6. LG
LG Electronics is a South Korean company headquartered at Seoul. It was founded in
1958 as Goldstar.
LG made the world’s first CDMA digital mobile handset in 1997. LG entered the
smartphone industry in 2010. LG manufactures a wide range of tablets and smartphones.
In 2013, LG unveiled the curved smartphone, G Flex which was first released in South
Korea and later released in Europe, Rest of Asia and North America. LG is going to build
a new headquarter in New Jersey. Google also partnered with LG to launch its nexus 4
and Nexus 5 smartphones in 2013. LG focusses on setting new standards in Mobile
technologies. LG remains at the forefront with innovative features such as 3D, bright and
clear displays, multi-core processors and 4G LTE. LG shipped almost 20 million mobile phones among them
15.4 million were smartphones. North America was the brightest spot with mass market
smartphones and feature phones across carriers, mainly in prepaid segment. Americas
(North + Central & Latin) contributes to more than 3/4th of total smartphone sales for LG.
Big and important fast growing markets such as India, China and Rest of Asia remains a
weak spot for LG. Moving forward, it will launch LG G4 and mid-tier portfolio smartphones. Through these key devices LG is estimated to challenge
Samsung in key markets such as Europe and North America.
5. Huawei
Huawei is a Chinese networking and telecommunication company headquartered in
Guangdong.
It was founded in 1987 by a former engineer in People’s Liberation Army. It has 21 R&D
institutes all over the world. Huawei surpassed Xiaomi in the smartphone market. Huawei’s Smartphone shipments grew by 27% whereas the overall mobile phone shipments grew
by 21%. One of its brand, Honor brand is yielding good results for Huawei with a presence
in more than 60 countries around the globe. Honor brand has given successful entry into
emerging economies like India where traditionally it was not strong whereas other brand
Ascend is doing well in Middle East Africa and Europe. North America remains a weak
spot for Huawei whereas Latin America has been strong especially, Mexico, Columbia and
others. Apart from this Honor brand has managed to gain significant share in mid to high
end smartphone segment, a segment which was traditionally a weak spot for Huawei.
Going forward it will continue to leverage the momentum by launching more flagships in
various geographies along with its online only business model in some of the regions.
Huawei has shifted focus towards profitability and streamlining portfolio with mid-to premium tier models rather than focusing on lower price models and aims to ship 100
million smartphones in 2015.
4. Lenovo (+ Motorola)
Lenovo is a Chinese computer technology company and was founded in 1984.
It has headquarters in Beijing, China and North Carolina, US. Lenovo has operations in
more than 16 countries and it sells its product in around 160 countries. Lenovo has R&D
centres at 8 locations and 4 Countries namely China, US, Singapore and Japan. Lenovo
acquired IBM’s PC business in 2005. Lenovo entered into smartphone market in 2012 and
quickly became the largest vendor of smartphones in Mainland China. In October 2014
Lenovo acquired Motorola Mobility from Google. In the deal Lenovo also got future product
roadmap of Motorola. Lenovo mainly purchased Motorola due to long standing relationships of Motorola with cellular network operators in US and UK. Lenovo + Motorola combined
shipments during the first quarter of 2015 is estimated to be close to 22 million units with
Motorola and Lenovo reaching beyond its home market especially in Americas. However,
Europe is still a weak spot for the Chinese vendor. Lenovo is stronger in low- to- mid tier
whereas Motorola is more in mid- to high-tier and is helping Lenovo extend portfolio across all price-points and geographies. During this quarter Motorola launched refreshed version of Moto E. Lenovo is slowly moving towards an all-LTE portfolio in China.
3. Microsoft Mobile
Microsoft completed acquisition of Nokia Devices & Services division during the 2nd
quarter of 2014 and formed Microsoft Mobile as a hardware business unit for devices.
Microsoft mobile is headquartered in Finland and it is wholly owned subsidiary of Microsoft. Principle activity of Microsoft Mobile is to design, develop, manufacture and distribute
mobile phones, smartphones, tablet computers and related accessories. As a part of 10-year licensing agreement, Microsoft got the right to sell phones under Nokia brand name,
but those phones should be based on S30+ which comprises of feature phones not
smartphones. As a result, future Lumia smartphones were not under this licence and
couldn’t be released under Nokia brand. So it was decided in October 2014 that all future
Lumia smartphones will carry Microsoft name and Microsoft Logo instead of Nokia.
Microsoft Mobile is the 2nd venture of Microsoft in Mobile phone hardware business after
Microsoft’s short lived Kin in 2010. In Q1 of 2015, Microsoft shipped 33.7 million mobile
phones which is 28 % down from 47.0 million a year earlier. Microsoft’s 8 % global mobile
phone market share is sitting at all-time low. Microsoft continues to lose ground in feature phones, while its Lumia smartphone portfolio is in a holding pattern awaiting the launch of new Windows 10 software later this
year.
2. Apple
Apple Inc. is headquartered in California, US. It was founded on 1st April 1976 by Steve
Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne.
Apple is world’s 2nd largest IT Company by revenue after Samsung Electronics. Apple
became the first company in US to be valued more than $700 billion. Apple enjoys high
Brand loyalty and according to Interbrand Best Global brands report, is the most valuable
brand. Apple continued to find success with larger screened iPhones in 2015 also. As a
result, Apple iPhone revenues are now at all-time high i.e. 70% of total Apple revenues. Much of this came out of Greater China because of rapid 4G adoption and Apple retail expansion. Apple’s overall handset market climbed to 14% and the smartphone market share climbed to 18% during the 1st quarter of 2015.
With iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, Apple was able to retain its user base and also been able to
recapture previous iOS users who had defected to Android mainly because of larger screens. China continues to be the strongest market for Apple as it now corresponds to almost
30% of the total corporate revenues. Apple has started to capture a good share of middle
class consumers’ wallet also. As of March 2015, Apple maintains 453 retail stores in 16
countries and operates the online Apple Store and iTunes store- world’s largest musical
retailer.
1. Samsung
Samsung shipped total 99 million mobile phones as the sales of non-smartphone feature phones declined as the world is moving towards smartphones now.
Smartphone shipments however rose to 83.3 million units taking back the leading position
in smartphone segment from Apple after Apple’s solid holiday season quarter of 2014. However premium smartphone shipments with S5 & Note 4 shipments declined as the
premium segment was dominated by Apple, ahead of Samsung Galaxy S6 roll out in Q2
2015. In terms of regional performance, Assembly plants and Sales network of Samsung
Electronics is present in 80 Countries. Samsung is world’s largest manufacturer of Mobile
phones since 2011. Samsung had discontinued its eBook store with effect from 1st July
2014 and partnered with Amazon for Kindle for Samsung apps. In quarter 1 of 2015,
Samsung’s profit dropped by 39% to $4.39 billion due to heavier competition from Apples
iPhone 6 and 6S and other android manufacturers. Samsung’s flagship mobile handset is
Samsung galaxy S line. Samsung kept supporting various Operating Systems like Symbian, Linux-based Limo, Windows and Samsung propitiatory Bada, but by 2013 Samsung has
dropped all Operating Systems except Android and Windows.
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