Bloodbath Q2: Sony results, NEC news, Apple and Samsung surprise

Quick notes on Q2 smartphone stuff. Sony reports Q2 quarter, smartphones (which all run Android, and Sony has completed its transition from dumbphones to smartphones) generated strong profits, grew unit sales 19% to 9.6 Million. I get prelim market share for Sony at 4.1%. Very good performance.

While one Japanese electronics giant sees mobile handset business profits in smartphones, another makes a peculiar announcement - NEC quits its smartphone business - but continues with dumbphones (??) and tablets. Note, Japanese dumbphones are more capable than most non-Japanese mid-range smartphones, so these are not really dumb, dumbphones, but its an interesting development in Japan. All while we expect Nikon to enter the smartphone space in the next year or so, and HP returning to smartphones after prematurely departing the industry under the previous CEO and even Nintendo whispering that it might consider a gaming phone haha..

And then the surprising news. Latest consumer survey from the USA, an annual satisfaction survey of 6,000 US mobile phone owners by ACSI found that for the first time since they measured, the iPhone is no longer the phone with the highest satisfaction. Who took Apple's pie? Sammy the Samsung cat snatched it.. Ouch! Yes, the difference is only 2 points on a 100 point scale, but its still a first over at Apple-landia, and that really hurts. It was not supposed to be possible that the Koreans could somehow create hardware with better user satisfaction than the gods of hardware design at Apple.

Congrats Samsung, yet another astonishing feat, in a path where Samsung has just doggedly pursued mobile excellence. Balli-balli, they just move faster than anyone else. (So are you seriously still betting against Tizen, from this powerhouse company? We should get to see the first launch Tizen phone soon, maybe next month or so, and sold by end of year) 

Ok, we have the industry stats from Strategy Analytics and from IDC, I am still awaiting the smartphone Q2 total market count from the other 2 of the big 4, ie Canalys and Gartner, when we get those, I can do the full analysis of the Q2 results. Most of the relevant data points are now in that we expected to get...  

Comments

[Interested to know]

Good to see Sony making some progress in smartphones. Maybe they can even do a decent Playstation lineup of phones rather than their last dreadful attempt.

[AndThisWillBeToo]

Interestingly no BB10, MeeGo or WP phones in the satisfaction survey results.

[khim]

@Tomi T Ahonen: So are you seriously still betting against Tizen, from this powerhouse company?

Oh, yeah. Sure. Samsung is GREAT mimic: it picks ideas from others, add it's own small touches and eventually beats other companies in their own game.

But when it tries to invent something totally new from scratch... it's series of failures, plain and simple. From SPC-1000 to Bada, from YP-M1 to Galaxy Camera... it's failures after failures.

Only when someone else develops something working Samsung can pick it up, apply series of small improvements and produce something to top "user satisfaction" charts.

No, really, what kind of Samsung-INVENTED product can you name which became household item? Samsung-IMPROVED - sure, there are plenty. Samsung-INVENTED? That's not in the cards. It's structure makes it basically impossible.

[Tomi T Ahonen]

Haha khim..

So you actually just proved my point. I am not claiming Tizen is developed from scratch. It is the evolution of the Intel-Nokia collaboration project on Linux called MeeGo, which Nokia abandoned and Samsung wisely picked up. Now they do, exactly like you said 'pick it up, apply series of small improvements and produce something to top the user satisfaction charts.' - yes, my point exactly. Tizen in its previous form (MeeGo) was ALREADY an iPhone-beater by side-by-side user tests (on everything except app store selection). Now Samsung improves on that winner. I think its a safe bet that Tizen will do ok in the bloodbath battles, especially with several handset makers and several giant carriers already committed to it, led by the most innovative company in mobile - NTT DoCoMo the incumbent of Japan.

Yeah. You totally proved my point on Tizen, khim. Thanks!

Tomi Ahonen :-)

[khim]

You can as well claim that iOS (or MacOS) is just a BSD Unix with a few fancy buttons added on top.

Yes, Tizen uses components from LiMo/MeeGo/whatever, but it's completely new development that uses UI components and API from Bada, previous Samsung Linux platforms, etc. IOW: it's ugly Frankenstein which have no chances at all - it falls apart under it's own weight already. I think it'll be even less successful then Bada.

BTW if by "previous form" you mean your beloved N9 then sorry to disappoint you, but THIS thing had proprietary UI developed in Nokia and THAT part is dead and buried. Sure, underlying libraries were left behind and they are partially reused in Tizen, but developer's API and user interface are all-new, so it's not "Samsung improves on that winner" but "Samsung tries to create yet-another-new platform". And Samsung NEVER managed to do that. Adopt and extent - yes (committees are good at that), develop - no (you actually need few guys with vision, good taste and authority to do that).

The fact that this thing is "developed by committee" (everything developed by Samsung is developed by committee, really, but as you've correctly pointed out this time it's even worse because in addition to Samsung's bureaucracy there are some other large companies involved) GUARANTEES that end result will suck.

As for "the most innovative company in mobile"... don't make me laugh: NTT DoCoMo was big Symbian supporter - and where is Symbian now?

[R]

@John Phamlore, I don't see why you keep posting that article as proof that Intel wanted to sabotage MeeGo. When I heard that Intel was involved, then I expected all along that they were planning on having phones running x86 processors. (And I thought it was probably a mistake for Nokia, to join the Maemo project that was near completion to the LiMo project that never produced a product.)

Intel is a really big company. That article just covers a skunkworks team within Intel that managed to make Android phones with Intel processors. A company the size of Intel can afford to try several different approaches.

The current Intel Core series was also originally developed from another skunkworks team, in Israel. They developed the Pentium M, while the rest of the company was working on the Pentium 4. Intel is rich enough that they don't have to put all their eggs in one basket.

[Lars]

hello khim.. interesting comment - at least I'm laughing..

It was DoCoMo (and partners) who built 3G and still own significant 'essential' patents which connect Billions of handsets to networks around the world. Also the same folks who provided specs adopted by ITU for LTE.. just sayin. To your point about Symbian; indeed, and it's been a long time since they shipped one of those - meanwhile, note DCM (and partners) were key founders of Open Handset Alliance (OHA = Good Morning in Japanese), suggest a quick Wiki surf on what that crew helped build.. hint: little green bots were involved. As for potential of Tizen, consider above and lets chat here again in a few years.. 8-)

[R]

Yeah, khim is right about the MeeGo UI. The UI and some of the libraries were proprietary to Nokia. I thought that was one of the reasons why Symbian never developed a cross-vendor ecosystem: because Nokia had a habit of making their own, multiple, incompatible UIs. At least with MeeGo, the basic Qt library is open, because it was already open when Nokia bought it.

Samsung isn't using Qt. Samsung invested in Enlightenment Foundation Libraries (EFL), which doesn't depend on hardware acceleration for compositing, and they're making their own UI, which they've historically been pretty bad at doing.

EFL wasn't invented by Samsung, so it's also a decent toolkit, but I'm not so sure about the choice to code it in C. C is a painfully low-level language. Qt was written in C++ with Qt-specific language extensions on top, which is one reason why Qt is relatively easy to use. Nokia extensively funded the Qt Declarative framework, which makes Qt even easier to use, and is how a small team at Nokia was able to produce an award-winning UI in the chaos after Elop scuttled the boat. I'm not aware of any similar ease of use in EFL.

But I'm not nearly as pessimistic as khim. I think it's possible that Samsung has something that could succeed in Tizen. Let's wait and see what comes out; it's not my money being wasted.

[John Phamlore]

Meanwhile the really interesting rumor about Samsung and Apple goes completely unreported on this forum.

The online tech press had been reporting for months that Apple had signed up to switch to using TSMC and even that Apple was contemplating purchasing their own fab. (The thought of Apple trying to purchase their own fab is of course completely preposterous.)

And then suddenly The Korea Economic Daily reported that Apple and Samsung had agreed on Samsung supplying Apple at 14nm starting in 2015.

http://english.hankyung.com/news/apps/news.view?c1=&newscate=1&nkey=201307150718011

And from nowhere the news came Bob Mansfield left Apple's executive council.

Apple and Samsung patching things up is THE true story of this time, because the two together will be able to finance Samsung's keeping up with the latest fab technology. Intel's strategy of forcing out its competitors and forcing itself into mobile devices will not succeed.

And that's the sad thing for this forum. The scoop was right there waiting to be had for anyone with real connections to where things are happening in Asia.

Similarly Europe is going to try to catch up in the transition to 450mm wafers, but everyone else is forming their own consortium around the world to share in the stupendous cost of the transition. Note one major player mentioned: Samsung.

http://semimd.com/blog/2013/06/20/consortium-mania-sweeps-450mm-landscape/

Intel may or may not be first to 450mm and/or 7 nm, but they are not going to be about to knockout Samsung or TSMC simply by financial muscle alone. Actually according to the above article "Intel, Samsung and TSMC recently invested a huge sum in ASML Holding in an effort to accelerate ASML’s efforts in 450mm and extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography." It is ASML's skill and technology that actually determines what the fab industry can do, not Intel.

TSMC has had enough problems each technology change keeping its partners such as Nvidia and Qualcomm adequately supplied. It really is for the best that Apple and Samsung retain their relationship with Samsung being Apple's fab so that the two can dominate the handset industry together.

[John Phamlore]

@R,

Indeed, as I have been arguing for years, there was never any real reason Nokia could give why it was pursuing alliances with Intel during the 2000s. One has to ask why Nokia ever allied with Intel when there was no indication that Intel was going to allow Nokia to use its fabs, and Intel's processors only now are possibly becoming a possible choice for smartphones.

And why is Tizen being talked about, when isn't Sailfish / Jolla the true heir to Meego? Last I read despite claims there is support for Qualcomm chips, Sailfish / Jolla's first phone is supposed to run on an ST-Ericsson platform.

[Spawn]

@R

> The UI and some of the libraries were proprietary to Nokia

mlibs, the UI framework, and all the other parts including Meego QML components are opensource and at github. What you probably mean is design on top like artwork. Those arn't free in for example Firefox either. Its essential the brand and in todays world you need to protect your brand. Mozilla does with Firefox, Linus with Linux and Nokia did with N9. So?

> Samsung invested in Enlightenment Foundation Libraries (EFL)

EFL is not Tizen API. Its not one of the two official API's Tizen has and its unrelated to the Tizen C++ API. Just like Qt and Gtk its only a supported 3th party addon for IVI.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tizen

"Applications based on Qt, GTK+ and EFL frameworks can run on Tizen IVI.[8] While there is no official support for these third-party frameworks, according to the explanation on the Tizen SDK web site[9]"

> they're making their own UI, which they've historically been pretty bad at doing.

Yeah, that's why there own Android UI Touchwiz is historically leading to such bad sales :-)

[Spawn]

@John Phamlore

> One has to ask why Nokia ever allied with Intel when there was no indication that Intel was going to allow Nokia to use its fabs

Cause Intel and Nokia where both investing into two times the same? Intel Moblin and Nokia Maemo, they joined forces and two became one, Meego. Because Intel and Nokia did otherwise not compete with each other it was a logical decision to join forces. Together stronger, etc.

[khim]

@Spawn: Because Intel and Nokia did otherwise not compete with each other it was a logical decision to join forces.

Really? I guess they have never seen RFC1925. Specifically item (5):

It is always possible to aglutenate multiple separate problems into a single complex interdependent solution. In most cases this is a bad idea.

Perhaps their attention timespan was too short to actually read TWO sentences?

@Spawn: Yeah, that's why there own Android UI Touchwiz is historically leading to such bad sales :-)

You mean they created their own Touchwiz UI which is not just adding few bells and whistles but actually changes UI fundamentally? Wow. You obviously come from some alternate universe. How can I travel there? This is MUCH more interesting topic then discussions about our reality! Imagine the possibilities!

[Sander van der Wal]

Excellent, making ltedictions. Here's mine. Tizen isn't going anywhere.

There is no ecosystem to speak of. And the reason is that nobody believes that Samsung is going to do anything with Tizen. So, if Samsung is going to do anything with Tizen, then they won't have any apps worth buying for Tizen. So nobody buys Tizen phones.

That will change if Tizen becomes very succesful, and if Samsung puts its full weight behind it that might happen. Just like Microsoft putting its full weight behind Windows Phone might result in Windows Phone becoming a significand third ecosystem.

But if Samsung puts its full weight behind Tizen, it will loose its Android market to the competition. Which means that there wil be no weight to put behind Tizen.

Therefore Tizen will not happen.

[R]

@Spawn,

No, what I meant but didn't have the motivation to check whether it was technically right, was stuff like the address book.

Also, stuff like artwork is not trivial. You need good artwork if you want a complete, usable system. Susan Kare is not a minor celebrity for nothing.

I see that Tizen has some C++ framework for native app development. (https://developer.tizen.org/help/index.jsp) However, it was built using EFL. (https://www.tizen.org/events/presentations/tizen-native-display-layer-efl-architecture-and-usage)

[R]

Oh yeah, it was Intel Moblin. So hard to keep all those failed projects straight.

Intel and Nokia were both working on getting Linux to work well on low-power devices. It made sense to the managers to combine them into a single project. I thought it was a bad idea because Moblin was based on Red Hat Linux and Maemo was based on Debian Linux, and MeeGo was going to be based on Moblin instead of Maemo. So, for Nokia, it meant they would go through a lot of time and effort changing things to the Red Hat conventions, and at the same time development would be slowed by the increased need for collaboration. When the Elopocalypse happened, they skipped the Red Hat port and actually shipped something.

@khim, There's no reason to be so pessimistic. The initial TouchWiz was just a launcher with its own widgets. The latest TouchWiz is a giant monstrosity with its own gesture and facial recognition, and I don't know what else. Samsung isn't very good at software development, but that's what we said about Microsoft back in the day. A whole lot of money covers a multitude of stumbles.

[John Phamlore]

Here's a list of members of the Tizen Association:

https://www.tizenassociation.org/members/

Now if people had just been paying attention to what I have been saying for years, a lot of these names would look familiar and would be expected? What's the connection between these companies and why is one company not on the list? It's simple to anyone who knows computer history.

Tizen appears to be the OSF of the 2010s. As in the joke that OSF meant "Oppose Sun Forever" back when everyone in the Unix world was afraid Sun was going to establish a hegemony. They should call Tizen OQF because its membership list appears to be a who's who of "Oppose Qualcomm Forever."

Here's an easy example explaining the names:

http://www.engadget.com/2012/08/01/ntt-fujitsu-nec-new-platform-partnership/

"The fractious on-again, off-again love affair between NTT DoCoMo, Fujitsu and NEC has taken another turn. After dissolving a partnership to build a common LTE platform that included Samsung and Panasonic ..."

What an AMAZING coincidence that ALL FIVE of NTT DoComo, Fujitsu, NEC, Samsung, and Panasonic are all members of the Tizen Association. And who'd have possibly guessed that Intel and Sprint from WiMAX and Huawei would be in an association of companies that have an interest in LTE solutions beyond Qualcomm's? And the rumors are Verizon is looking into a gigantic buyout of Vodafone's stake.

But why is SK Telecom there? Don't they support CDMA and Qualcomm-chipset phones on their LTE network? Well, look at their Wikipedia article and what do we find:

"In August 2006, SK Telecom signed an MOU making it the first non-Chinese company to participate in the TD-SCDMA Project. Under the agreement SK Telecom will work with China's National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) on development of TD-SCDMA ..."

If only there was an HTML5-based future phone system built around Qualcomm chips. Oh wait, there is one, the Mozilla phone.

[Lars]

Hi John..

One point about Tizen folks seem to miss is the actual device.. safe bet the (for example) Toyota and Nikon types - et all worldwide - would also like to get into the connected screens game, but maybe not at 30% rev-share.. indeed the next platform wars will be interesting to watch.. 8->

Lars

[c.y.c.n.u.s]

@leebase

I agrer with your first 2 paragraph. But, i believe there were a clause in OHA membership that if Samsung fork android then Samsung would not have access to android first hand. This is the reaaon that when some Chinese company decide to fork android and use acer to produce it, acer abort it when realizing it would be expelled from OHA a-list

[AndThisWillBeToo]

Why do I feel I learn more from comments of Tomi's posts than from the posts themselves?