by admin | May 25, 2021 | Business, Large Enterprise
Seoul : South Korean tech giant Samsung Electronics achieved a net profit in the third quarter of 11.1 trillion won ($9.89 billion), a 245 per cent increase from a year earlier, boosted by the strong returns from its chip business, the company announced on Tuesday.
Its operating profit in the July-September period reached 14.53 trillion won, representing a 279.4 per cent increase, the company said in a statement.
Sales also rose by 29.7 per cent to stand at a record high of 62 trillion won, reports Efe news.
Both the operating profit and the sales revenue of the electronics giant are in line with its forecasts published on October 13.
The semiconductor business was again its brightest sector in the third quarter, with a record operating profit of 9.96 trillion won, which is almost three times as much as a year ago due to rising seasonal demand and the price increase of its products.
The company also reported that the IT and Mobile Communications division, which includes smartphones, posted an operating profit of 3.29 trillion won.
This is 3,000 per cent more compared to the dire figure in last year’s third quarter, when the company found itself in a full fiasco caused by its Galaxy Note 7, whose production was eventually suspended due to repeated cases of battery defects which caused the device to overheat and combust or explode.
Even so, and despite the excellent reception of its new Galaxy Note 8, the figure is 19 per cent lower than that of the previous quarter due to the unfavourable demand for its mid- and low-end models in the last three months.
The company also announced that, given its continued record yields, it will increase the annual dividend to be distributed this year by 20 per cent from the current volume to approximately 4.8 trillion won.
That amount will double to 9.6 trillion won in 2018, 2019 and 2020, it added.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Branding, Business, Markets, Technology
Samsung Galaxy Note 8
By Sourabh Kulesh,
New Delhi : A two-year-long wait for Samsung Note lovers finally came to an end when the South Korean giant brought its premium flagship Galaxy Note 8 to India this month.
Set to give the newly-launched Apple iPhones a close fight when it comes to the Indian market, the Rs 67,900 Note 8 is undoubtedly the best device yet from Samsung.
Let’s find out why Galaxy Note 8 is going to charm you.
Galaxy Note 8 has industry-first “Infinity Display”. The 6.3-inch display with a resolution of 1440 x 2960 pixels delivered sharp and deep colours.
The edge-to-edge display with 18.5:9 aspect ratio offered maximum viewing area. You cannot ask for a better screen when it comes to watching movies, playing games or social media use.
The device with 6GB RAM and 64GB inbuilt storage (expandable up to 256GB) houses a 64-bit Exynos 8895 octa-core SoC (system on chip), handling heavy-graphics games with ease with “Vulkan API” support.
We tested the device with “Asphalt 8” and did not experience any problem with frame rate or face any lag. Testing it further, we opened several apps and then resumed gaming but found no performance issues.
When it comes to security, Note 8 comes with “iris scanner”, FaceID (just like the “super premium” iPhone X), fingerprint scanner (that works awesomely), number lock and pattern lock.
All five options worked fine. However, the fingerprint lock turned out to be the most handy security option.
A powerful camera complemented the performance. Galaxy Note 8 comes with a rear dual camera set-up with dual OIS (Optical Image Stabilisation).
While one is a wide-angle 12MP Dual Pixel autofocus camera with an aperture of 1.7, the other is a “Telephoto” 12MP autofocus camera with an f-stop of 2.4. The system has 2X optical zoom and up to 10X digital zoom.
The photos in well-lit conditions exceeded our expectations. The “Bokeh” effect was impressive. You can also use the “Bixby Vision” to place or extract a text from a photo. For this, point the camera towards a subject and click.
The device will return with two options — “Image” and “Text”. Select “Image” if you want photos as subject. To extract text from the photo, select “Text”.
The 8MP front shooter with f1.7 clicked beautiful photos even in low-light conditions.
Samsung has also made the “S-Pen” more powerful. You can now perform loads of work with “S-Pen” that supports 4,096 levels of pressure, with the tip having a 0.7mm diameter.
More pressure level means you can decide the thickness of the font by the “S-Pen” itself. Press harder on screen to get a bold font and write with less pressure to get a thinner text.
“S-Pen” has now been powered to write on Always On Display (AOD). You can now take notes on up to 100 pages.
The S-Pen also lets you make a 15-second animation to share on social media with its “Smart Select” feature.
Coming to AI assistant “Bixby”, Samsung has now rolled out voice support for “Bixby” in India.
“Bixby will deliver a great experience to the users because, unlike other AI assistants, it can understand multi-layered commands. And I think that will be a very unique experience,” Asim Warsi, Senior Vice President, Mobile Business, Samsung India, told IANS.
“Bixby” worked fine, at par with the Apple “Siri” and Google Assistant.
The 3,300mAh battery went from 0 per cent to 100 per cent in an hour and 43 minutes. The company is giving “AKG” earplugs with the device. The sound quality was outstanding.
What doesn’t work?
The fingerprint scanner is placed a bit higher on the rear. The “Bixby” voice, which is still in its early days, can be better.
The “iris scanner” and FaceID were average when it came to unlocking the device in poorly-lit conditions.
Conclusion: Note 8 looks like a great device with Samsung getting the software and artificial intelligence piece right over there. At Rs 67,900, it is a perfect deal for Android lovers in the premium segment.
(Sourabh Kulesh can be contacted at sourabh.k@ians.in)
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Markets, Technology
New York, (IANS) South Korean smartphone giant Samsung sold the most number of smartphones worldwide in the first quarter of the year and is expected to sell 320 million smartphones by the end of the year, a new report said on Wednesday.
According to US-based market research company IC Insights, buoyed by the strong sales growth of Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge, Samsung sold 81.5 million smartphones, followed by Apple with 51.6 million smartphones — in the first quarter.
Although the list of top 12 smartphone makers is dominated by China-based smartphone suppliers — taking eight spots in the list — Indian smartphone supplier Micromax broke into the list for the first time.
It sold five million devices in the first quarter of the year and is projected to sell 25 million smartphones by the end of the year — 74 per cent increase from last year.
“Among the Chinese players, Huawei is at number three, OPPO at number four, Xiaomi at number five, Vivo at number six, ZTE at number eight, Lenovo at number nine and TCL and Meizu are at spots 10 and 11, respectively,” androidheadlines.com said, quoting the report.
Sony, Microsoft and Coolpad who were in the top 12 list dropped out this year.
Lenovo, which was at fourth spot last year, dropped to ninth place this year – selling only 10.9 million smartphones in the first quarter of 2016. Their sales for the year are expected to drop 26 per cent from 2015.
According to IC Insights, total global smartphone sales will increase by 5 percent from 1.43 billions units in 2015 to 1.5 billion in 2016.
Samsung Galaxy Note 5 device has also topped the 2016 American Consumer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) poll.
According to the annual poll comprising 12,710 people, Samsung Galaxy Note 5 phablet has a rating of 86 out of 100, 9to5mac.com reported recently.
iPhone 6 Plus is one notch behind at 85. In last year’s satisfaction index, Apple and Samsung were neck-to-neck at 80.
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Corporate, Corporate Buzz
By Sourabh Kulesh
New Delhi : (IANS) In a bid to woo millions of two-wheeler riders in India, South Korean electronics giant Samsung on Thursday launched 5-inch Galaxy J3 smartphone with “S-bike Mode” for bikers that will enable them to ride uninterrupted every time it is turned on.
Targeting the mid-price market and extending its portfolio of “J series” smartphones, the device is available for Rs.8,990 exclusively on Snapdeal from Thursday.
The “S-bike Mode” works in harmony with a NFC-enabled sticker that enables the device to automatically reply to callers informing them that they can “call again later time as the person they are trying to reach is riding a bike”.
With this, riders can simply concentrate on their riding and stop worrying about checking notifications on their phones or answering phone calls while they are in the middle of the road.
“While studying the consumers’ phone-usage behaviour, we realised that incoming calls are a major distraction to bikers. We are happy that we have come up with something that will benefit millions of two-wheeler riders,” Asim Warsi, senior vice president, Samsung electronics, told reporters here.
To activate the mode, the user just needs to “tap” the Samsung J3 smartphone to the NFC-enabled tag which can stuck on the fuel tank or the helmet.
In case of urgent calls, the caller can press “1” to notify user about the urgency of the call and the rider will get the message of “urgent call” on device’s screen.
With this, the device activates a “motion lock” feature that restricts the rider to pick call while he is driving. As soon as the rider comes to a halt, the phone allows the user to take the call.
“The device has been equipped with NFC hardware to activate the “S-bike Mode” with a single tap on the NFC-enabled tag that will be shipped with every unit. The technology is designed by the engineers in India,” Dipesh Shah, senior vice president, Samsung R&D Institute India, added.
The Samsung Galaxy J3 comes with a 5-inch touchscreen display and is powered by 1.2GHz quad-core processor assisted with 1.5GB of RAM. The phone packs 8GB of internal storage that can be expanded up to 128GB via a microSD card.
The dual-SIM (micro-SIM) phone is packed with an 8-megapixel primary camera and a 5-megapixel front shooter for selfies.
The Galaxy J3 runs on Android 5.1 and is powered by a 2,600mAh non removable battery. It measures 142.30 x 71.00 x 7.90 (height x width x thickness) and weighs 138.00 grams.
The device comes with a faux leather back panel and is available in black, white and gold colours.
The J3 will also have Ultra Data Saving (UDS) mode which was launched in September with other J series phones last year, for saving upto 50 percent of data over mobile network and wi-fi.
The company is also offering special offers for Vodafone users. They will get twice the data on select internet packs for a period of six months.
(Sourabh Kulesh can be contacted at sourabh.k@ians.in)
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Corporate, Corporate Buzz
By Sourabh Kulesh
New Delhi : (IANS) The heat is finally on. Come April and the Indian smartphone market is set to witness a war between top smartphone players – across all price bands – never seen before.
It began with the Apple announcement of its smallest 4-inch iPhone SE this month. The pre-booking in India has already begun from Tuesday midnight for the two variants: The 64 GB version of the phone available at $499 and the 16 GB model that will cost $399 (US pricing).
Beetel Teletech Limited, a subsidiary of US-based Brightstar Corporation, will make available Rs.39,000 (retail price) iPhone SE in India beginning April 8.
The firm, however, declined to provide pre-booking figures for iPhone SE as of now.
On Thursday, the much-awaited Xiaomi’s flagship Mi 5 — with 5.15-inch full HD display powered by Qualcomm’s most powerful Snapdragon 820 processor — will hit the Indian market.
Rumoured to be priced below Rs.25,000 (in China, it costs 1,999 yuan or Rs.21,000), the device is available globally in three variants – 32GB, 64GB and 128GB on board memory. However, it is still not clear whether all three variants will be available for the Indian consumers or not.
The smartphone — launched at the Mobile World Congress 2016 in Barcelona, Spain — wears 16-megapixel primary camera with 4-megapixel secondary camera. It will run MIUI 7 based on Android 6.0 Marshmallow.
According to androidpit.com, the design of Mi 5 is almost similar to Galaxy S7.
The Xiaomi Mi 5 Pro — the premium version — comes with 128 GB of flash memory, 4 GB of RAM and a ceramic back. The base model has 32 GB of flash and 3 GB of RAM.
Same day, South Korean smartphone maker Samsung is set to launch Galaxy J3 especially for Indian bike riders. The device was unveiled earlier this year in the US at $179 so we can expect the price to be around Rs.11,000-Rs.13,000 in India.
According to Techtimes.com, Galaxy J3 has a 5-inch super AMOLED display with a 1.2 GHz quad-core processor.
The handset will feature a new “Bike Mode” which will allow bike riders to go on an uninterrupted ride every time it is turned on.
Once the phone is on “Bike Mode”, it will automatically send a text in reply to callers as a way of telling them that they can try to call again at a later time.
With “Bike Mode”, riders can simply concentrate on their riding and stop worrying about checking notifications on their phones or answering phone calls while they are in the middle of the road.
It has a 1.5 GB of RAM and 8-megapixel rear camera (5MP in the US version). The phone has 16 GB of internal storage which is expandable upto 128 GB through microSD card.
Earlier this month, Samsung launched its flagship smartphone Galaxy S7 and its curved-screen companion Galaxy S7 Edge at an irresistible price of Rs.48,900 and Rs.56,900, respectively.
The 5.1-inch Galaxy S7 and 5.5-inch Galaxy S7 Edge are constructed with 3D glass and metal and given ergonomic curves for a comfortable grip.
The smartphones come with innovations in design, imaging, software functionality and connectivity with a host of other services.
The company also gave away free Gear virtual reality (VR) to it customers who pre-ordered the devices between March 8 and 17.
In a bid to take the lion’s share in the mid-priced smartphone segment, Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi also launched Redmi Note 3 — the world’s first device equipped with Snapdragon 650 processor in India – this month.
The 5.5-inch device is available in two variants – 2GB RAM/16GB ROM for Rs.9,999 and 3GB RAM/32GB ROM for Rs.11,999.
(Sourabh Kulesh can be contacted at sourabh.k@ians.in)
