting its converged mobile devices (smartphones, to you and us) reached volumes of 28.3 million during Q4 2010, which is a neat bump from 20.8 million at the same time last year and 26.5 million in the previous quarter. However, in the context of the broader smartphone marketplace, that figure now amounts to only a 31 percent share, according to Nokia’s own estimates, which is a major dip relative to its 40 percent slice in Q4 2009 and 38 percent in Q3 2010. Elop’s perspective on the matter is as follows:

“In Q4 we delivered solid performance across all three of our businesses, and generated outstanding cash flow. Additionally, growth trends in the mobile devices market continue to be encouraging. Yet, Nokia faces some significant challenges in our competitiveness and our execution. In short, the industry changed, and now it’s time for Nokia to change faster.”

When your operating profit goes from €1.47b (€950m net) a year ago to €1.09b (€745m net) this year, the response should indeed be to change and to change fast. Nokia’s still not disclosing sales figures of the N8, but given that this was the first full reporting period where the company’s Symbian flagship has been on sale, it doesn’t seem to have had quite the impact Espoo will have hoped for. Wanna try again with the N9?

Update: Nokia’s investor relations call has borne a few more interesting tidbits from the new man in charge. Elop is quoted as saying Nokia must “build or join a competitive ecosystem,” with the latter verb in that sentence sure to renew discussions of why the Finnish company should / shouldn’t switch to an OS such as Android or Windows Phone 7. We still think that’ll be the very last resort over in Espoo, but Elop apparently thinks Nokia has the brand recognition and operator relationships to make such a move if it wanted to. Which of course it doesn’t. Or does it? Let’s wait for Nokia’s Strategy and Financial Briefing in London on February 11th — Mr. Elop’s expected to be a lot more specific about his company’s roadmap going forward on that day.

Nokia smartphone market share shrinks to 31 percent, operating profit takes a beating too originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 27 Jan 2011 06:28:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  Nokia  | Email this | Comments

Canalys is a pretty well respected global stat-keeper and now it seems to be relying on that reputation to push through a pretty controversial message: tablets, such as Apple’s iPad and Samsung’s Galaxy Tab, are PCs. “Accept new market realities,” urges its polemic press release, before laying out global quarterly shipments that peg Apple as the world’s third most prolific PC vendor (without tablets, Apple doens’t even break the top 5 according to IDC and Gartner). The company that was laboring with a mere 3.8 percent market share in 2009 has shot up to 10.8 with the aid of its 10-inch touchscreen device. Canalys’ stance will inevitably be controversial, but then it’s kind of hard to deny that machines like Samsung’s Sliding PC and ASUS’ Eee Slate make the distinguishing lines between tablets and netbooks look like a particularly technical form of bokeh.

Continue reading Apple’s ‘PC’ shipments grow by 241 percent in iPad-inclusive Canalys stats

Apple’s ‘PC’ shipments grow by 241 percent in iPad-inclusive Canalys stats originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 26 Jan 2011 05:20:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments

HTC’s fourth quarter of 2010 has gone exactly the same way as the first three: the company reports a 160 percent rise in profits (to $500 million) year-on-year and a 31 percent increase relative to Q3 2010. Total revenue for the final three months of last year rounded the $3.5 billion mark, having been a trifling $1.4 billion the year before. Company CEO Peter Chou sees no end to this dramatic growth, forecasting it’ll remain in double digits through 2011, and he plans to match up to it by doubling monthly production capacity at HTC’s Shanghai plant to two million handsets. If necessary, he says he’ll even outsource manufacturing. Even more intriguing, however, is Chou’s admission that HTC is strategizing an entry into the tablet realm: “It’s a new market with many competitors, and we don’t want to rush into it.” Hardly a surprise, but good to have it from the horse’s mouth.

HTC profits leaping and bounding up, Peter Chou promises tablet and production expansion originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 21 Jan 2011 15:09:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  AP (Yahoo! News)  | Email this | Comments

Hold on to your seats, stat lovers, 2010 is about to hit you with the full force of its quantifiable web exploits. Web monitoring site Pingdom reports that last year we all sent 107 trillion emails to our loved and unloved ones, which breaks down to 294 billion per day, though only 10.9 percent of those weren’t spam. There are now 1.88 billion email users around the globe and when they’re not too busy communicating, they’re surfing one of the net’s 255 million total sites (21.4 million of which are said to have arrived in 2010). The compendium of numerical knowledge wraps up with a look at social media, where Twitter still has a way to go before catching up with email — there were only 25 billion tweets last year — but continues to grow like mad, having added 100 million users during the year. Facebook added even more, 250 million users, and its thriving population is sharing 30 billion pieces of content (links, pics, video, etc.) each and every month. This isn’t madness, this is the internet.

World sends 107 trillion emails in 2010, most of them about enlarging your stock portfolio originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 15 Jan 2011 11:28:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink AFP (PhysOrg)  |  Pingdom  | Email this | Comments

Welcome to the Engadget Holiday Gift Guide! The team here is well aware of the heartbreaking difficulties of the seasonal shopping experience, which is why we’ve prepared a whole Gift Guide hub of product guides for this holiday season. Today, however, we’re indulging in an exploration of the gadget world’s worst offenders of the year.

We’re only a couple of days away from Christmas, you’ve taken care of every one of your loved ones’ gadget needs with military precision, and now you can rightly put your feet up and relax. But while you’re unwinding, why not spare a thought for those you keep even closer than your friends: your enemies? What if they need some last-minute advice on outfitting their tech boudoir? You’ll want to be prepared with the year’s worst possible gadgets, so as to inflict maximum damage with your “friendly” tips. Follow the break to be enlightened, you Machiavellian schemer, you.

Continue reading Engadget’s Holiday Anti-Gift Guide: Stuff you don’t want

Engadget’s Holiday Anti-Gift Guide: Stuff you don’t want originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 22 Dec 2010 15:15:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments