Samsung Electronics reclaim the guide in smartphones from Apple in the first quarter of this year. One of its weapons: screens of many special sizes. 

How is Samsung throbbing Apple

Samsung sells at least 13 smartphones with screens ranging from 2.8 inches on the Replenish to 5.3 inches on the Galaxy Note. Apple, which has always believed in a limited number of models, offers only a 3.5-inch display on its two iPhones. Suwon, South Korea-based Samsung is testing the tablet market as well with a similar plan.

The different strategies — and the success of Samsung’s — has led analysts including London-based Neil Mawston at Strategy Analytics to speculate that Apple will have to expand its line at some point. Samsung also ended the 14-year reign of Nokia as the world’s biggest maker of all kinds of phones in the last quarter.

“Samsung has long had a buckshot strategy for its mobile and portable hardware,” Mawston said. “Samsung fires out dozens of new models at high speed every year and hopes that one or more will eventually stick.”

The maker of the Galaxy range of phones sold 93.5 million handsets in the first quarter, 36 per cent more than a year earlier, Strategy Analytics said April 27. Nokia shipped 82.7 million, down 24 per cent, and Apple sold 35.1 million units, an 89 per cent increase from last year.

Samsung sold 44.5 million smartphones in the three months ended in March, regaining the lead from Apple, according to the researcher’s data. Smartphones let users watch video, send e- mails, play games and surf the Web.

Product breadth
Size is an important reason in choosing mobile devices after Google’s free Android software became the biggest challenger to Apple’s iOS in the $219 billion global smartphone market.

“What we’re seeing here is, really, Samsung gaining share because of product breadth,” said Mark Newman, a Hong Kong- based analyst for Sanford C Bernstein & Co. “They have all different price range for all different people.”

Samsung plans to unveil a successor to the Galaxy S II in London today.

Last week, Asia’s biggest consumer-electronics maker said first-quarter profit jumped 81 per cent to 5.05 trillion won ($4.5 billion) after earnings at the mobile business almost tripled. Chinese demand for the iPhone helped Apple boost its fiscal second-quarter profit 94 per cent.

Samsung shares have gained 33 per cent this year in Seoul trading, while Apple has surged about 44 per cent in New York.

Hybrid phone-tablet
Critical to the surge in profit at Samsung was the Galaxy Note, a hybrid between a phone and tablet computer equipped with a stylus to manipulate programs, photographs and text on its screen. Since Note’s debut in October, Samsung sold more than 5 million of them.

Samsung said it expects to sell 10 million units by the end of this year and plans to introduce more pen-equipped products with different screen sizes.

“Screen size seems to be far more important than we originally anticipated,” Daniel Kim, a Seoul-based analyst at Macquarie Group, said in a March 28 report. “Once consumers are used to larger screens, few go back to screens smaller than four inches.”

Samsung counts Apple as its biggest client — Apple accounted for 7.64 percent of Samsung’s revenue, buying chips and displays, according to data compiled by Bloomberg – even as the two companies have sued each other across four continents, with Apple accusing Samsung of “slavishly copying” its products.

Natalie Kerris, a spokeswoman for Apple, declined to comment.

‘Market’s needs’
“Our smartphone displays are designed to maximize the strengths of each device and reflect the market’s needs,” Chris Jung, a Seoul-based spokesman for Samsung, said in an e-mail.

The multisize screen approach isn’t playing out in the tablet market, where Apple dominated with 62 per cent of the market as of December 31, compared with Samsung’s 9 per cent, according to estimates by IHS.

Unlike its strategy for the iPod music players — where Apple brought out the Nano, the Mini and the Shuffle after the original was introduced in 2001 — the Cupertino, California- based company has followed a one-size display for its phones and tablets.

iPhone, iPad
The iPhone, which debuted in 2007, featured the same 3.5- inch display screen as the latestiPhone 4S model, even as the resolution improved. Similarly, the iPad tablet computer has sported a 9.7-inch screen since then-Chief Executive Officer Steve Jobs unveiled it in 2010, while the display quality subsequently sharpened.

In contrast, Samsung’s first Galaxy Tab tablet device was introduced in 2010 with a 7.7-inch screen, while Waterloo, Ontario-based Research In Motion Ltd unveiled its PlayBook with a 7-inch display.

In addition to the 7.7-inch model, Samsung sells the Galaxy in the US with displays of 7 inches, 8.9 inches and 10.1 inches.

Jobs said in October 2010 that RIM would struggle to attract application developers to support itsBlackBerry smartphone and that devices like its PlayBook tablet are “dead on arrival” because they’re too small to compete with the iPad.

Size speculation
Speculation has persisted that Apple will add different screen sizes. The Maeil Business Newspaper reported in March the iPhone 5 will have a 4.6-inch display, while the Chinese online portal Netease reported last month that Apple is planning to introduce a smaller iPad.

Still, “Apple could play the ‘if it’s not broke, don’t fix it’ card,” said Ramon Llamas, an analyst atIDC in Framingham, Massachusetts.

While Samsung has taken the market-share lead in unit sales, Apple still garners most of the industry’s operating profits, wrote Michael Walkley, an analyst at Canaccord Genuity, in a May 1 note. Apple accounted for 73 per cent of all handset- industry profits in the first quarter, he estimated, and Samsung generated 26 per cent, giving the duo 99 per cent of the total.

One of the foundations of Apple’s success has been its focus on developing a single iconic product with mass appeal, rather than seek market share by having a broad portfolio of products, said Brian Marshall, an equity analyst with International Strategy & Investments, in San Francisco.

Given the fast growth in tablets and phones and Apple’s relatively low market share in the latter, the company doesn’t need to expand its form factors for now, Marshall said. As the markets get more saturated, the pressure will be much stronger to add more screen sizes.

“Today, the answer is no,” he said. “Down the road, the answer is yes,” he said.

Mawston at Strategy Analytics agrees.

“Apple will need different screen sizes if it decides to launch new models for lower-cost segments in the future,” he said.

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RIM’s  CEO Thorsten Heins has demonstrated  the new &  improved BlackBerry 10 platform at BlackBerry World 2012 today. The main top 5  announcements that were the main spot of attraction at the conference were:  

Top 5 declaration from RIM’s BlackBerry World 2012

1.  Device prototype:  Every BlackBerry developer will get a neW BB 10 DEV ALPHA DEVICE to help test various applications during the platform’s development stage. This sleek,fashionable smartphone comes with a 4.2-inch screen and a resolution of 1280×768 pixels. In addition to  with Micro USB and Micro HDMI, it also includes  Wi-Fi radio and Bluetooth features.
2.   Cloud computing: RIM is also working on higher security and cloud services for its clients. Mobile Fusion is another area where development is fast paced.
3.   Ease on typing: With BB 10,typing will bevery effortless. users will be able to type messages and mails quickly and accurately. In a demonstration, RIM showed off the BB10 Keypad feature and then offers to build words on its own. As if such assisted tying was not enough, Forbes reports that users will also be able to swipe words on and off the screen, saving even more time and effort.
4.   Improved & effective smart camera: The camera on BB 10 has also been given an improvisaton. This camera app uses motion sensors to capture the right image, every time. In a demo, RIM showed off how the gyroscope helps to take panoramic images from all possible angles.
5.  Navigation without seams: RIM has given multitasking a new sense. Users can scroll through the menu of a BB 10 device effortlessly,& with multitasking users can scroll on to the menu  while  other apps can run easily   in the background.

Rovio’s Angry Birds Space has lastly made it to the BlackBerry App World but the unacceptable thing is that only PlayBook customers can download it while this description is not companionable with the BlackBerry smartphones.

Though it has taken a moderately longer time for RIM to fetch this game on its platform (the game had hit Android and iOS platforms a long time ago) but it is positively not the last since the Windows Phone description of the Angry Birds Space is tranquil not ready.

Angry Birds Space one of the sequel of Angry bird was downloaded more than 10 million times in the first three consequent days bid 60 new levels and an inclusive new gameplay where the set-up is completed in the outer space.

You can download it from the BlackBerry App World for $2.99 (around Rs 150).

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BlackBerry-maker Research in Motion (RIM), which lately cut prices of several of its smartphone gadget, imagines the motion to increase its sales by about 25-30% in a aggressive Indian handset market. The Waterloo, Canada-based mobile handset maker, which is fraught to fight internationally with Apple’s iPhoneand the Android-based smartphones, believe India as one of focus markets where lowering prices will help it reach more customers. 

Sunil Dutt, MD, RIM India, who took over the company just a few months back, said in an exclusive chat with that more price cuts could not be ruled out as the brand gets the benefit of economies of scale through increased sales. However, leaders in the smartphone market - Samsung and Nokia – said they are not looking to slash prices and will instead focus on broadening their product portfolios.

“The objective is to reach out to more consumers and, therefore, make our devices affordable for both the consumer segment as well as for our enterprise customers,” Dutt said.

RIM slashed prices of select models by up to 26% indicating a change in its India strategy. Analysts tracking the sector said that the average price of a BlackBerry smartphone stood at Rs 21,000, which is extremely steep compared to other brands in the market.

“The price cuts will give them volumes but it is unlikely to have any impact on market shares. There is room to further lower prices as well as broaden its portfolio specifically in the Rs 10,000-15,000 range and also in the sub-Rs 10,000 segment, which boasts of multiple domestic vendors such as Micromax, Karbonn and Lava, which have already launched low-cost smartphones in a bid to drive future demand as they attempt to move up the value chain from low-cost feature phones,” said G Rajeev, senior market analyst, mobile devices &tablets, IDC India.

Samsung, the leader in the smartphone segment with 17 models in the market, has six devices in the sub-Rs 10,000, seven in the Rs 10,000-20,000 bracket with only four models above Rs 20,000. RIM’s BlackBerry, on the other hand, has only one model – the hugely successfulBlackBerry Curve model – in the sub-Rs 10,000 range.

According to the Framingham, Massachusetts-based market researcher IDC, the share for RIM in the Indian smartphone market stood at around of 10% in fourth quarter of 2011. Samsung led with 35% share while Finnish-handset brand Nokia had a market share of 31% for the October to December period last year. The smartphone market in India grew by 99% year-on-year in shipment terms to reach 3.39 million units for the fourth quarter. It is projected to grow by 54% during the period of 2012-2016.

RIM reported a fourth quarter loss of $125 million as it shipped 11.1 million units, down by 21% from the previous quarter. Dutt said the global worries did not impact the India operations, one of the best for the Canadian parent. “We are increasing our investment on the brand, distribution, products and on people here,” Dutt said.

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A Dutch semiconductor company said on Tuesday it had filed a exclusive rights violation suit beside Research In Motion Ltd, accumulation to the Blackberry maker’s quandary and distribution its shares dropping. 

An affiliate of NXP Semiconductors NV alleges that versions of RIM’s BlackBerry phone and PlayBook tablet infringed on patents issued to it between 1997 and 2008. The patents in question relate to design, data transmission and other features of the devices.

NXP demands a halt to the alleged infringements and seeks to recover what it claims as lost profit, reasonable royalties and triple damages for willful infringements.

It has not specified a dollar amount it is seeking from the struggling smartphone maker, whose share price has dropped about 80 per cent in the past year as its market share has eroded.

“It’s a lawsuit aimed at extracting some money from RIM at a time when RIM is most vulnerable,” said Alex Poltorak of General Patent Corp, a firm that provides patent consulting.

RIM is no stranger to patent litigation. It was almost brought to its knees by a five-year patent fight that began in 2001 and at one point threatened to shut down RIM’s US operations. RIM eventually paid out more than $600 million to NTP Inc, a patent holding company, to settle the case.

NXP filed its lawsuit on Monday in the US District Court in Orlando, Florida. RIM plans to hold its annual BlackBerry World conference there in early May.

A RIM spokeswoman declined to comment on Tuesday, citing the Canadian company’s policy of not discussing litigation.

Litigation has become a major weapon in a global patent war being waged among makers of mobile phones, tablet computers and their operating software in a market worth billions of dollars.

Apple, Microsoft, Oracle and numerous hardware companies using Google’s Android software are locked in court battles over patents aimed at extracting licensing fees from their rivals.

RIM teamed up with Apple, Microsoft and others to outbid Google for a trove of patents sold last year by bankrupt network equipment company Nortel Networks. Google later bought Motorola Mobility in a move many suggested was a play for its patents.

More pressure on Heins
Based in Eindhoven, Netherlands, NXP was spun off from Koninklijke Philips Electronics NV in 2006. It said it now owned 11,000 issued or pending patents, and generated $4.2 billion of annual revenue.

Up against fierce competition from Apple Inc and phones running on Google Inc’s Android, RIM has watched its once-dominant market share erode and sales performance decline.

Last week, RIM said it will stop issuing financial forecasts and that it was reviewing strategic options, such as entering partnerships and joint ventures.

Thorsten Heins, who became chief executive in January when the company’s longtime co-CEOs resigned under pressure, would not rule out a possible sale of the company.

General Patent Corp’s Poltorak said RIM may seek a quick settlement in the NXP case as pending litigation could complicate any sale talks. Two sources told Reuters last week that RIM has avoided talks with potential suitors since Heins took over.

In afternoon trading on the Nasdaq, RIM fell $1.10, or 7.6 per cent, to $13.27; and NXP fell 67 cents, or 2.6 per cent, to $25.45.

The case is NXP BV v. Research In Motion Ltd et al, US District Court, Middle District of Florida, No. 12-00498.

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Research in Motion (RIM) is pulling out all stops to enlarge its occurrence in the country’s Smartphone market.

Research In Motion decreases smartphone prices by up to 26 per cent

After it gashes the price of its PlayBook tablet, the business has now proclaimed an up to 26 per cent lessening in Smartphone prices.

So, while the price of the Curve 8520, an entry-level handset, has been concentrated by over 18 per cent from Rs 10,990 to Rs 8,999, the price of the Torch 9860 has been reduced by over 26 per cent, from Rs 29,990 to Rs 21,990.

Similarly, the price of the Curve 9380 has been concentrated from Rs 20,990 to Rs 16,990 and the price of the Curve 9360 has been reduced from Rs 19,990 to Rs 18,990.

Commenting on this move, Sunil Dutt, managing director, India, RIM supposed that this is predictable to help the company tap a wider section of the Indian handset market. He added that these four handsets comprise 60 per cent of the business in India.

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BlackBerry-maker Research in Motion today cut prices of its handsets by up to 26 per cent as it appears to grasp a superior share of the smartphone market in India. 

BlackBerry-maker RIM slashes smartphone prices in India

The reduction in prices of handsets comes after the the Canadian company cut prices of its tablet PC PlayBook in December last year.

“RIM as a brand has moved from just an enterprise device to as a more consumer device. Be it our services or the product, we have seen a strong uptake by the youth and therefore, to get the devices into more hands, we are cutting the prices,” RIM India Managing Director Sunil Dutttold.

The move will help us tap a wider base of the large market that India is, he added.

While the price of entry-level model — Curve 8520 — has been reduced by over 18 per cent to Rs 8,999 from Rs 10,990, the price of Torch 9860 has been reduced by over 26 per cent per cent to Rs 21,990 from Rs 29,990 earlier.

The retail price of Curve 9380 and Curve 9360 has been reduced to Rs 16,990 and Rs 18,990, respectively.

The handsets were earlier available for Rs 20,990 (Curve 9380) and Rs 19,990 (Curve 9360).

“These four handsets comprise a bulk of sales in the country, it is 60 per cent of the business from India,” Dutt said.

According to a CyberMedia study, smartphone shipments touched 11.2 million units in calendar year 2011, recording a year-on-year growth of 87 per cent.

While Nokia was the leader in the smartphones segment with 38 per cent share, Samsungfollowed with 28 per cent share in CY 2011. RIM stood at third place with a 15 per cent share.

Dutt said the company aims to further enhance its presence and leverage the demand for its products.

“The focus is not just on reducing prices, but we want to address a larger number of people and give them the overall experience of BlackBerry. We will continue to focus on bringing locally relevant products, services and applications to Indian consumers,” he said.

In December last year, RIM had slashed the price of its PlayBook by more than half to Rs 24,490 for the 64GB version under an offer from the original price Rs 37,990. This was further reduced to Rs 19,990 earlier this month.

A report released by Cybermedia Research indicates 21 per cent market share for BlackBerry PlayBook in India, he added.

The price of the 16GB version was however raised marginally to Rs 13,990 from Rs 13,490 (available under the offer). The device was originally launched at Rs 27,990.

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Research In Motion is getting set to turn the page and advance into its new future with a brand new “Be Bold” campaign.

The “Be Bold” campaign officially launched on New Year’s Eve but is now getting primed for an advertising blitz that will hit the usual targets, including through television spots.

The target audience for the campaign is American users, a critical group that RIM is hoping to reclaim after countless market stumbles in the United States. Thorsten Heins, the new president and CEO, has made it clear that the BlackBerry franchise needs to regain ground in the critical market.

Among the many changes the “Be Bold” campaign is being used to symbolize, one is the required culture change. The company has been facing stiff competition from the likes of Apple and  Android, so the atmosphere of RIM has been dismal – to say the last. Changing the profile of the company requires an infusion of positivity, something that’s hard to come by with plummeting market value and diminishing market share.

The New CEO of Research in Motion has Meaningful plans for the Black Berry. The Board has given the time of three weeks to present the ideas in front of board.

Research in Motion’s Thorsten Heinsplans to waste no time in his new job. The BlackBerrymaker’s chief executive said he will present the board with his plan for company’s future in just a matter of weeks.

The German-born executive, who took over from two longstanding co-CEOs on Saturday, said his plans forRIM would be “significant” though he did not divulge details in an interview with Reuters.

“I will have time with the board in two weeks to present my ideas and changes,” Heins said.

But the executive, who was promoted from the role of chief operating officer, said he has already done groundwork to tackle his company’s most pressing problem – persuading the U.S. market to covet the BlackBerry again.

While RIM is growing in other countries, Heins conceded that its U.S. business is in need of a major revival after losing out to rivals like Apple Inc’s iPhone at U.S. service providers and corporations, where it once had a clear advantage among employees heavily dependent on its email service.

“In general I wouldn’t consider RIM as a turnaround candidate. It is a turnaround candidate in the U.S.,” he said.

“We lost market share in this market quite substantially. That is something that we have to address.”

While U.S. operators such as Verizon Wireless and AT&T Inc have helped BlackBerry with heavy advertising and promotions in the past, these operators have been much more focused in the last few years on devices like iPhone and smartphones based on the Google Inc operating system.

Heins’ quest to regain ground with these operators has been complicated by the fact that RIM had to announce in December that it is delaying the launch of phones based on BlackBerry 10 – its next-generation software – until the later part of 2012 as it is awaiting the availability of a high-powered chip.

The executive would not say when exactly these phones would hit the market but implied that they would arrive in time for the year-end holiday-shopping season in the fourth quarter.

So in the meantime, Heins will concentrate on getting the most current BlackBerrys into more consumers hands. He noted that only 20 percent of U.S. BlackBerry users have the company’s latest phones, which he says are competitive with rival smartphones.

The rest of RIM’s U.S. customers have devices with older RIM software, some of which are “two generations behind,” he said.

To overcome this, RIM has devised a new upgrade plan with U.S. operators to promote phones with the BlackBerry 7 system, which was launched in August last year.

“All the plans are ready. The carrier agreements are all ready. Now we have to get off the starting grid. Now we need to execute that upgrade program,” Heins said.

While he did not want to disclose specifics about the new agreements, Heins said RIM could look at new ways of bundling different devices together or offering carriers smartphones with a package of pre-loaded applications.

He is also betting on the company’s PlayBook tablet to compete with the Apple iPad tablet. This spring, Heins said that RIM will launch a version of the Playbook, with a high-speed wireless connection based on LTE – a technology that the top three U.S. operators are building into their networks.

Verizon Wireless and AT&T are already promoting LTE devices including smartphones and tablets from RIM’s rivals. RIM’s first smartphones with LTE connections will be in the company’s BlackBerry 10 line-up, Heins said.

MOMENT OF SURPRISE

In his first presentation to Wall Street as CEO earlier this week, Heins said he did not think the company needed drastic change, causing some analysts to worry that the executive would not do enough to reverse the company’s fortunes.

But the executive said on Friday that he was merely telling Wall Street that he does not want to change the core of RIM.

“Is RIM up for sale, is RIM up for a split-up?” He rejected those possibilities as “a drastic, seismic change because it would tear the company apart.”

Heins, who has been with RIM for four years after spending over two decades at German engineering group Siemens, was became COO responsible for software and products seven months ago.

He explained that RIM had succession plans for co-CEOs Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie in place for some time and that he had an inkling that he was being groomed to follow in their footsteps when he was named COO.

“The moment they tell you it’s still a surprise,” Heins said, smiling broadly and adding that he immediately said yes.

Lazaridis and Balsillie, who turned the BlackBerry maker into a global company and a household name, stepped down last week but will remain on the board.

Some analysts have worried whether these executives would have too much of a say in the future strategy of the company because of their position on the board.

Heins said, it would be an advantage to be able to tap into the experience and company knowledge of RIM founder Lazaridis, but he made it clear that he would be the one calling the shots.

“What I do with the company is my decision. The CEO runs the company.”

Chatting lover , there is a mind blowing news for you as RIM which is one of the inventor of Blackberry is launching its cheapest Go BBM plan-121 with all blackberry mobile service provider in India.

Mr. Amit Mathur, Director – Sales, RIM India, said that ‘We are in process to launch “Only BBM Plan” with all BlackBerry service providers in the country. Keeping in mind to offer the rich communications features and unique user experience of BBM in an affordable service plan to BlackBerry customers in India.”

It seems that RIM /BlackBerry India has been touting BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) as the main competitive advantage to lock more users to choose and enjoy BlackBerry smartphones in India.

Recently Go BBM Plan or Only BBM Plan was launched by Vodafone and Airtel which offers unlimited access to BBM (BlackBerry Messenger) at Rs. 5 per day or Rs. 129 per month for prepaid and Rs. 129 per month for postpaid subscribers.

BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) is an instant messaging app just for BlackBerry smartphone owners. BBM lets you communicate in real time with the people anywhere in the world who matter most with features like confirmation when message have been delivered and read, and the ability to send pictures, videos, voice notes, files and more unlimited for free.

Currently 10 mobile service providers – Aircel, Airtel, BSNL, Idea Cellular, Loop Mobile, MTNL, MTS, Reliance, Tata Docomo and Vodafone are providing BlackBerry Services.