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Tag: profits

  • Samsung Reports Record Fourth-Quarter Profits

    Samsung Reports Record Fourth-Quarter Profits

    Samsung Electronics today announced its fourth quarter earnings. As expected, the company pulled in record fourth-quarter profits, taking in 7.04 trillion won ($6.5 billion) in net profit. That’s a 7% increase over their third-quarter earnings, and an over 75% increase from its profits in the fourth quarter of 2011.

    “Despite uncertainties in Europe and concerns over the U.S. fiscal cliff creating a difficult business environment, we did our best this quarter to achieve strong earnings based on a strategic focus on differentiated and high value-added products as well as our technological competitiveness,” said Robert Yi, Head of Investor Relations at Samsung. “Heading into this year, we are expecting a slow recovery in the component business due to reduced capital expenditures, while competition in the set business will intensify further as demand slows and the mid- to low-end market expands.”

    Samsung’s fourth-quarter revenues of 56.1 trillion won ($52 billion) rose on the strength of its mobile device and mobile component sales. Sales of the company’s flagship Android phones, the Galaxy S III and the Galaxy Note, have reached tens of millions of units worldwide. Samsung did mention, however, that sales of DRAM for PCs are down – a sign of the declining PC market itself.

    Samsung expects its growth to remain stable throughout 2013, though it cites a “tepid global economy” and increased competition in the mobile device market as possible challenges. The company believes its growth will be driven by its LED TV sets, and expects the market for TVs over 60 inches to grow in 2013.

  • Free Texting Is Cutting Into Profits

    Free Texting Is Cutting Into Profits

    For years text messaging has been a cash cow for mobile communication providers. Some people pay for an unlimited plan, others have a cap on their texts. If you go over or don’t have a plan, you pay by the text and that can cost anywhere from .5 to .25 cents per text. Either way, it has been a real money maker and let’s be honest, who doesn’t enjoy texting?

    The popularity of texting has caused many social networking sites to offer text messaging as part of their services. If you are on Facebook and so are your friends, you can text each other for free and forego the monthly service fee from your mobile provider. That sounds pretty good to me, I pay-out almost $10 per month for texting and that can add up fast.

    Well many others have had the same idea. Ovem, who provides independant research, finds that mobile carriers brought-in over $153 billion last year from text messaging alone! The bad side of that statistic is that it is down almost 10% from 2010. This is not sitting well with executives at these firms. They use this revenue to grow their networks and invest in new technology.

    What is the answer? Joyn is the answer. Sponsored by Ericson and Rich Communication Suite Technology, the new technology integrates all varieties of social messaging into one application. This way users don’t have to worry about compatibility. It isn’t clear if this Joyn service will cost extra, but it is another way to entice users to purchase a data plan, which as we know, cost more and more all the time.

    So even if they can’t get us for texting anymore, data plans and data usage fees are becoming more of an inevitability than ever before. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, but as the technology evolves, so will our providers. Get ready to see a change, if you haven’t already.

    Joyn is already available for Android and it will coming to iOS soon. Orange, Telefonica, and Vodafone are already experimenting with the service and other providers are bound to follow soon. Look for it in the new year if it sounds like something you can use.