Top Android phone
While Amazon’s Kindle Fire has come out of the gates strong, as expected, we see Apple maintaining its competitive lead, if anything accentuated by what now looks like the only tablet to so far mount any credible iPad challenge apparently needing to do so by selling at cost; not to mention Amazon’s success may just vaporize other “for profit” Android tablet OEM roadmaps (e.g., we est Amazon 50% of all Android tablets in CY12).
Meanwhile Apple goes on as the only vendor able to cream off the most profitable segment of each market it targets, whether tablet, smartphone or PC.So there’s a lot at stake for the giant Taiwanese phone maker — and indeed for the manufacturers of all Google (GOOG) Android phones — in the ruling due next week from a six-member panel at the International Trade Commission in Washington.It’s also Google’s worst nightmare for Android.
HTC shipped more than 5.7 million smartphones to the U.S. last quarter, according to Canalys, beating out Samsung and Apple to become the country’s leading smartphone vendor.This will be fun to watch. AMZN made $63M in profits last qtr and will take a $250M+ loss this qtr. I know where that path leads — empty pockets & no R&D. Then comes the closing of the doors without any profits, just ask solar companies. I think AMZN would shut down hardware side before went BK, but this is the path they all take.
There have been a lot of headlines lately about Apple vs. Android patent rulings, some in Apple’s favor, some against.But this could be the big one.The two patents at issue (see below) appear to be at Android’s core. If HTC has infringed them, according to FOSS Patents’ Florian Mueller, so have the makers of all Android phones.Possibly coincidence but analysts aren’t really good at that “original thought” thing. Matters not to me. We all know they lurk around these forums to steal ideas.
“Google’s Android mobile operating system is in serious trouble,” Mueller wrote after last summer’s ruling. “It’s hard to see how any Android device could not infringe [the patents], or how companies could work around them.”In the worst case scenario for HTC, the trade commission could ban the import of its Android phones at the height of the holiday selling season, and its 25% U.S. smartphone market share could shrink to 0.0%.
