'Telecommunications' Archive
News item: Apple and AT&T sold more than 1 million new iPhones in the first weekend of availability for the iPhone 3GS.
Yes, if it’s midyear, there must be a new iPhone model to drive Apple fans crazy and make them rush to hand over their cash for the latest gadget (priced at $199 or $299, depending on memory capacity). This being the third straight year of the iPhone phenomenon, the iPhone 3GS rush wasn’t as frenzied as those seen in the past two years. Standing in line for a week? That’s so 2007.
Just as the iPhone craze is settling down, the popular wireless handset is getting some serious competition, as the smartphone market defies the downturn in consumer electronics sales.
In the past two years, Apple sold more than 21 million iPhones. Throw in the iPod touch, which does nearly everything the iPhone does except make calls, and Apple’s moved 37 million mobile devices.
Every other manufacturer of wireless handsets says they have an “iPhone killer,” yet the iPhone shows no signs of becoming a zombie product. It’s more fitting to discuss iPhone challengers, as not everyone can afford an iPhone, and not everyone wants one.
The hot new challenger is the Pre smartphone made by Palm, exclusively available from Sprint. It’s about $200, so it’s comparably priced with the lower-end iPhone 3GS.
Apple’s strongest competitor in the smartphone segment remains Research In Motion with its BlackBerry models. The BlackBerry Storm is the latest and greatest in the line; it’s selling for about $150.
The G1, the “Google phone,” is a strong seller for T-Mobile. Made by HTC and running Google’s Android mobile device software, the G1 is the vanguard of Android-based products and also is priced at $150. T-Mobile is about to launch its second Google phone made by HTC, called the myTouch, which will sell for $199 (that seems to be a popular pricepoint in this market!).
Nokia, the world’s largest maker of wireless handsets, isn’t ceding the smartphone market to Apple and RIM, rolling out its N97 touchscreen phone this month. It’s priced around $699, making it the most expensive model out there at the moment.
What makes or breaks a new smartphone are the applications available, and Apple’s still the champ there. The App Store has more than 50,000 software programs for the iPhone and iPod touch, many of them free, and the total apps available seems to grow exponentially for the Apple mobile devices.
There were an estimated 139 million smartphones sold in 2008, despite a raging recession around the world, and market researchers see that number doubling in 2010 as more people regard the gadgets as not just convenient but necessary for keeping up with e-mail, surfing the Web, finding restaurants and other businesses, and so many other chores. Plus chatting on the phone, of course.
Today’s the last day of analog television. Forever. By 12 a.m tomorrow morning, all broadcasters must shut down their analog transmitters as the US finally - FINALLY - completes the long awaited shift to all-digital TV signals.
Those who don’t have a digital television or did not buy a converter box for their analog sets, well, you’ll be watching the programming of characters in a David Lynch movie.
This switch was delayed as often as Guns N’ Roses’ Chinese Democracy, so it’s only fitting that both finally occur within months of each other. I, for one, will not miss the endless news stories about the switch, what a pain it is, how it’s unfair to certain people. Blah, blah, blah. Ultimately, progress must be made. Analog is no longer viable and that bandwidth is better served elsewhere, such as all the emergency response agencies that badly need it.
Hell, even The Analog Kid became the Digital Man on Rush’s Signals album, and that came out in 1982. (Further proof that the greatest rock band ever has always been ahead of its time.)
But still, it’ll be sad to see all those analog TVs stacking up in landfills. I did grow up with the things. Struggling with rabbit ears. Strategically draping it in aluminum foil for when Daisy Duke wasn’t coming in quite clear enough. Actually getting up and walking to the TV to change the channel. Knowing the difference between UHF and VHF.
It is the end of an era. Rest in peace, analog.
The Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) Friday released its mid-year forecast. We’ve gone way beyond “glass half full or half empty” assessments of industry conditions. It’s more like, “Is there still a glass? May we have some water?”
The industry trade group predicts worldwide semiconductor sales will hit $195.6 billion in 2009, a drop of more than 21% from 2008. The industry hasn’t seen sales this low since 2004, when chip companies were finally climbing out of the dot-com/telecom bust.
Semiconductor sales are chiefly driven by computers, mobile devices (cell phones and such), and other consumer electronics. Sales of those products are severely depressed by the global recession, although there are some bright spots, especially in netbooks, smartbooks, or whatever you want to call these small computers that can access the Internet.
To a lesser extent, microchips go into automotive electronics, industrial/military products, and wireline communications. We all know how badly the automotive industry is doing, so there’s not much hope there.
The SIA now is forecasting that semiconductor sales will rebound next year, growing 6.5% in 2010 and another 6.5% the following year. Still, that would bring worldwide sales to nearly $222 billion in 2011, or about where they were in 2005. (Industry sales peaked in 2007, at around $250 billion, per the SIA’s statistics.)
In short: Conditions seem to be at or near the bottom for the semiconductor industry. Growth is on the horizon, but it’s going to be a long climb back to previous prosperity. Unless there’s a big boom in sales next year! That just may happen.
Worldwide sales of semiconductors fell dramatically in December, traditionally a strong month that usually caps the best quarter of the year for the industry, the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) reported today.
As a result of the December decline (down 22% from the same month in 2007), the SIA adjusted its final sales figure for 2008 to show a 2.8% fall from the prior year, to $248.6 billion from 2007’s $255.6 billion.
If that 2008 figure holds up on final analysis, that means the semiconductor industry failed to grow sales for the first time since 2001, when the industry began a prolonged downturn that went on until 2003, due to the dot-com/telecom bust.
Just a few months ago, the SIA forecast worldwide sales would reach $261.2 billion in 2008, a 2.2% gain over 2007. That was before the December numbers came in. The association previously forecast that 2009 sales would be $246.7 billion. That number may now be on the optimistic upside of industry forecasts.
The SIA blamed weakening demand for chips going into automotive products, cell phones, corporate IT products, and PCs for the disastrous December figures. Many chip makers, such as Freescale Semiconductor, are considering bigger job cuts for 2009 than previously disclosed, while Intel and Texas Instruments already are dismissing thousands of workers.
“This is the way the world ends,” wrote T. S. Eliot in The Hollow Men. “Not with a bang but a whimper.”
Lost in this week’s blizzard of bad news — layoffs, pay cuts, multibillion-dollar losses — from US companies (which was accompanied by severe winter weather over much of the country) was the report that two long-time suitors came together and got engaged.
Two companies in the optical components business, Avanex and Bookham, announced Tuesday that they’re getting hitched. The stock-swap transaction values Avanex at about $35 million, and that’s for a company with annual sales of $208 million. Yes, folks, that’s right; a marginally profitable venture is getting knocked down for around 17% of sales. What is this, Circuit City? Everything must go! All sales final!
Bookham is a little bigger than Avanex ($235 million in annual sales), and it has the distinction of never having made a profit. It’s lost more than $1 billion in its 20-year history. (Avanex turned profitable in fiscal 2008 after years in the red.)
The backstory for this marriage-on-the-cheap is that these are two companies that never really recovered from the dot-com/telecom bust. Why are two loss-ridden companies merging? For the same excuse your kids use when they get caught in mischief: “Everyone else is doing it!”
Yes, there is rampant consolidation in the optical components business. Oplink Communications acquired Optical Communication Products in 2007, Finisar bought Optium last year, and Opnext (the Hitachi spin-off) just snapped up StrataLight Communications. Other vendors will need to make their moves this year if they don’t want to get left behind.
Avanex and Bookham actually were slightly ahead of the trend; they seriously discussed a merger in 2006, without reaching a deal.
The merged company will get a new name, perhaps to expunge the stain of accumulated deficits. Shareholders of Bookham will own about 53% of the combined venture, so maybe they’ll change the company’s name to Booknex. Or Avaham.
Avanex and Bookham expect closing of the merger to take three to six months. I can’t see US business regulators throwing any roadblocks in the way of this deal. I’m sure the antitrust attorneys at the FTC and the Justice Department will only say, “What took you so long?”