SmartPhones Tablets

How Mediatek enhanced SmartPhone & Tablet Processors Optimally ?

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Mediatek Processor RoadmapMediaTek, the fabless Semiconductor innovator has accelerated its development cycle relative to feature phones to remain competitive with global competitors Qualcomm, Broadcom and Marvell and stay ahead of emerging Chinese competitors RDA and Spreadtrum. They are launching chipsets through 2013 and 2014 for entry, mainstream, premium and tablet segments for emerging markets to offer a broad product line spanning sub-US$50 smartphones to more advanced US$200-300 tier-one like smartphones.

Lower Cost Chipsets for SmartPhones
MediaTek launched 2nd generation dual- (MT6572/MT6572M) and quad-core chipsets (6589M/6582M) in late 2Q13 to optimise cost structure of its mainstream products. The new products

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Impact of Google’s Moto X Android Mobile on Apple iPhone / Samsung Galaxy

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Moto X SmartPhone - Impact on Apple and SamsungGoogle launched announce its first jointly developed smartphone with Motorola, the Moto X. Given Motorola management’s recent comments regarding a gap in the market between low-priced feature phones and high-end smartphones, we believe Google’s strategy could have two notable implications: (1) the Moto X could launch with an aggressive gross margin profile where, in-synch with the Nexus 7 strategy, they seek to sell the phone at a breakeven gross margin, which could help Google take share, or (2) Google could launch Moto X with a margin profile comparable with competitors’ offerings currently but potentially take steps to drive industry margins down over time.

Potential impact on Apple with the launch of Moto X
Looking beyond the initial Moto X launch, Apple’s powerful platform-centric strategy and its significant installed base loyalty, part of Apple’s competitive edge has come

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Samsung SmartPhone & Memory Business Still Looking Up

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Samsung Mobile and Memory Business GrowsSamsung Mobile, the leader in Android based SmartPhones continues to ride high differentiation options despite device exhaustion. Despite market concerns of commoditization / standardization (drastic margin erosion) of the high-end smartphone segment amid saturation, Samsung is confident that it can sustain high-end leadership with leading-edge in-house components (unbreakable flexible display, advanced mobile AP along with mobile memory solution).

Samsung believes economies of scale will work for cost leadership even in the mid- to low-end segment. We expect Samsung will monetize fast smartphone growth, leveraging on its well-established distribution channel in its existing feature phone business and

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WeChat Monetization – A Step Closer to Reality

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WEChat - Monetization RealityTencent, the Chinese Internet Giant released the latest version of Weixin (WeChat) on iOS platform on August 5, offering new monetizable features like a game center, sticker shop, mobile payments and bar code scanning for e-commerce transactions.

Tencent has only put one Candy Crushlike mobile puzzle game, Tian Tian Ai Xiao Chu (TTAXC), on Weixin’s game center. By clicking the link, gamers are taken to Apple’s App Store for download. Within 12 hours of its debut, TTAXC was ranked no. 1 in Apple’s iOS free app ranking for China. We believe this is due to its social features, including score sharing, ranking and invitation, among gamers’ Weixin or QQ friend circles. TTAXC adopts a free-to-play item-based model, where gamers can purchase virtual items or additional game time through Apple’s payment channel.

Tencent will soon launch several mobile games on its Weixin game center overseas, including Fruit Ninja and Temple Run 2. In our view, the strong debut of TTAXC bodes well for

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SlowDown at the Top End of SmartPhone – iPhone / Galaxy

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Slowdown at Top End of SmartPhone SpectrumIn the past three years, high-end smartphone has been one of the biggest growth drivers for the semiconductor industry given robust unit growth and substantial semi content increase. However, a perceived lack of innovation (e.g. iPhone 5, Galaxy S4) and delays in purchases have resulted in a sharp slowdown of high-end smartphone demand in 2013. Both iPhone 5 and GS4 turned out to be major disappointments. Given Apple and Samsung together account for more than 3/4th of the total high-end smartphone market, it’s a clear sign that high-end demand is slowing down.

The biggest culprit is apparently Apple, as we expect Apple’s high-end smartphone shipments to decline Y/Y in 2013 (we defined Apple’s high-end model as all the iPhones except for iPhone 4, but we do

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Which Component Makers Benefit the Most from SmartPhone Boom ?

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Component Makers benefit from SmartPhone BoomWe believe smartphone makers cannot compromise on the display, processor and memory for high-end smartphones as they are critical components that affect user experience. There is also a limited supplier base for these components and tight supply issues (memory), which would make it difficult for smartphone makers to exert pricing pressure on these critical components.

Display makers and lens module makers set to benefit
The key to hardware upgrades will likely be the display, as a direct user interface, followed by camera. We expect the smartphone screen resolution to move up from HD (1280×720) in 2012 to FHD (1920×1080) in 2013 and QHD (2560×1440) in 2014. The larger and higher resolution display comes at a higher cost, as does

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DRAM demand driven by smartphones, tablets and ultramobiles

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SmartPhones Driving DRAM Demand GloballyWith almost no growth in DRAM wafer capacity, and slowed technology migration, we believe DRAM supply bit growth will hover around 20% in 2013 and move up to 28% in 2014.

DRAM demand from traditional PCs to decline in 2013-2015, due to PC unit decline and low DRAM content growth (5% per year). However, we believe the fast growing tablets and ultramobiles (PCtablet hybrids) will more than make up for the PC DRAM demand decline. High-end tablets and ultramobiles use mobile DRAM, but we expect the mid- to low-end segment to use PC DRAM instead on cost concerns.

We expect smartphones to consume more DRAM than PCs in 2014. Not only is their unit growth fast (40% in 2013E and 26% in 2014E), but their

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HTC Caught on Wrong Foot as SmartPhne Market Shifts Focus to Low / Mid End Phones

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HTC Mobile OneHTC is caught on the wrong foot due to the decelerating growth of the high-end smartphone market and HTC’s weak position in the mid-low-end market. HTC is still facing structural challenges from smartphone demand polarization and commodization. Competition could be more intense when high-end makers put more emphasis on mid/low-end products, and low-end makers seek for product upgrades.

HTC’s over-concentration on the new One model (other models are weaker than expected in terms of shipments) could cause high earnings risk for HTC. Now we believe that the risk could come earlier than expected as – high-end smartphone growth is decelerating recently, which will put HTC in a weak position as its product mix highly

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Sale of eBooks Growth Declining on Amazon

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As the e-book industry matures and users amass progressively larger content libraries, generating incremental e-book sales may become increasingly difficult. When the Amazon Kindle was introduced in 2007 and customers began building digital content libraries, the product had a relatively high attach rate, in our view. Now that the Kindle has been in the market for over 5 years, we believe the attach rate has declined. This is especially true as a larger proportion of Kindle sales are “upgrade-sales”, in which case, the customer already owns an existing content library. Data from BookStats shows that e-book revenue has decelerated every year for the past 4 years.

According to The Digital Reader, 76% of public

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Samsung Pushing Galaxy Mega 5.8 Flopped Mobile in India with Reliance 3G Freebies

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samsung galaxy mega-5-8 IndiaFlopped and Outdated SmartPhone – Samsung Galaxy Mega 5.8 is being pushed in India by offering 3G freebies from Reliance Communications. Samsung Galaxy Mega is a Dual Core Phone with features similar to galaxy Grand but Priced a whopping Rs 5,000 higher. Angry Indian Consumers have given a thumbs down to Samsung Mega with just 2.4/5.0 on the rating scale.

Samsung Executives went ahead and have struck a deal with Reliance Communications by offering a cut on the handset and the Telco has to rollout the following benefits in return so that Samsung can sell-off all its handsets

2GB of 3G data for 3 Months [Worth Rs 1,200]
Unlimited movies for 3 Months from BigFlix [Data Usage not to be Counted] [Worth Rs 747]
Unlimited Whatspp, Twitter and

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