After years of failing to do much more than embarrass Samsung Electronics in legal battles over patent infringement, Apple has rapidly obliterated Samsung's mobile division profitability, rendering it as barrenly unprofitable as every other Android or Windows licensee with razor thin margins in the phone, PC and tablet market.
Apple revealed this week that the launch of the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus attracted more Android users than ever before. But new data suggests that the rate of Android switchers in the U.S. was steady last quarter, implying that international users are the ones who made the jump to iPhone in record numbers.
Samsung Electronics reported overall Q4 operating profits of 5.29 trillion won ($4.9 billion)—a 36 percent year-over-year drop—but its Mobile division suffered a 64.2 percent drop in profits, falling from $5 billion in the year ago quarter to $1.8 billion in the December quarter.
Downloads still aren't translating to dollars for Google and developers who create applications for its Play store for Android devices, as Apple's iOS App Store remains far and away the most profitable digital storefront, according to the latest data.
Microsoft's ability to leverage the tech media's credulity is weakening, as is evident from the emerging skepticism of its ability to deliver upon its latest product demonstration: HoloLens.
Within three years of Steve Jobs' return to Apple in 1996, he transformed the then-struggling company into an innovation machine capable of consistently stealing attention from the rest of the industry. This year's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas suffered at least its fifteenth year of being upstaged by Apple.
Google's Android team has advised outside security researchers that it will no longer fix security bugs found in Jelly Bean or earlier releases, despite the fact that "pre-KitKat 4.4" software powers the majority of active users' devices currently accessing Google Play. Meanwhile, less than 0.1 percent of Android users have received Android 5.0, and those who have report an "unfinished/unpolished" experience.
Samsung Electronics has released "preliminary earnings guidance" for the December quarter, calling for revenues of around 52T KRW ($47B) and operating profits of about 5.2T KRW ($4.73B), a profit decline of 37 percent compared to the year-ago quarter — its first such decline for the holiday period since 2011.
Intel's mobile chip division has lost $7 billion over the last two years while heavily subsidizing the manufacturing costs of Android tablet makers agreeing to use the chipmaker's Atom mobile x86 processors. Microsoft's new Office for Android won't run on any of them.
Virtually everywhere in the world that research firm Kantar Worldpanel ComTech tracks smartphone market data, Apple saw marketshare gains, thanks to the popularity of its latest flagship iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus handsets.
There's something about Apple that makes people lose their minds, particularly people who are journalists. The most likely explanation is that putting "Apple" in a headline is currently the most irresistible clickbait known to mankind. That, and there's no time for fact checking or any sort of basic research in today's BuzzFeed world of made up garbage.
In November, the Wall Street Journal reported that Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi had earned $556 million based on "internal documents." Reuters is now reporting that the company actually earned an order of magnitude less, based on the firm's public filings.
Google on Friday announced a new series of developer outreach videos called "Route 85," which looks to facilitate expanded use of Google's iOS SDKs in third-party app creations.
Ford has abandoned its troubled Microsoft Sync automotive infotainment system for a QNX-based platform that can support Apple's CarPlay with Hands Free Siri.
A vast and sophisticated new espionage campaign targeting "military, diplomats, and business execs," discovered by Blue Coat Labs and confirmed by Kaspersky Labs, exploits flaws in Microsoft Windows and seeks to infect Android, Blackberry and iOS devices, but is limited to only infecting iPhones and iPads that are jailbroken.
The Google-branded, Motorola-built Nexus 6 attempted to incorporate a fingerprint sensor like Apple's Touch ID which debuted on last year's iPhone 5s. However, the feature was abandoned shortly before the phone's introduction.
Android Police named Apple's iPad Air 2 as its top tablet pick among "Android devices" for the 2014 holiday season, calling it "reliable, predictable, and very fast."
During the last 12 days of Q3 2014, Apple "experienced a huge jump in sales share across almost all major markets thanks to the launch of the iPhone 6," reported Dominic Sunnebo of Kantar Worldpanel, enabling iOS to reach or exceed 40 percent market share in Australia, U.S., UK and Japan.
Revenues from online shopping on "Cyber Monday" surged 15.4 percent higher than last year, setting a new all time peak in U.S. ecommerce, with online mobile sales overwhelmingly driven by customers wielding Apple devices.
Despite speculation that Samsung was planning to institute major personnel changes its mobile division, the South Korean electronics maker has instead announced that it will stay the course with its mobile management team.
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Daniel Eran Dilger
Katie Marsal
AppleInsider Staff
