Bloomberg BusinessWeek, Oct 27, 2014

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Lauren Coleman-Lochner, Laundry Detergent Makers Want More Suds.
www.businessweek.com/articles/20 ... ng-washing-machines

Quote:

“Extra soap isn’t a problem for traditional washing machines; they use enough water to eliminate soapy residue. But in high-efficiency washers, in which laundry rotates in a drum and is sprayed with water and not continually submerged, more detergent means sudsier clothes. Efficient machines use as little as one-third of the water of older models.

“As of last year, 44 percent of US households had high-efficiency models (Whirlpool, Samsung Electronics, and GE are leading makers)

Note:
(a) summary underneath title in print: Water-saving washing machines are dragging down soap sales

(b) “P&G and other makers have cut prices as consumers look to cheaper brands, such as Arm & Hammer and Oxi Clean from Church & Dwight, the second-largest detergent maker in the US. * * * P&G accounts for 60 percent of the US detergent market, followed by Church & Dwight at 14 percent.”
(i) Arm & Hammer
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arm_%26_Hammer
(Originally associated only with baking soda and washing soda, the company began to expand the brand to other products in the 1970s using baking soda as a deodorizing ingredient, including toothpaste, laundry detergent, underarm deodorant, and cat litter)
(ii) sodium carbonate
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium_carbonate
(“used as a water softener in laundering. It competes with the magnesium and calcium ions in hard water and prevents them from bonding with the detergent being used”)

choi

Bruce Einhorn and Bhuma Shrivastava, Samsung's China Problems Come to India. www.businessweek.com/articles/20 ... blems-come-to-india

two consecutive paragraphs:

“These are fresh problems for India’s longtime smartphone leader, Samsung. The South Korean company recently lost its No 1 position in China to Xiaomi. Samsung finished 2013 with 34 percent of the Indian smartphone market * * * Six months later, Samsung’s share was down to 29 percent as cheaper Chinese brands and other manufacturers chipped away at its lead. The low-cost Chinese [$98 Redmi 1S smart]phones selling out on [India’s] Flipkart aren’t top of the line, but they’re better than the prices suggest: 3G-capable, solid processor, decent camera, and barely adequate but expandable memory. (A Redmi 1S starts with 8 gigabytes of storage, but cheap SD cards can bring its total to 64 GB.) ‘It’s the invasion of good-enough devices,’ says IDC analyst Bryan Ma.

“On Oct 7, Samsung announced its quarterly global sales had dropped about 20 percent, and operating profit plunged 60 percent to 4.1 trillion won ($3.9 billion). That’s due in large part to other phone makers undercutting the South Korean company in China and India [further, Google’s Android One smartphones are selling at $100]

Note:
(a) summary underneath title in print: Cheaper smartphones eat away at the South Korean company's lead
(b) Redmi: Features. Xiaomi Singapore, Undated
www.mi.com/sg/redmi/
("MediaTek Quad-core 1.5GHz processor[:] MediaTek's MT6589 processor uses 28-nanometer process technology andARM's low-energy Cortex-A7 core")