Huawei

The heads of the FBI, CIA, NSA and three other US intelligence agencies have warned Americans not to buy Huawei smartphones, or indeed any other Huawei products and services.

The reason is somewhat ironic in view of the agency’s battle with Apple …

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IDC has predicted that Chinese brand Huawei will overtake Apple in global market share either this year or next.

Huawei is already nipping at Apple’s heels, with an 11.3% share against Apple’s 12% – and IDC believes that a new AI chipset could boost sales of the Chinese brand enough to take the iPhone maker’s current second place in the rankings …

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Huawei, the world’s 3rd largest smartphone maker, has shared some details about its newest smartphone chip, and the company says it will help its upcoming Mate 10 smartphone outperform Apple and Samsung devices.

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Apple managed to achieve a little year-on-year growth in iPhone sales in its most recent quarter, but market intelligence data from Strategy Analytics, Canalys and TrendForce show that the company looks set to be overtaken by Chinese brand Huawei …

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Apple’s record as the biggest target in the world for patent claims doesn’t look likely to change any time soon. The WSJ reports that two out of the three top rankings for the most international patent filings are Chinese companies: Huawei and ZTE.

Last year, Huawei, the world’s third-largest smartphone maker and the leader in the telecommunications-equipment market, was the largest filer of international patent applications under the Patent Cooperation Treaty, which makes it easier for companies to file patents in multiple countries […]

Patents are also playing a role in the harsher mobile landscape Apple and Samsung are navigating in China, where regulators increasingly insist that foreign companies play by Beijing’s rules.

We recently got a very stark view of what ‘Beijing’s rules’ means when it comes to patent battles …

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Apple isn’t the only smartphone manufacturer seeing falling sales. New figures from Strategy Analytics show what the global smartphone market saw its first-ever year-on-year drop on sales, down 3%.

Linda Sui, Director at Strategy Analytics, said, “Global smartphone shipments fell 3 percent annually from 345.0 million units in Q1 2015 to 334.6 million in Q1 2016. It is the first time ever since the modern smartphone market began in 1996 that global shipments have shrunk on an annualized basis. Smartphone growth is slowing due to increasing penetration maturity in major markets like China and consumer caution about the future of the world economy.”

Apple’s fall was of course far more dramatic, iPhone sales down 18% year-on-year, with CEO Tim Cook blaming economic ‘headwinds’ – and Strategy Analytics’ numbers show that strong competition from Chinese brands forms a large part of those …

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We learned this week that Apple shipped 74.8 million iPhones globally during the recent holiday quarter, which is just slightly up from the 74.4 million shipped during the same quarter the year prior and just under the 75 million that analysts expected.

Today Strategy Analytics has released new data showing how Apple’s last two years of shipments compare to competitors like Samsung and Huawei. The data also breaks down how Apple’s global smartphone marketshare stacks up to those same competitors.

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Two separate market share reports show that Apple increased its share of the global smartphone market year-on-year, with Samsung’s share declining. Strategy Analytics estimates that Apple grew its market share from 12.2% in Q3 2014 to 13.6% in Q3 2015, while Counterpoint has the numbers at 11.9% to 13.1% … 
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New data from Gartner suggests that iPhone sales grew 36% year-on-year, while Samsung’s sales fell 5.3% in the same period. Apple’s market share climbed from 12.2% in Q2 2014 to 14.6% in the same quarter this year. Other winners were Chinese brands Huawei and Xiaomi.

Gartner said that while overall smartphone growth was sluggish, Apple continued to dominate the premium end of the market, with other vendors struggling to compete.

Apple’s double-digit growth in the high-end segment continued to negatively impact its rivals’ premium phone sales and profit margins. Many vendors had to realign their portfolios to remain competitive in the midrange and low-end smartphone segments. This realignment resulted in price wars and discounting to clear up inventory for new devices planned for the second half of 2015 … 

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Apple has lost its top position in smartphone shipments in China, reports Canalys, falling from the #1 slot it achieved in Q4 of 2014 to #3 in Q2 of this year.

Canalys did not reveal Apple’s market share (a number it would like its clients to pay for), stating only that Xiaomi took the top slot with a 15.9% share, with Huawei close behind at 15.7%. A separate market size estimate from Counterpoint, with similar numbers, suggests that Apple’s market share in the country may have fallen to around 12.2% … 
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Apple’s iPad continues to lead the tablet market, according to new data from IDC, but its marketshare has dropped a few points year-over-year, and the overall market for tablets saw negative growth, based on units shipped globally. That’s according to second quarter 2015 unit shipments and marketshare over the same quarter a year ago, as Apple shipped 10.9 million units versus 13.3 million units during the second quarter of 2014. While the iPad continues to lead in the tablet space, IDC’s data shows Apple’s market share dropping nearly 3 points from 27.7% to 24.5% …
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IDC has just released its smartphone market share data for Q2 2015, and at least one thing is clear: Samsung is still struggling, and Apple is still doing really well. The Korean company’s smartphone market share dropped from 24.8% to 21.7% year-over-year, a 3.1 percentage point drop. Conveniently, while other manufacturers made gains as well, Apple’s numbers are up about the same number — 2.4 percentage points year-over-year to 14.1%…
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Data from Yahoo-owned analytics company Flurry shows that iPhones and iPads comprised more than half of all mobile device activations between 19th and 25th December, at 51.3% – almost three times as many as second-placed Samsung.

Apple accounted for 51% of the new device activations worldwide Flurry recognized in the week leading up to and including Christmas Day (December 19th – 25th). Samsung held the #2 position with 18% of new device activations, and Microsoft (Nokia) rounded out the top three with 5.8% share for mostly Lumia devices. After the top three manufacturers, the device market becomes increasingly fragmented with only Sony and LG commanding more than one percent share of new activations on Christmas Day.

The company notes that while Chinese companies Xiaomi, Huawei and HTC didn’t reach 1%, this reflects the fact that Christmas is not celebrated in their home market … 
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Huawei today unveiled its latest smartphone at an event in Beijing and naturally the company named the follow up to its previous generation Honor 6 device, the Honor 6 Plus. Creative.

Apart from the name there aren’t many other similarities between the Android-powered Honor 6 Plus and Apple’s iPhone 6 Plus. That is, however, other than the same size 5.5-inch display and the exact same color options (as pictured above). The previous generation Honor 6 sported a 5-inch display. 
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The latest court battle between Apple and Samsung begins today, with Samsung appealing against the $930M it was ordered to pay Apple for patent infringement in the first trial between the two companies. Samsung is arguing that the amount awarded was “excessive and unwarranted.”

It’s of course not the first time that the sum awarded has been disputed. Apple was initially awarded $1B in damages, with $450M of that later cut and a retrial required to determine a revised sum. The retrial awarded Apple $290M instead for that element of the case, giving Apple a revised total award of $930M … 
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Steve Jobs famously declared back in 2010 that Android was a stolen product, and he was willing to “go thermonuclear war” in order to “destroy” it.

“I will spend my last dying breath if I need to, and I will spend every penny of Apple’s $40 billion in the bank, to right this wrong,” Jobs said. “I’m going to destroy Android, because it’s a stolen product. I’m willing to go thermonuclear war on this.”

Back in April, I suggested three reasons it might be time for Apple to settle its Android disputes and move on. The relatively small damages award in the most recent case (and which now looks set to be further reduced) provided a fourth reason not long after I wrote that piece. But I think the case today is even more compelling … 
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Following releasing its second quarter data for tablet shipments worldwide, IDC today released its Q2 2014 report for smartphone shipments during the three month period that ended in June. The numbers line up with Apple’s fiscal Q3 earnings call that took place earlier this month where the company reported iPhone sales of 35.1 million units for the quarter. With 295.3 million units shipped total during Q2, and consumers anticipating a new iPhone this fall, IDC notes that both Samsung and Apple lost share to the smaller Chinese manufacturers:
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Apple has agreed to back a new initiative along with a host of Android manufacturers and all of the major U.S. cellular carriers that would require all smartphones manufactured after July 2015 to come with specific anti-theft features. The program is the latest attempt to prevent theft of smartphones, which some have blamed for increasing crime rates.

To this end, Apple introduced a first-of-its-kind system in iOS 7 that blocks freshly-restored iPhones from being used until the original owner logs in with the Apple ID associated with the device. Today’s agreement between the carriers and handset manufacturers essentially states that all parties will ship this exact type of system on new phones.

Specifically, the required anti-theft measures are broken into four kinds:

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