New York: Apple's launch of two new iPhones raised fresh doubts about its strategy to expand its smartphone market share, prompting a slide in the company's shares and harsh analyst comments.
Some analysts said yesterday Apple had failed to slash prices enough to make an impact in key emerging markets or with budget-conscious buyers, and did little to show it has regained its edge in innovation.
Shares slid 5.4 percent to end at USD 467.71 in New York, a day after the technology giant presented the two new iPhones as part of an effort to regain momentum in the smartphone market.
While the new iPhone 5C is being offered to US customers at USD 99 with a subsidised carrier contract, the unsubsidised price will be USD 549 in the United States, and more than USD 700 in China.
Analysts at the research firm Trefis said the iPhone launch "turned out to be a dampener of sorts, as the company priced what was expected to be a significantly cheaper iPhone at a hefty USD 550 and did not introduce any new products such as an iTV or an iWatch."
"So much for the low end," said Credit Suisse analyst Kulbinder Garcha in a research note.
"We remain disappointed with Apple's decision to remain a premium priced smartphone vendor."
Garcha said that the new top-line iPhone 5S was "lacking real innovation" and that the lower-cost version may hurt sales of the premium product.
"The iPhone 5S has a new apps processor, improved camera functionality and new motion sensor functionality. However, these are not game changers and are more evolutionary rather than revolutionary changes," the analyst said.
Jefferies analyst Peter Misek said the new devices were "lovely phones" but that the launch "still leaves Apple with a product gap in the low-end."
Walter Piecyk at BTIG Research said Apple is not doing enough to target the customers buying phones without a carrier subsidy, which is the norm in many places around the world.
"The pricing on the iPhone 5C is simply not low enough to adequately address the significant global growth opportunity that we believe exists with unsubsidised prepaid customers that have not yet bought a smartphone," Piecyk said in a note to clients.
New Delhi: Finnish handset maker Nokia on Thursday unveiled its first mobile phone in India built primarily to target about 15 crore Urdu speaking population in the country.
"I don't know about other countries but this is first mobile phone going to be launched in India whose language will be Urdu.
"When Nokia came to me 6 to 8 months back, I asked them if they could take a challenge to bring mobile phone for about 15 crore Urdu speaking people and I appreciate their initiative," Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal while launching the dual SIM mobile phone Nokia 114.
The phone is priced at Rs 2,579.
It will support nine languages including Urdu, English and Hindi.
"Over time we have developed supporting language capability in our device but one thing that we were missing was Urdu. I was told by the Minister that there are about 150 million Urdu speaking people in the country. We accepted challenge given by him," Nokia India Managing Director P Balaji said.
Nokia 114 will support talk time of up to 10.5 hours on 2G network, allow internet browsing, 0.3 megapixel camera, FM radio and video streaming among other features.
"We will be launching it pan India but our focus will be five markets- Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Jammu and Kashmir, Uttar Pradesh and Karnataka. It is available across stores now," Balaji said.
Back in August, BlackBerry announced a new device called the BlackBerry 9720. The talking point about this device was that it had a dedicated BBM key and was the first BB device to be unveiled this year that didn’t run on BB10.
During the announcement, BlackBerry had promised that they would launch the device in the first-half of September, and moments ago the Canadian company officially launched the phone in India for Rs 15,990. It will be available from September 14 onwards.
Design-wise the BlackBerry 9720 looks like a mix of the Bold and Curve smartphones and it will be available in black, blue, pink, purple and white colors. As mentioned above, it sports a dedicated BBM key.
In terms of specifications, the device features a 2.8-inch (480×360 pixels) touchscreen display and is powered by an 806MHz Tavor MG1 processor supplemented with 512MB of RAM. Other features included are a 5-megapixel EDOF (Extended Depth of Field) rear camera with Image stabilization and 4X digital zoom, 512MB internal storage that can be expanded using a microSD card and a 1,450mAh battery which is good enough for up to 7 hours of talk time and 18 days of standby time.
Connectivity options include 3G support, Wi-Fi, GPS and Bluetooth and on the software front, the device runs on BlackBerry 7 OS version 7.1.
It will be interesting to see how the phone is received by users considering it doesn’t run on BB10. Potential BlackBerry users have complained about the lack of any new devices in the sub-Rs 20,000 segment but it remains to be seen whether the older OS still has any mojo left considering BlackBerry itself is focusing most of its efforts and marketing on BB10.