APPLE TO MAKE 20% FEWER NEW MODEL IPHONES IN 2018: NIKKEI

APPLE TO MAKE 20% FEWER NEW MODEL IPHONES IN 2018: NIKKEI

By Unknown   02:11   No comments:

Apple Inc (AAPL.O) expects to ship 80 million new model iPhones this year, down 20 per cent from what it had planned at the same time last year, Japanese financial daily Nikkei reported on Friday, citing industry sources.

 

The California-based firm has asked suppliers to make about 20 per cent fewer components for the three new iPhones it plans to launch in the second half of 2018.

This figure is compared to last year’s plans for its iPhone X and iPhone 8 models, the paper reported. The report added to concerns that consumer passion for new editions of the iconic smartphones may be cooling after years of scorching growth. Such cool off has sent shares in Apple and many of its major suppliers lower and weighing on global stock markets. “This news needs to be viewed in the context of Apple probably being overly optimistic last year in relation to the prospects for its new phones. It leaves it with excess inventory in the first part of this year,” Atlantic Equities analyst James Cordwell said. “At least part of this lower order forecast probably relates to Apple just being a little more realistic.”

Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The company sold 217 million iPhones, including its older models, in the fiscal year ended Sept. 30. It does not break down the figures by model and is still manufacturing large numbers of earlier versions of the phone. Some analysts said they already expected Apple to sell fewer phones this year than last as global demand for phones tightens and competitors eat into its sales.

The company sold 129.5 million iPhones in the past two quarters, little changed from the same period a year earlier. Apple’s shares fell as much as two per cent on the report, while those in suppliers AMS (AMS.S) and Dialog Semi (DLGS.DE) sank six per cent and 4.1 percent, respectively. Dialog’s shares had slumped 17 per cent last Friday after it said Apple would cut orders for its power-management chips by around 30 per cent this year.

U.S.-based supplier Advanced Micro Devices, Micron Technology Intel Broadcom Inc and Qualcomm Inc were all down between one per cent and four per cent. Many analysts have observed the high price of the iPhone X – which sells for 1,000 dollars.

It is the first iPhone to sport a new design since the launch of the iPhone six in 2015 – is also muting demand for the flagship. “Apple is quite conservative in terms of placing new orders for upcoming iPhones this year,” said one of four industry sources cited by the Nikkei Asian Review. “For the three new models specifically, the total planned capacity could be up to 20 per cent fewer than last year’s orders.”

Top Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo said earlier this week that Apple might cut prices of new iPhones to debut later this year by as much as 300 dollars , according to several media reports. Kuo said that Apple was likely to launch a 6.5-inch OLED “IPhone X Plus,” a second generation of iPhone X and an iPhone with a 6.1 inch screen.

Source: Vanguardngr

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L’Oreal wants Google executive on its board to boost web sales

L’Oreal wants Google executive on its board to boost web sales

By Unknown   13:45   No comments:

L’Oreal, the world’s biggest cosmetics company, said Friday it wants a leading Google executive to join its board to help the company boost online sales.
If L’Oreal’s annual shareholders meeting on April 20 accepts management’s recommendation, Eileen Naughton, Google’s managing director and vice president for UK and Ireland sales and operations, will join the board, replacing former Renault chairman Louis Schweitzer.
“It’s very important to have someone who can help the group navigate the digital world,” L’Oreal chairman Jean-Paul Agon told an earnings news conference.
“We chose her because she’s a great lady, very perspicacious, with great experience,” he said.
“I don’t know whether (internet giants) will one day be our competitors, but for now they’re excellent partners,” he said.
Agon said social networks and the growing “selfie” trend were important factors for growth in the beauty products sector, calling digital business “a fantastic new dimension”.
One quarter of L’Oreal’s PR budget is already destined for the internet, and the company has hired 1,000 new staff in the past three years to boost its online presence.
L’Oreal’s online sales were 1.3 billion euros ($1.5 billion) last year, up 38 percent from 2014.
But this still only represents 5 percent of overall sales.

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Paul Miller of Sika App; Taking online payment to the next step

Paul Miller of Sika App; Taking online payment to the next step

By Unknown   09:38   No comments:

https://youtu.be/6Mh-20IzNoc 

The internet’s immense ability to transmit real time information presesnts diverse opportunities in terms of value transfer.
Today people are able to buy almost anything from houses to cars over the Internet, and pay for it. This was not possible some three or four years ago.
Though the Internet was as vibrant and reliable as it is today, there was no way to monetize value transfer. There was no adequate payment system. The internet was not a money making tool.
Today, local techpreneurs have stepped up to fill the void after foreign giants like Paypal and Mastercard left Ghana in the cold. DreamOval’s SlydePay which was formerly I wallet, Express Pay, Mpower, and others have made online payments possible.
One of such innovators who has taken this to the next level, is Ghanaian born American- based techpreneur Paul Miller.
Paul was asked by a friend in the U.S who is now his co- founder to send some cash to her mom. On his way to deliver the money upon arriving in Ghana, Paul though that there ought to be a simpler way for Ghanaians living abroad and foreigners in general to remit money to relatives in Ghana in a more convenient way and not encountering the difficulties posed by traditional money transfer systems.
That was how Sika App was born.
” So on my drive to Tema to deliver the money to my friend’s mom, I wondered if there could be a more convenient way to send money without either party having to leave the comfort of their homes or offices, or inconveniencing anybody. That was how Sika App was born.”
So this will give people the chance to send money across borders in the comfort of their homes, that is what the power of the Internet can give.
On the face of it, Sika App may not look like the life saver it is in practical terms,
” Transferring money to relatives or others can be a matter of life and death. Imagine a relative who is sick and bed- ridden and cannot go out to claim a transferred fund. This becomes a life and death issue. That relative should be able to get that transfer in the comfort of their homes and even go on to get whatever medications they need online”, Paul says.
Ghana’s online payment industry is seeing an increased amount of activity lately, and Sika App, after it is launched, will help push the frontiers further. However, critics believe that the existing bottle- necks will hinder Ghana’s progress in becoming a truly cash- lite economy.





-Vanguard

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Facebook quarterly profit doubles as user ranks grow

Facebook quarterly profit doubles as user ranks grow

By Unknown   09:25   No comments:

Facebook quarterly profit more than doubled as its ranks swelled during the past year to a mammoth user base of nearly 1.6 billion, it said Wednesday.
“Our community continued to grow and our business is thriving,” said Facebook co-founder and chief executive Mark Zuckerberg in releasing quarterly results for the world’s biggest social network which comfortably exceeded expectations.
It reported a profit of $1.56 billion in the final three months of 2015 as compared with making $701 million in the same period a year earlier.
Revenue in the quarter that ended on December 31 rose to $5.84 billion from $3.85 billion the prior year.
The results showed Facebook’s growing power in online advertising, especially on mobile devices. Mobile accounted for about 80 percent of the network’s ad revenue in the quarter.
Net profit for the full year climbed to $3.7 billion from $2.9 billion in 2014, while revenue jumped to $17.9 billion from $12.5 billion.
“2015 was a great year for Facebook,” Zuckerberg said.
“We continue to invest in better serving our community, building our business, and connecting the world.”
An average of 1.04 billion people used Facebook daily in December in a 17 percent rise from the same month the prior year.
The number of monthly active users in December was 1.59 billion, in a 14 percent climb from a year earlier, according to the social network.
Facebook shares soared more than 12 percent to $106 in after-market trades that followed release of the earnings figures.
– Ongoing innovation –
California-based Facebook has been relentlessly innovating to keep its social network tuned to Internet-age lifestyles.
The company has been working its way into online commerce, honing ad technology, ramping up video, and even dabbling with building machine smarts in its Messenger smartphone messaging application.
Facebook-owned Oculus this month began taking orders for much-hyped Rift virtual reality head gear, set to begin shipping later this year.
Zuckerberg said during an earnings call that he is happy with pre-orders for Rift, which was priced at $599, but did not disclose specifics.
“It is ultimately going to change the way we communicate and live and work in addition to how we play games,” Zuckerberg said of virtual reality.
“I think we are off to a good start.”
Also this month, Facebook announced a drive to be a place for sports, with a new online hub for news and sharing on sporting events.
The “Facebook Sports Stadium” will offer live updates of scores, posts from friends and commentators, as well as information on where to watch games live.
Facebook also recently announced an agreement with Nielsen to improve how it measures the social media impact of TV shows, a useful means of assessing the size of an audience.
Nielsen created an indicator called the Nielsen Twitter TV Ratings in 2013 after long being criticized for failing to adapt to the changing ways in which people watch television.
It allowed Nielsen to measure the number of Internet users sending tweets while watching a program, and also the number of people who see those tweets.
Now this tool is being expanded to include Facebook comments.
Industry tracker eMarketer expects Facebook to continue to dominate when it comes to online display advertising.
It expected Facebook to bring in $9.86 billion in US display ad revenue this year, capturing 30.6 percent of the money spent on those types of ads in the country.
“Everything we hear from agencies and marketers is positive,” said eMarketer principal analyst Debra Aho Williamson.





-Guardian

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IFLUX woos customers with two years warranty on products

IFLUX woos customers with two years warranty on products

By Unknown   03:37   No comments:

There appears to be an air of excitement at the Alaba market and other markets across the nation as iFLUX has announced that its lighting products sold in the Nigerian market will come with at least two years warranty cover to ensure that customers looking for energy saving and long lasting products have value for their money.
As energy sufficiency is the lifeblood of any vibrant nation in the world today given the fact that developed economies were built on electricity, iFLUX , according to the Managing Director, Africa., Mr. Teddy Lee, offers comprehensive services in indoor lighting, outdoor, solar-powered LED lighting, portable LED lamps even rechargeable systems.
He informed that the company’s products are designed to be reliable, durable and cost efficient.
“We are a Hong Kong-based multinational employing global best LED (light-emitting diode) technology to help lessen the burden of rising energy tariffs on ordinary Nigerians and improve profit margins for businesses by drastically reducing recurrent costs incurred on procurement of inferior LED lighting equipment”, he said.
The company’s lighting products, according to him, stand out of the clutter in terms of design as a team of leading creative designers and material experts collaborate to engineer intuitive lighting equipment that are adaptive and stylish.
With robust after-sales services, first of its kind in Africa, he said that no other LED lighting brand has an established web of after-sales centres across Africa as iFLUX.
In partnership with Carlcare, another subsidiary of Transsion Holdings, he added that the company has more than 150 service centres across Africa with over 800 trained engineers that attend to customers for support services such as installation, repair and maintenance.
As energy consumption in emerging nations like Nigeria who are aggressively seeking to industrialize is on the rise, government and businesses, he noted are opting for innovative lighting technologies that will reduce the cost of electricity consumption and eliminate spend on substandard lighting equipment.
iFLUX is a subsidiary of Transsion Holdings; the mother company which houses three major mobile phone makers in Africa namely including Tecno, Mobile, Infinix, and itel.






-Vanguard

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IFLUX enters Nigerian market with LED products

IFLUX enters Nigerian market with LED products

By Unknown   01:39   No comments:

To support the weak power supply in Nigeria, iFLUX, LED lighting expert from Hong Kong has opened its flagship store at Alaba international market in Lagos with a promise of offering quality LED lightning products.
The store opening showcased iFLUX range of high end LED light products stylishly crafted by some of the world’s best engineers in modern light designs and attendees to the event expressed their satisfaction with the products in-store.
iFLUX is the first lighting brand in Africa to focus on premium LED lighting products with two years warranty.
Accordingly, the Alaba international market store is the first exclusive LED lighting shop in Nigeria and with the company’s plans to open at least ten more chains of similar iFLUX brand stores across Nigeria in 2016.
Speaking at the store opening, the Managing Director and Marketing chief of iFLUX, Mr Teddy Lee, said the brand hopes to help provide better lighting for hard working Nigerians and the rest of Africa. In his words:
“A lighted Africa is achievable and that is what our focus is at iFLUX and we’re glad to say today that we are doing that now and we’ll continue to do so into the future.”, he said.
He assured that iFLUX is dedicated to offering quality LED products to Nigerian end users at reasonable prices and with two years warranty to save cost to the end users.
LED light technology is known to have the advantage of long life and low power consumption. In the world over, this bold new technology is phasing out the unsustainable incandescent light technology.
It would be recalled that at the 2015 Global Climate Conference held in Paris, world leaders revealed plans to install ten (10) billion LED bulbs in the world and recently, the Lagos State Government has also intensified efforts of adopting this new technology into the state through the Light Up Project, an initiative aimed at providing adequate illumination across the state as promised by His Excellency, Akinwunmi Ambode, the executive governor of Lagos State during the 2015 gubernatorial elections.In terms of economic sense, iFLUX products are the way to go.
Meanwhile, in Nigeria today, the rising cost of self-power generation and monthly energy bills are putting an already weakened middle class back at the fringes.

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