(1) Simon Montlake with Ryan Mac, China's Steve Jobs? Lei Jun is selling millions of groundbreaking smartphones--and attracting a cult like following. Forbes, Aug 6, 2012 (cover date).
http://www.forbes.com/global/201 ... ina-steve-jobs.html
Quote:
"After selling 3 million [smart]phone to date, Xiaomi is on track to hit 5 million to 6 million units by year-end.
"Over half of all mobile phones sold this year in China will be smart phones, rising to 76% next year, according to Nomura.
"To be sure, Xiaomi is still small compared with its better-known rivals. * * * For the full year China smartphone shipments should hit 140 million, which would put Xiaomi's share at less than 5%.
"But sustaining that growth will be a challenge [for Xiaomi]. * * * The price of a 'good-enough' Android or Windows smartphone is down to just $100, with lower prices ahead.
The illustration shows a table and three graphics. Comparing specs of Apple iPhone 4S and Miami MI-One, the table indicates retail prices of $790 and $320, and storage of 16 GB and 4 GB, respectively. Panel 2, headlined "Q1 China mobile phone market share," displays a pie chart: Samsung 21.8%, Apple 18.9%, Nokia 10.3%, ZTE 10.1%, Huawei 9.8%, Lenovo 7.8%, Motorola 3.5% and others 17.8%.
Note:
(a) LEI Jun 雷 军
(i) Xiaomi Tech 小米 科技
www.xiaomi.com
(ii) smartphone MI-One 小米手机
(iii) Joyo.com 卓越网 (now Amazon China, whose URL is Amazon.cn)
(iv) Kingsoft 金山软件
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingsoft
(v) UC Web
www.ucweb.com
(vi) YY.com
(based in Guangzhou)
The last two have no Chinese company names.
(b) LIN Bin 林 斌
(2) Peter Burrows, The New Smartphone Powerhouse: Huawei. Bloomberg BusinessWeek, July 23, 2012
http://www.businessweek.com/arti ... e-powerhouse-huawei
(The Chinese hardware maker is poised to be No 3 in smartphones")
Quote:
"HTC's sales have tumbled.
"This year, the company [Huawei] expects to triple its smartphone sales to 60 million units, in part by taking a bigger chunk of the U.S. market. Until now, it’s sold handsets costing less than $200 to carriers such as MetroPCS and Cricket that offer pay-as-you-go plans, mostly to lower-income consumers.
"Succeeding in smartphones is not optional for Huawei if it wants to remain a fast-growing company. Its $23 billion-a-year telecom equipment business grew only 3.5 percent in 2011, before tumbling due to the slowdown in China’s economy this year, says [Jeff] Heynen[, an analyst with consulting firm Infonetics].
Note: For 1Q12 (the latest result availabel), worldwide smartphone market share was: Samsung> Apple >Nokia> RIM> HTC> others (Samsung outtook Apple in that quarter).
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