by admin | May 25, 2021 | Branding, Business, Markets, Medium Enterprise, Technology
San Francisco : A revised iPod touch and USB-C cables for iPhones could be on Apple’s list of offerings in 2019, according to a report from Macotakara — a Japan-based supply chain blog.
“Details on what changes a new iPod touch might feature are unclear at this point, but it is long overdue for an update. The report also goes on to say that the 2019 iPhones ‘might’ make the switch to USB-C,” 9To5Mac quoted the report as saying on Monday.
The iPod touch is largely targeted at youngsters who are not ready for a smartphone and its 6th generation was released in 2015 which Apple continues to sell with 32GB of storage for $199.
“Further, Macotakara says that those who are working on the iPhone’s USB-C transition indicate it has not yet reached the reference design stage as yet,” the report said.
The iPhone-maker did bring the USB-C cables along with the 2018 iPad Pros.
“Even though Macotakara has a decent track record, but like most supply chain sources, it can struggle with details such as timing,” the report added.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Branding, Business, Markets, Technology
Representational image
San Francisco : Taking its legal battle with chip making giant Qualcomm to the next level, Apple has claimed it wanted to use Qualcomm modems in its 2018’s iPhone models but the chip maker refused to sell them after being sued by the iPhone maker over its licensing practices.
The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has accused Qualcomm of operating a monopoly in wireless chips, forcing companies such as Apple to work with it exclusively and charging excessive licensing fees for its technology.
According to Apple Chief Operating Officer Jeff Williams’s testimony in court during the FTC trial against Qualcomm, the latter refused to sell its 4G LTE modems to Apple because of the companies’ licensing dispute, the CNET reported late on Monday.
The chip making giant continues to provide the iPhone maker with chips for its older models, including the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus.
“The strategy was to dual-source in 2018 as well. We were working toward doing that with Qualcomm but in the end they would not support us or sell us chips,” the report quoted William as saying.
Apple reportedly dialled Intel’s CEO at the time, Brian Krzanich, to ask the company to supply all modems needed for the iPhone instead of only half the volume.
However, Williams’ comments appear to contradict testimony from Qualcomm’s CEO Steven Mollenkopf.
Mollenkopf on Friday had said on the stand that as of spring 2018, Qualcomm was still trying to win a contract supplying chips for iPhones but that it hadn’t “had any new business” from Apple since its previous contracts expired, the report added.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | World
Seoul : A total of 63,767 South Korean iPhone users have lodged the country’s biggest-ever class action lawsuit against Apple for damages worth millions, authorities said on Friday.
Hannuri, a local law firm which represents the users, filed the class action lawsuit with the Seoul Central District Court against Apple and Apple Korea, the local unit of the iPhone manufacturer, reports Xinhua news agency.
The iPhone customers demanded the damages worth 200,000 won ($188) per plaintiff, or 12.75 billion won ($12 million) in total.
It was the country’s biggest-ever class action suit in history.
Around 400,000 iPhone customers originally sought to join the legal action, but the number fell in the course of verifying identification and offering necessary documents, according to the report.
Apple was accused of slowing down old iPhones through software tweak to make users buy new ones once a new model is released.
The iPhone maker claimed that its software intentionally slowed some models under certain circumstances to protect them from automatically shutting down.
Hannuri said that though Apple recognized the underperformance of iPhones via iOS upgrade, it covered up the truth in offering the software to hide faulty battery, prevent customer secession and promote the sale of new models.
Civic group activists, which represent 122 and 401 iPhone users each, filed their respective class action suits against Apple and Apple Korea in mid-January and early March for damages worth 2.2 million won ($2,070) per person.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Branding, Business, Large Enterprise, Markets, Technology, World
Washington : iPhone maker Apple has agreed to pay Ireland $15.46 billion in back taxes by early 2018.
According to Wall Street Journal, Irish Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe said on Monday that both sides agreed to the terms of an escrow fund for the money.
The European Union in 2016 launched a fresh crackdown over taxes paid by tech giant Apple.
The EU said it planned to refer Ireland to the European Court of Justice for failing to recover the money in back taxes from Apple.
According to the EU, the tax deal allowed Apple to pay almost nothing in tax on its European profits between 2003 and 2014.
It concluded that the US firm’s Irish tax benefits were illegal, enabling the firm to pay a corporate tax rate of no more than one per cent.
Ireland had claimed that EU regulators were interfering with national sovereignty.
Not just Apple, Amazon was also ordered to repay $293 million in back taxes after the European Commission said it had been given an unfair tax deal in Luxembourg.
Amazon denied it owed any back tax, saying it did “not receive any special treatment from Luxembourg”.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Branding, Business, Emerging Businesses, Large Enterprise, Marketing Basics, Markets, Technology
By Nishant Arora,
New Delhi : Even though premium segment player Apple has moved a notch up to the “super premium” category with the iPhone X, its bid to grab a bigger chunk of the Indian market won’t be easy, with the popular Samsung Galaxy S8 firmly in place and the Galaxy Note 8 set for a massive landfall.
To be made available on November 3, iPhone X will cost Rs 89,000 (64GB) variant while the 256GB version will cost Rs 102,000.
In the January-June quarter of 2017, Apple sold 3,00,428 units of iPhone 7 and 2,06,292 units of iPhone 7 Plus. In the same period, Samsung sold 1,22,000 units of S8 and 1,40,000 S8 Plus, according to the data provided by Cybermedia Research.
Now, over 2.5 lakh people have registered to buy the Rs 67,900 Galaxy Note 8 device — also launched on September 12 in India — which would be available starting September 21.
“Although iPhone X is the real competition to Samsung, we must keep in mind that Samsung currently has two successful flagships with them — with Galaxy S8 (doing well) and Note 8 (just launched with huge pre-orders). This makes the super-premium end of smartphone market very interesting for the next two quarters or so,” Navkendar Singh, Senior Research Manager at IDC India, told IANS.
According to Singh, the high pricing of the iPhone X will ensure that only a very serious and real Apple fan will buy it.
“However, iPhone 8 and 8 Plus, with a similar design — but premium build and lower pricing — will probably appeal to iPhone 6s/7 users who were waiting for an upgrade. These two models should be the volume drivers for Apple, with iPhone X acting as a flagship at the super-premium end,” Singh explained.
When it comes to Chinese brands in India, Xiaomi, Vivo and Oppo now have a combined market share of 54 per cent in the second quarter this year, up from 51 per cent in the first quarter, says the “Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker” report by IDC.
Samsung continues to be India’s top smartphone brand with 24 per cent market share. Apple, with its premium portfolio, has nearly three per cent market share by volume and 11 per cent share by value in the country.
According to Narinder Kumar, an analyst at Cybermedia Research, in terms of significant business contribution, shipments of iPhone 7 Plus and iPhone 5S declined sequentially by 59 per cent and 57 per cent, respectively, in 2Q 2017.
“Personally, I never see a Samsung versus iPhone competition. The iPhone community is primarily for iPhone and won’t shift to another phone — and moving to Samsung means the big decision of coming out of the iOS ecosystem,” Faisal Kawoosa, Principal Analyst, Telecom and ESDM, CMR, told IANS.
For him, the battle in the premium segment is now between iPhone and Samsung premium models like the Note 8.
“The trend will continue to be so for now; iPhone fans will upgrade only to an iPhone, and those looking for a premium option within Android, will go for Samsung,” he added.
Tarun Pathak, Associate Director, Mobile Devices and Ecosystems, Counterpoint Research, expects initial sales to be high with the Apple user base upgrading to its new devices irrespective of pricing and specs.
“However, Apple will have its task to cut out to acquire Android users in the premium segment when both the S8 and Note 8 likely to give strong competition to the company in India,” Pathak told IANS.
From the strategy point of view, he said, iPhone X is a good move from Apple, initiating a new design form factor that can be further leveraged in successive iterations.
iPhone X and iPhone 8 can co-exist and won’t be a threat to one another.
“These models can definitely co-exist as we have seen that Apple has lately moved away from single new model per year to multiple models playing at multiple price points, which is really an attempt to drive volumes and gain more share,” Singh noted.
iPhone X has some hugely incremental features compared to the present iPhones, like less-bezel, facial-recognition system, wireless charging, animoji, etc.
“That should excite the staunch iPhone base looking for an upgrade. This segment is not price-sensitive and I don’t see price out of expectations range. So, iPhone X should be doing good numbers, though not of the volume of mass market models or brands,” Kawoosa added.
One should also not forget that, though primarily a premium segment player, Apple is slowly opening up new avenues — like the Bengaluru-assembled iPhone SE (32GB) at Rs 26,000 — to expand its presence in India, a price-sensitive market with a gigantic user base scouting for devices in the Rs 15,000-Rs 30,000 range.
(Nishant Arora can be contacted at nishant.a@ians.in)
—IANS
