News tagged ‘sales’

Today market research company Strategy Analytics reported on its research which covers «connected TV players», such as Ruku and Apple TV. The report shows that Apple is expected to reach sales of 4 million Apple TV boxes for 2011, leading the growing market with a 32 percent share.

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UBS (Investment Firm) analyst Maynard Um now believes Apple will sell as many as 30 million iPhones in the December quarter, up from a previous estimate of 28 million. The firm changed its expectations for the iPhone sales because of AT&T's announcement that it expects its best smartphone quarter ever thanks to the iPhone 4S.

The firm didn’t change its predictions for the iPad. It still expects that Apple will sell 12 million units in the fourth quarter of 2012 and may achieve 13 million iPads because of seasonal boost during the holidays. UBS numbers are quite conservative due to its belief that "there might be a slight shift in consumer preference to the company's Macbook computers." Um said customers may not be able to buy multiple Apple products simultaneously and could instead elect to purchase larger ticket items with more functionality.

In light of the expected iPhone upside, UBS raised its revenue estimates to $38.5 billion, up from $37.2 billion. The firm now expects earnings per share to reach $9.90, compared to a previous projection of $9.47. For fiscal 2012, Um sees Apple bringing in $142.7 billion in revenue and $35.83 EPS.

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Early today, we have reported that the U.S. judge declined to issue a preliminary injunction barring Samsung from selling several of its Galaxy smartphone and tablet devices in the United States. We have also mentioned the court order that had been redacted and which revealed that Apple had licensed one specific iOS interface patent to both Nokia and IBM. Now Reuters reports how this court order came to light.

In her 65-page ruling denying Apple's request for a preliminary injunction against Samsung, Koh attempted to redact nearly two dozen sentences or short fragments. But because of a formatting characteristic in the prior electronic version, the redacted material can be viewed by copying text from the PDF and pasting it into another document.

In the court order Koh cites as part of her rationale Apple's admission that Samsung is more likely to take market share from other Android manufacturers than it is from Apple.

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Comparison of iPad and Galaxy Tab profiles

The Verge reports that Apple offered an alterative design for Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 10.1 in its July court case seeking a sales ban of the Galaxy Tab 10.1. Apple gave Samsung a list of tweaks that would allow the company to differentiate the two tablets (iPad and Galaxy Tab) and start selling Samsung’s Galaxy Tab not violating Apple’s patents.

The Korean electronics company argued that the patents Apple is using against the Galaxy Tab were based on functionality, and are thus required by all smartphones and tablet computers as part of a basic utilitarian design that is why Samsung had to use the design elements in question. But Apple believes that Samsung could use other options and that the Korean company purposely violated standing patents. To prove its point, Apple generated a list of possible alternatives that included:

• A front surface that is not black.
• A shape that is not rectangular.
• No rounded corners.
• A front surface that is not flat.
• Varying Bezel size.
• A device that is not thin.
• A cluttered appearance.

In response, Samsung slightly changes design of its tablet and rebranded it the Galaxy Tab 10.1. However, Apple did not find these changes sufficient to warrant the lifting of the injunction.

Just a day after Australian appeals court lifted the sales ban on Samsung's Galaxy Tab 10.1, Apple has managed to win a one-week extension of the ban yesterday, according to Bloomberg.

High Court Justice John Dyson Heydon today extended the ban on the release of Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 10.1 to Dec. 9. On that day, the country’s top court will consider Apple’s request for permission to appeal a lower court’s order issued earlier this week, which lifted a ban on the product that has been in place since mid-October.

“A stay for one week will cost Samsung, in effect, one week’s trade,” Heydon said, following a 90-minute hearing in Sydney. The extension will hurt Samsung “but not to extend the status quo is likely to be injurious to Apple,” he said.

Samsung has been reportedly planning to begin selling the Galaxy Tab 10.1 in Australia today. The company was rushing to bring the device to the market it time for the holiday shopping season, but has had to postpone its plans.

Samsung argued that every day of delay is crucial as the clock continues ticking on the holiday shopping season, claiming that Apple has no basis for an appeal of the ruling, but the court is willing to keep sales on hold until it can hear Apple's side of the request for appeal.

According to findings released on Tuesday by Nielsen, Apple remained the largest smartphone manufacture in the Unites States in the third quarter. While smartphones sales continue to grow in the U.S., accounting for 56 percent of all cellphone sales in the prior quarter, Apple’s market share has reached 30%. Apple's third quarter performance was followed by HTC with a 20.3% share.

As for mobile platforms, Android and iOS dominate with a 71.1% share, holding 42.8% and 28.3% respectively. About a half of all mobile users in the United States owns a smartphone. During the prior quarter 56% of all handsets purchases were smartphones. The third place still belongs to RIM's BlackBerry platform with 17.8% that was followed by Microsoft's Windows Mobile platform, HP's Palm/webOS, Symbian and the fledgling Windows Phone.

App downloads in the third quarter saw that Google and Apple have the largest share. 83% of all downloads were made through Android and iOS devices. But Google has recently expressed dissatisfaction by the situation with app downloads, and hinted at upcoming changes that would bring its online store more in line with Apple's.

Galaxy Tab 10.1N (top) vs. Galaxy Tab 10.1 (bottom)

Apple has reportedly filed a request for a preliminary injunction to prevent sales of the revised Galaxy Tab 10.1N, a design-tweaked variant of the original Galaxy Tab 10.1, in Germany. Samsung launched Galaxy Tab 10.1N last month in attempt to deal with the ban on Galaxy tab 10.1 sales in the country.

Apple has requested a preliminary injunction, and the Duesseldorf regional court has scheduled a hearing on the matter on Dec. 22, a spokesman for the court told Dow Jones Newswires on Tuesday.

The move has no effect on sales and distribution of the product, Samsung said in an emailed statement, while Apple repeated earlier comments that it intends to protect its intellectual property.

Apple clearly believes that slight changes in design of the Galaxy Tab 10.1 are not sufficient to overcome the ruling that the Galaxy Tab design is almost similar to the design of the Apple’s iPad, and that is why Apple has decided to claim a new injunction.

Samsung's attorney Neil Young claims that Australian judge Annabelle Bennett was wrong in granting Apple a temporary injunction against the Galaxy Tab. He stated at an appeal hearing that she made a series of errors and did not understand key elements of the case. The judge issued the ban on the basis of just two of the patents, but Apple’s claims are based on 13 company’s patent infringements. So the judge decided that they were enough to warrant a temporary sales ban until the full case will be solved. However, Samsung may lose their customers during the holiday sales season at least in Australia.

As far as we know, Apple is also suing Samsung in California and in some other countries.  A separate injunction on sales was won by Apple in Germany. Rather curious incident occurred in the US court. A judge, who held Samsung’s Galaxy Tab and Apple's iPad in the air, asked Samsung's attorneys to identify which one is made by Samsung. Surprisingly, the attorney preferred to evade a question.

Of course, Apple's attorney Stephen Burley does not agree with Samsung's attorney. He believes that Bennett reviewed the infringement case in a detailed fashion. Moreover, he claims that Apple had good chances to win infringement.

Fortune has analyzed two reports and suggests now that Apple may be experiencing some supply constrains on the iPhone 4S throughout this holiday quarter. The company, no doubt, works hard to stock-pile necessary number of the iPhone 4S that will allow Apple to meet customer demand for its newest smartphone, as well as shipping estimates of iPhone carrier partners during this quarter, but Apple may be having some trouble meeting its own production goals for the device that will result in supply constrains.

The first report, from Rodman and Renshaw analyst Ashok Kumar, alerted the company’s clients about the iPhone 4S production constrains, citing that shortages of an unidentified "key component" for the iPhone 4S that is holding back production. Kumar says that Apple has four million iPhone 4S not sold in the prior quarter. Taking into account there numbers, he suggests that Apple may sell 30 million iPhones during this quarter, though the company won’t be able to completely satisfy consumer demand.

The second note comes from Susquehanna Financial's Jeff Fidacaro. He also says that the main problem for Apple in this quarter is "supply constraints". As a result, we see reduction in quarterly iPhone sales of about three million units, moving from 26-28 million units to 23-25 million units.

Last week The New York Times reported on Apple's retail store software that helps employees timely respond to customer assistance requests. This internal app shows the in-store location of customers who requested assistance to employees on their iPod touches. Customers can inform employees that they need their assistance by touching a button on iPads which are mounted on the sales floor next to products and display information and purchases option. Employees’ iPods receive requests and show customer location in red. Apple Store’s employee Diego Aguirre said:

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The well-known market research firm comScore today released data on U.S. sales for Black Friday. The report shows that customers spent $816 million, up 26% over last year's numbers. Apple’s online store became the fifth most-visited online retailer in the country on Black Friday behind Amazon, Walmart, Best Buy, and Target.

Fifty million Americans visited online retail sites on Black Friday, representing an increase of 35 percent versus year ago. Each of the top five retail sites achieved double-digit gains in visitors vs. last year, led by Amazon. Walmart ranked second, followed by Best Buy, Target and Apple.

“Each of the top online retailers generated significantly greater Black Friday activity compared to last year,” added [comScore chairman Gian] Fulgoni. “Amazon.com once again led the pack, with 50 percent more visitors than any other retailer, while also showing the highest growth rate versus last year. However, it is telling that the top multi-channel retailers also showed strong growth in visitors, demonstrating the importance of the online channel to the retail industry as a whole.”

According to research firm Kantar Worldpanel ComTech, demand for Apple’s iPhone 4S helped the company to push it market share in the UK to nearly 43% in October. Apple's U.K. market share increased 2.8 percent to 27.8 percent year-to-year and it is the first time since late 2010 when Apple’s sales beat Android-based handset sales in the region.

"Apple took a whopping 42.8 percent share of all smartphone sales, giving it a significant lead over Android - a feat many thought was impossible," said Dominic Sunnebo, global consumer insight director at the firm.

About 75 percent of British customers who purchased an iPhone 4S in October already own a previous version of the device, with 14 percent upgrading from last year's iPhone 4. Sunnebo claims that the main driver for the sales of the iPhone 4S in the U.K. was the existing iPhone users. The second driver is rather long period between the launches of the iPhone 4 and 4S.

Analyst Chris Whitmore with Deutsche Bank and his team of analysts checked more than 200 stores on Black Friday to assess demand for Apple products, including the iPhone, iPad and Mac lineup and found out that Apple's Black Friday sales were more than successful.

75 percent of Apple’s retail stores sold out of the iPhone 4S on Black Friday while on Saturday just 30 percent of Apple's stores remained sold out of the iPhone 4S. At AT&T stores, Whitmore found that about 50 percent were sold out over the weekend.

Gene Munster with Piper Jaffray also polled Apple's retail stores on Black Friday, and discovered that iPad sales per hour were 68 percent higher than they were a year ago that means an average of 14.8 iPads per hour, comparing with the 8.8 iPads sold per hour year-over-year. Mac sales were 10.1 units per hour, up 23 percent from Black Friday 2010.

Whitmore also found strong iPad and Mac sales, noting that the 11.6-inch MacBook Air was the most popular option in the MacBook Air lineup on Black Friday. As for the iPad, he revealed that the most popular version was the 32GB model.

Bloomberg reports that Australian appeals court is hearing testimony related to the injunction issued to prevent Samsung from selling its Galaxy Tab 10.1 in Australia.  As you remember, the injunction was result of complaints from Apple of design infringement. Judges in the appeals case are skeptical of the fairness of the injunction.

“The result looks terribly fair to Apple and not terribly fair to Samsung,” Federal Court Justice Lindsay Foster said today at a hearing in Sydney on Samsung’s appeal for the ban to be overturned.

The injunction was issued by Federal Court Justice Annabelle Bennett on October 13. According to the injunction, Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 10.1 was banned from selling in Australia until Samsung and Apple resolve the patent dispute. Neil Young, Samsung’s lawyer, said that the Justice did not take into account the “dire consequences” of the ban on Samsung. Judges may allow Samsung to sell the device during two-three months before the full trial can take place in March, believing that it won’t severely harm Apple.

Last week Gartner reported that Android doubled its market share year-over-year, while Apple experienced a decline at 15%, compared to the previous quarter. Despite that fact, a report from research company GfK (via Reuters) states that iPhone users are more likely to show loyalty to iOS by buying another iPhone when upgrading their smartphone.

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