Tag: apple

Categories
gadgets

iPhone, Blackberry

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Missing iPhones are found in China
According to InStat, a market research company, there are about 400,000 unlocked iPhone in China. Most of them are purchased in the US, unlocked and shipped to China later. An interesting side point is Chinese (smart phone) users are mostly for entertainment, while the US users focus on business functionality (email, etc., one reason Blackberry was so successful). Chinese translation from Xinhua:

根据市场分析企业In-Stat本周五最新发布的报告，全球共有80到100万台iPhone被解锁，使用在非苹果运营商合作伙伴的网络中。而其中仅中国就占到几乎半数。…

RIM lawsuit

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Categories
Stocks

Apple earning

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Not so good. iPod growth slowed (finanlly). iPhone can not make up the hole left by iPod. As I read from MarketWatch, while Mac is exploding, but it has one problem: with economy slowing, people won’t blow extra 1000 bucks for Mac (why not just buy a Dell).

I think Steve should do everything to bring iPhone to China Mobile, but he is so stubborn about his 20% to 30% cut…

Interestingly, I thought about it buying Apple puts last Tuesday (see my post China ADR crashed, scroll to short ideas). No, I have not actually done that because I decided not to bet on earnings. I view that as more risker than shorting a stock when the trend is clear (EDU).

MacBook Air

Categories
Business

Smart buyback, iPhone China delayed

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Week in progress 11/25 to 12/01/07

1) Panera to buy back up to USD 75 millions (worth) of shares from a broker (see the news here). The is in contrast to Crocs panic buy back announced on Nov. 1, amid the sharp fall of its stock price after it announced Q3 result. Last I looked at its 10Q at SEC: “On November 7, 2007, the Company repurchased approximately 524,000 shares for a total of approximately $25.0 million”. That is $47.70 per share (currently CROX traded just under $40). Good shoes maker, not so good stock traders?

2) iPhone delayed in China. The main problem is Apple and China Mobile can not agree on the how big a pie each will get, according to NanFangdaily (Chinese). American expatriate entrepreneur (in Beijing) Billsdue predicted the outcome before hand.

3) J. Crew reported a good quarter. Here is a link to its conference call (webcast). I found its CEO Millard Drexler had good insights about fashion and fashion business.

4) China Ping An Insurance (sh601318) paid 1.3 b Euro for 4% stake in Fortis, a Belgo-Dutch financial group.

Categories
China Stocks

Is the Chinese bull market over?

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(Update Nov. 17) Shuipi of ChinaTimes(水皮华夏时报) wrote this interesting piece on his newspaper.

(Original) It looks like it, from the highs at 6,200 in early Oct to 5,200 now. But wait a minute, recently the US stock market suffered big loss because of the sub-prime meltdown, and weakening of the dollar. How could the mess in the US drag down the Chinese stock market?

Well, one can say we are in a global economy now, the ripple effect of US sub-prime meltdown means the US business and consumer will watch their wallet more carefully, which is bad for Chinese exporters. We all know the Chinese economy depends a lot on exporting to the US.

China Mobile logo

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Categories
Business Technology

Week in review 09/02-09/08

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1) Howard Schultz, Chairman of Starbucks, talked about competition from McDonald and Dokin Donuts.

Starbucks is not an advertiser. If other companies are going to advertise and promote specialty coffee, Starbucks is going to benefit in the long term,” he said.

2) iPhone price cut and iPod touch launch: Steve Jobs announced Apple will cut 8GB iPhone from $599 to $399, discountine to offer 4GB iPhone, and offer an iPod touch, which is “an iPhone without phone capability”. In other words: iPod touch will have touch screen, music and video capability, WiFi, Internet, etc. You can check out latest iPod lineup from apple.com

Categories
Business Fun

iTune at Starbucks

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That’s the new services to be offered by two great companies: Apple and Starbucks. According Seattle Post Intelligence:

Apple’s new wireless iPod music player, iPhone or any laptop computer running iTunes will automatically recognize the iTunes store without a connection fee when customers enter a Starbucks shop that has Wi-Fi access.

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Categories
Fun

Faked iPod Nano

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I found this knock off iPod Nano at Taobao, Mr. Ma Yun’s company. Note his big baby Alibaba is preparing for the IPO in Hongkong later this year.

It appears to me this “grey market iPod” looks very much like the real one; and it has its own market, because fashion-chasing teenagers in China want the iPod feeling without breaking their wallet. The asking price is 460 Yuan, note the real iPod nano is about 1,800 Yuan.

I know some of you (Apple shareholders) will not feel happy. Now you can understand how I felt when I saw people buying or wearing knockoff Crocs, as I’m a CROX shareholder 🙂

Categories
Business Stocks

Apple Leaves Table Smiling

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Apple and Cisco settled the dispute around the iPhone trademark, according to Mac News. One interesting comment I can not stop laughing is: 

“if Apple leaves the table smiling, you better check your wallet.”

Seriously, I agree with the author Cisco guys are smart too. “Consumers are so with Apple these days, it would have been bad for Cisco, because consumers don’t want to see a company that’s going against Apple.”

I want to note that Cisco is going after the consumer markets these days. As you may noticed from the TV ads and Scientific Atlanta (TV setbox) acquisition.

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Categories
Business

Cingular Back to AT&T

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I don’t know the rationale behind this, but Cingular wireless is going to change back to AT&T name. I am not brand expert, nor marketing major, but this is a dumb move. A little background: when Southwest Bell (SBC) and Bellsouth created this wireless joint venture, they created this cool name “Cingular”, I remember my first wireless carrier was SBC Wireless, which is the ancester of Cingular. For a while I was puzzuled when my cell phone screen changed from “SBC wireless” to “Cingular”, wondering whether my phone is being hacked.

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Categories
Fun

The iPod Phone Drama Goes On

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Well, just a day after Steve unveiled the iPod phone (so called iPhone by many people, don’t know whether Steve actually used that name). Cisco obviously did not appreciate that its very own iPhone name being used…they filed a lawsuit. As we know, those kinds of lawsuits are about money, I bet there are some happy lawyers in Sillicon Valley today. Another picture from engadget.