Samsung doubles Apple's smartphone market share as Nokia falters

Samsung scored 31.3 percent ownership in the third quarter. Apple could only muster 15 percent ownership.

 

Samsung and Apple are dominating the smartphone market, new data from research firm IDC has revealed.
During the third quarter, Samsung shipped 56.3 million smartphones worldwide, helping it to secure 31.3 percent ownership of that space. Just a year prior, Samsung shipped 28.1 million handsets and nabbed 22.7 percent market ownership.
Samsung's shipments last quarter were strong enough to double Apple's share, which hit 15 percent on 26.9 million unit shipments. Last year, Apple shipped 17.1 million smartphones and nabbed 13.8 percent of the market.
After Apple, there isn't much to write home about in IDC's findings. Research In Motion held on to the third spot in IDC's study with 4.3 percent market share, but that's down from 9.6 ownership last year. China-based ZTE made it on the list in fourth place, but the company could only muster 4.2 percent share. HTC rounded out the top five with 4 percent market share.

Perhaps the most notable finding from IDC's study is not what companies are in the top five, but which firm is not. According to IDC, Nokia, for the first time, has dropped off the top five list of smartphone vendors.
"Nokia's share losses have meant gains for competitors," Kevin Restivo, senior research analyst with IDC, said in a statement. "The company's transition away from Symbian-powered smartphones to ones shipped with Windows Phone has left ample opportunity for rivals to steal share away from Nokia over the past 18 months."
That said, Restivo cautioned that the smartphone market is "still relatively nascent, which means there's room for multiple vendors and operating systems to flourish, including Nokia."
IDC didn't say how many smartphones Nokia shipped, but the research firm did reveal that it shipped a total of 82.9 million mobile handsets last quarter, down 22 percent compared to the 106.5 million it shipped in the third quarter of 2011.
All told, 179.7 million smartphones shipped last quarter, representing a whopping 45 percent gain over the prior year. Total mobile handset shipments reached 444.5 million last quarter, up just 2.4 percent compared to the 434.1 million shipped in 2011.

Apple turns U.K. legal loss into new Samsung attack

The company maker turns a legal requirement to publicly acknowledge defeat in its U.K. High Court patent case against Samsung into a new chance to say Samsung copied the iPad.

A week after Apple lost an appeal at the U.K. High Court, the iPhone and iPad maker has followed the court's requirement to publish a notice its U.K. home page stating the court's finding that Samsung didn't infringe its patents.

But not in a way that shows any contrition. Instead, Apple used the notice as a new opportunity to make its case against its tablet rival.

On October 18, a U.K. High Court appeals judge ruled that Samsung did not infringe Apple's design patents in the U.K., after an earlier ruling by Judge Colin Birss claiming that Samsung tablets weren't as "cool" as the iPad.

As a result, Birss originally ruled that Apple must run notices on its U.K. Web site and in a number of U.K. printed publications stating that Samsung did not infringe Apple's patents and therefore did not break U.K. law.
The court ruled that the notice must stay on Apple's site for one month.
Apple applied for a stay on the ruling, which it was granted, but lost the appeal last week.
Thus, Apple duly changed its U.K. home page this morning, adding a small link at the bottom of the page with the title "Samsung/Apple UK judgment."
In the statement, Apple turned what Apple's lawyer called an "advertisement" for Samsung's win into an opportunity to toot its own horn. In it, Apple quoted Birss' conclusion (PDF) that its products are "cool" and the Samsung Galaxy tablets are less so.
The final two paragraphs of the statement are most telling.
In them, Apple said that a case in Germany regarding the same patent found Samsung was "copying" the iPad design. Ditto for the U.S, where Apple was awarded more than $1 billion in damages. Comparing the U.K. case to others around the world, Apple concluded, "Samsung willfully copied Apple's far more popular iPad."
The full text of Apple's message reads as follows:

Samsung / Apple UK judgment
On 9th July 2012 the High Court of Justice of England and Wales ruled that Samsung Electronic (UK) Limited's Galaxy Tablet Computer, namely the Galaxy Tab 10.1, Tab 8.9 and Tab 7.7 do not infringe Apple's registered design No. 0000181607-0001. A copy of the full judgment of the High court is available on the following link www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Patents/2012/1882.html.
In the ruling, the judge made several important points comparing the designs of the Apple and Samsung products:
"The extreme simplicity of the Apple design is striking. Overall it has undecorated flat surfaces with a plate of glass on the front all the way out to a very thin rim and a blank back. There is a crisp edge around the rim and a combination of curves, both at the corners and the sides. The design looks like an object the informed user would want to pick up and hold. It is an understated, smooth and simple product. It is a cool design."
"The informed user's overall impression of each of the Samsung Galaxy Tablets is the following. From the front they belong to the family which includes the Apple design; but the Samsung products are very thin, almost insubstantial members of that family with unusual details on the back. They do not have the same understated and extreme simplicity which is possessed by the Apple design. They are not as cool."
That Judgment has effect throughout the European Union and was upheld by the Court of Appeal on 18 October 2012. A copy of the Court of Appeal’s judgment is available on the following link www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2012/1339.html. There is no injunction in respect of the registered design in force anywhere in Europe.
However, in a case tried in Germany regarding the same patent, the court found that Samsung engaged in unfair competition by copying the iPad design. A U.S. jury also found Samsung guilty of infringing on Apple's design and utility patents, awarding over one billion U.S. dollars in damages to Apple Inc. So while the U.K. court did not find Samsung guilty of infringement, other courts have recognized that in the course of creating its Galaxy tablet, Samsung willfully copied Apple's far more popular iPad.

Apple wins preliminary ruling from U.S. ITC that Samsung violates 4 design and touch patents

And we're back to the famous never-ending Apple vs Samsung patent war, they both are suing each other for almost anything and everything. Anyway Apple has won a preliminary ruling against Samsung in an ITC case that had begun last year. The ruling states that Samsung has violated four Apple patents related to iPhone design and touch screen technology, including a patent co-invented by Steve Jobs.

The ruling was passed by US International Trade Commission Judge Thomas Pender. This is just a preliminary ruling until it can be reviewed by the full commission. If it is upheld  the ITC has the power to stop infringing Samsung products from being imported into the US. This is part of a counter-suit that Apple filed with the ITC after Samsung issued one vs. Apple in July of 2011.

Apple’s motion for injunction set forth its position that Samsung had ‘slavishly’ copied the design of the iPhone and iPad in the creation of the Galaxy Tab, Infuse 4G and other products.
Samsung believes that “There is no legal basis for [the motion for injunction] by Apple. We will continue to serve our customers and sales of Samsung products will proceed as usual.” Adam Yates, Director of Corporate Communications for Samsung North America told us last year, “Samsung will continue to actively defend and protect our intellectual property to ensure our continued innovation and growth in the mobile communication business.”

Samsung’s initial claim against Apple was ruled against preliminarily in September. Here are the US patents in question in that counter-claim: #7,706,348, #7,486,644, #6,771,980 and  #7,450,114.
Samsung, of course, suffered a fairly major blow this summer when jury ruled almost entirely in its favor in an infringement trial in the U.S. courts.

Yahoo cuts 200 jobs as a result of shutting down its Korean business

Reuters is reporting that Yahoo will be eliminating 200 jobs today as a result of plans the search engine had to make because it has closed down its Korean business. Shares for the company are down 0.72% to $16.55 as of now.

Just last week, the company announced that it was officially shuttering its business in South Korea in an effort to restructure itself. Yahoo’s CEO Marissa Mayer said at the time, “This decision is part of our efforts to streamline operations and focus our resources on building a stronger global business that’s set up for long-term growth and success.”

Currently, Yahoo is Korea’s ninth-most visited website, according to web-ranking firm Alexa, but lags other search engines like Google and Baidu. This move is probably not that surprising given that Yahoo said it was going to end its operations in the country. However, Yahoo still believes it has a future in the rest of the region and doesn’t have plans to end business elsewhere.

While Yahoo claims that they’re not getting out of Asia, it has been making some moves to sell of shares in its Asian investments — earlier this year, the company sold part of its stake in Alibaba, then it announced it would shut down its Indonesian check-in service Koprol, and it might even be selling its share of Yahoo! Japan. Looks like these efforts are all part of Mayer’s restructuring plan to bring Yahoo back to its once vibrant self again.

Google's Nexus 7 is inching its way into Web-traffic stats

The Nexus 7, center, is starting to register as a source of web traffic -- but Android tablets still trail the iPad. 

In the first three months since it was introduced, Google's Nexus 7 tablet has begun making a dent in web traffic, according to new data.
Compared to the iPad, which accounted for 91 percent of all tablet traffic in the latest Chitika tablet market share report, the Nexus 7 is just a blip. But Google has to start somewhere, and so it may be heartened to see that the tablet's share of traffic jumped 135 percent from July.

Of course, it was basically starting from zero, and still represents only 0.33 percent of Web traffic. The heaviest hitter among Android tablets -- which, again, is not all that heavy -- is Samsung, whose Galaxy Tab pulls in about 2.5 percent of tablet web traffic. Chitika reports that combined traffic from Samsung's 7- and 10-inch tablets is double that of any other Android tablet.

Still, it's remarkable the degree to which the iPad accounts for tablet web traffic. "In order to make the graph readable, we had to measure other tablets on a 'per 100 iPad impressions' scale," a spokesman told us. Two and a half years after the iPad's debut, Web surfing on Android tablets still barely registers.