http://ift.tt/2mFBsfg
Goldman Sachs held a millennial conference for clients last week — here's what we found out http://ift.tt/2l7fwh3 State Farm / Flickr LONDON — Goldman Sachs Asset Management (GSAM) held its second annual "Young Professionals and Future Leaders" conference at its London office last week. The afternoon event was conceived of by two junior employees at GSAM who wanted to host an event that could help them meet their counterparts who worked at companies they work with. "It’s a really good opportunity to get the younger generation of our clients into the room," Antonia Benfield, one of the people involved in organising this year's event, told Business Insider. "There are loads of people here that we haven’t necessarily spoken to before and it’s great to obviously make those connections now because the idea of the conference obviously is that we’ll all be future leaders." This year's theme was "Millennials," the term used to refer to the generation born between 1980 and 2000 (the exact start and end dates can differ.) Adam Collins, another organiser, said: "A lot of the conversation has potentially quite a condescending tone when you use the term millennial. I think the idea that these millennials are now growing up, or have actually grown up in many cases, to be the people who make the decisions and will continue to do so. To come up with a range of topics and ideas you can discuss about that, that was the idea." Around 100 people attended the event, up from 30 last year. BI was among them — here's what we saw: Investing in millennial-driven marketsGoldman SachsThe event kicked off with a presentation from Simon Barnard, who co-manages Goldman Sachs' millennials equity portfolio. Barnard jokes that he is "one of the oldest millennials in the world" before going on to explain that his fund focuses on investing in companies that he thinks are well positioned to benefit from millennials becoming the largest generation of consumers in the world today. There are an estimated 2.3 billion alive today, Barnard said, compared to 1.2 billion baby boomers. Millennials are smarter consumers, Barnard said, and want price, convenience, and transparency. One of the biggest trends of their generation is tech-enabled consumption, with a preference for experiences and wellness over ownership and indulgence. As a result, Barnard points out that fast-food and pre-packed baby food companies are struggling to attract millennial consumers. Barnard highlighted online video and autonomous cars as areas of interest for his fund. However, he eschewed big names in these sectors, saying that hyper-growth companies are often high risk as they can be quickly displaced at the top of the tree. Instead, Barnard highlighted an Israeli company called Mobileye as an example of a Goldman bet on autonomous cars. The company makes sensors that help cars create the HD maps needed for autonomous cars to become reality. In other words, it's an essential enabler to an autonomous car future. Barnard then took questions from the floor. The audience offered up suitably millennial questions, asking: have you modelled how a 2008-style crisis would affect your portfolio? How seriously do you take cyber security risk at companies you invest in? Do you see combating climate change as an investment opportunity? He answered: yes, it should bounce back pretty quickly; seriously; not right now, further down the line. China, millennials, and diversityGoldman SachsBarnard's talk was followed by one from Lin Yue, GSAM's executive director of UK and Irish institutional business. Her session was titled: "China, millennials, and diversity." Yue is originally from northeastern China. She said that the term "millennials" doesn't exist in China and her generation is instead referred to as "post-80s" or "post-90s." Yue said that her generation lives in a "radically different world" to their parents and grandparents, who lived through the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949 and the cultural revolution of the 1960s and 70s. By comparison, her generation has been spoiled, partly because of China's one-child policy, and are often referred to as the "little emperors." Chinese millennials have grown up with fierce competition at home and are keen to explore the world, Yue said. Despite Western perspectives, only 30% of Chinese millennials believe their country will be the next global superpower. Yue's point throughout her talk was that the term "millennials" is far too broad — people the same age can have wildly different priorities, outlooks, and ideas across different countries. A key question from the audience was how China will cope with the rise of robotics and automation — Citi and Oxford University estimate that 77% of Chinese jobs could be at risk of automation. Yue said that there's actually a "huge desire to move out of the manufacturing chain" among Chinese. If a robot could do their boring manual labour job and free them up to do more interesting, creative jobs then that's great. Startups & corporate culture: Discussions with DeliverooGoldman SachsAfter a short break, the audience were treated to an interview with Philip Green — no, not the retail billionaire, but the CFO of food delivery startup Deliveroo. Unfortunately, this talk was off the record, meaning we've agreed not to report what was said. But, broadly, Green covered what it's like to work at a startup, his advice to young professionals looking to get ahead, and some insights into where Deliveroo is right now. Andrew Wilson, CEO of GSAM in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, told Business Insider after the talk that it is companies like Deliveroo that are the biggest challenge for Goldman when it comes to recruiting millennial talent. He said: "The biggest pressures at the moment are probably in the technology space, whether it’s Facebook or Google or Amazon or whatever. They’re seen as being cool and people want to go there. "We spend a lot of time at universities recruiting and try and explain what the career track looks like at an organisation like Goldman Sachs, the breadth of what we do, and the opportunities that come up as a result of that." But he added: "I think we’ve always been focused on making sure we attract the very best people and I think it’s interesting that through time those industries [that compete for talent] have changed." See the rest of the story at Business Insider See Also:
Business via Business Insider http://ift.tt/eKERsB February 27, 2017 at 05:30PM
0 Comments
http://ift.tt/2mouz64
Denying Scotland an independence referendum would be 'politically catastrophic' for the UK government http://ift.tt/2ltBaYR Polling expert John Curtice: Downing Street blocking a fresh independence referendum would risk "suggesting that Scotland cannot decide for itself whether it wishes to remain inside the Union or not." Indyref2 would be "one hell of a risk" for both May and Sturgeon's governments LONDON — Denying Scotland a fresh vote on Scottish independence would be "politically pretty catastrophic" for the UK government, according to polling expert John Curtice. The Times reported on Monday that Prime Minister Theresa May is preparing for the Scottish government to call a second independence referendum when she triggers Article 50 in March. Curtice, professor of politics at the University of Strathclyde, told BI earlier in February that blocking such a demand would be "legally possible" but politically damaging for the UK government. He said any move to block a fresh vote would risk "suggesting that Scotland cannot decide for itself whether it wishes to remain inside the Union or not." "You can push and harry about the terms of the referendum, but put it like this: Given that it won’t require a great number of people to change their minds before we are in the realm where "Yes" are ahead, I wouldn’t want to take that risk [of denying Scotland a referendum] if I were the UK government," Curtice said. A second referendum would be "one hell of a risk" for both Sturgeon and May's governmentsIn 2014, Scots voted by a majority of 55% to 45% to stay within the union, something then-current First Minister Alex Salmond declared would be a "once-in-a-generation" event. Polling still suggests the majority of Scots would vote against independence, but the country voted to remain in the EU in June by a margin of 62% to 38%. First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has argued that the Brexit vote — and especially Theresa May's decision to pursue pull the whole of the UK out of the single market — is against Scotland's wishes, and therefore makes a second referendum "more likely," as it amounts to a "material change in circumstances." Curtice, who runs the highly-respected polling website What Scotland Thinks, said that Downing Street needed to make some concessions to the Scottish government during upcoming Brexit negotiations so that Sturgeon does not feel obliged to call a new referendum. "The advice to the UK government is this: You need to give the Scottish government something on Brexit so that Nicola Sturgeon has got a way out [of calling a referendum]," he said. "The risk the UK government is taking at the moment is that it's not offering the Scottish government a way out, and is therefore potentially leaving it with no choice but to take what — from the Scottish government's own perspective — is one hell of a risk, but is also one hell of a risk for the UK government." Curtice said the "way out" for the UK government was to offer Scotland something from their list of Brexit demands, such as giving Scotland the right to determined its own immigration policy. He said there was "quite a lot of cross-party support for the idea," even among pro-unionist MPs. "Doing that and saying that, as a result, Scotland can apply freedom of movement — or something close to it — would give the Scottish government something," he said. Curtice also suggested that it would also be possible for Westminster to devolve VAT policy to Holyrood after Brexit. He added: "They probably won't want to give Scotland [concessions on] the single market, but the UK government could simply say: 'Look, we want to get as much access to the single market as the Scottish government wants to achieve, we're simply asking about how to get there, but we will continue to talk to the Scottish government about how best to do this.'" "Again, it would give them a way out," he said. The UK government "might be advised to find a warmer tone"Downing Street's own position on a fresh referendum is increasingly unclear. Asked on Monday whether Downing Street would veto a second referendum, a spokesperson for the prime minister told Business Insider: "The question is not 'could there be another referendum' but 'should there be a referendum,' and the answer to that is no." Pushed again on whether a referendum would be vetoed by Downing Street, they said: "I'm not getting into the hypotheticals." Curtice said: "It would be sufficiently risky for the UK government that it would be wise to avoid a confrontation. So far they are avoiding saying 'No,' but so far [Scotland's demands] have been greeted with a very large amount of cold water." He said that Downing Street "might be advised to find a warmer tone." NOW WATCH: Drone footage will make you want to book a trip to the Scottish Highlands See Also:
Business via Business Insider http://ift.tt/eKERsB February 27, 2017 at 05:30PM
http://ift.tt/2mFdild
The 10 most important things in the world right now http://ift.tt/2l7lDSD REUTERS/Pilar Olivares 1. UK Prime Minister Theresa May could end the right of free movement for European Union citizens wanting to come to the UK when she triggers Article 50 next month. 2. Jeremy Corbyn is heavily tipped to cease being the UK Labour Party leader before the next general election. His leadership is under renewed pressure after the Conservatives won the once-safe Labour seat of Copeland in last week's historic by-election. 3. US President Donald Trump wants to boost Pentagon spending by $54 billion. He also wants to cut the same amount from non-defence spending, including a large reduction in foreign aid. 4. Jewish community centers all over the US report receiving bomb threats. It's the fifth series of threats 2017 has seen so far, and comes two days after vandals desecrated a Jewish cemetery in Philadelphia. 5. South Korea wants the UN to act on North Korea's human rights abuses. Foreign minister Yun Byung-se said, "the whole country has turned into a massive gulag with unrelenting surveillance." 6. SpaceX plans to launch two customers around the moon in late 2018. The trip would take about a week and cost more than $300 million. 7. Islamic militants in the Philippines beheaded a German hostage. Juergen Kantner, who was abducted from his yacht off Malaysia's Sabah state in November, was being held for a ransom of AU$780,540 (£483,000; $600,000). 8. A man is being held by Australian police on suspicion of offering ISIS advice on missiles. A 42-year-old man was arrested in a regional farming town in NSW following an 18-month investigation. 9. The deadly US raid in Yemen that killed more than two dozen civilians and one US Navy SEAL has not yielded any significant intelligence so far, NBC News reported. The report seems to contradict White House statements that the January raid was a success. 10. We now know how the wrong Oscar envelope got into Warren Beatty's hands. It appears one of the two PwC accountants holding envelopes with the winners' names gave the hosts a duplicate copy of the envelope containing Emma Stone's name as best actress. And finally … Floyd Mayweather dropped the biggest hint yet that the Conor McGregor fight will happen. NOW WATCH: PayPal's CEO reveals the 2 key trends that are driving the fintech revolution See Also:
Business via Business Insider http://ift.tt/eKERsB February 27, 2017 at 05:30PM
http://ift.tt/2mouxLu
10 things you need to know in markets today http://ift.tt/2l7qiDR REUTERS/Joshua Roberts Good morning! Here's what you need to know in markets on Tuesday. 1. Donald Trump is calling for the biggest increase in US military spending since the height of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, seeking to add $54 billion (£43.3 billion) to the Pentagon’s budget to combat what he views as threats from a "dangerous world." The Financial Times reports that the White House said it planned to ask Congress for extra defence funding equivalent to nearly 10% of the military’s annual outlays as the president prepared to unveil a budget focused on "public safety and national security." 2. A hard Brexit poses risks to the integrity of financial markets and could make it harder to protect consumers from wrongdoing by banks, the head of the City regulator has warned MPs. The Guardian reports that Andrew Bailey, chief executive of the Financial Conduct Authority, said a cliff-edge Brexit – one in which the regulatory framework changes the instant the UK leaves the EU – also presented competition risks, alongside threats to legal and market stability. 3. Uber Technologies has asked a senior executive to leave the company for failing to disclose a sexual harassment allegation stemming from his tenure at Alphabet's Google, an Uber spokeswoman said on Monday. The move comes as the ride services company is investigating allegations of sexual harassment in its own organization. 4. Netflix is in talks to introduce a ‘pay as you go’ option for smartphones in collaboration with mobile operators, in what would mark a departure from the TV and film streaming service’s subscription charges. The Telegraph reports that senior sources at the Mobile World Congress trade show in Barcelona indicated that Netflix is in ongoing and detailed discussions about ways to charge mobile customers for streaming or downloading individual episodes, series or films to watch on the move. 5. America "will be less of a leader in trade" in the coming years, according to Jeff Immelt, GE's chairman and CEO. "We're in an era when some very basic assumptions about the global economy are being tested," he said in his annual letter to shareholders. 6. The Dow index touched a new all-time high for the 12th straight day on Monday. But just as happened last Friday, it wasn't exactly a huge surge: the Dow was up by less than 0.1% at the close. 7. Japan's Nikkei share average edged up on Tuesday after US stocks rose, but gains were limited as the market awaited a speech by US President Donald Trump for details of his infrastructure spending and tax plans to Congress. The Nikkei closed up 0.09%, while the Hong Kong Hang Seng is down 0.35% at the time of writing (6.25 a.m. GMT/1.25 a.m. GMT) and China's Shanghai Composite is up 0.19%. 8. Warren Buffett has weighed in on the free trade debate. "Free trade is wonderful for the world and the United States. But its benefits are diffused among 320 million people," he said in an interview with CNBC's Becky Quick on Monday. 9. JPMorgan Chase & Co, Microsoft, Intel, and more than two dozen other companies have teamed up to develop standards and technology to make it easier for enterprises to use blockchain code Ethereum in the latest push by large firms to move toward distributed ledger systems. The Enterprise Ethereum Alliance (EEA) will work to enhance the privacy, security and scalability of the Ethereum blockchain, making it better suited to business applications, according to the founding companies, which said they plan to announce the initiative on Tuesday. 10. CLSA Americas, the US arm of the Chinese-owned broker CLSA, is closing a big chunk of its business. The firm is closing the research function in the US, according to a spokesman. NOW WATCH: These are the watches worn by the smartest and most powerful men in the world See Also:
Business via Business Insider http://ift.tt/eKERsB February 27, 2017 at 05:30PM
http://ift.tt/2iu3zvr
Court order could hamper Facebook VR plans http://ift.tt/2myP39b ANALYSIS: (Reuters) – Facebook’s big ambitions in the nascent virtual reality industry could be threatened by a court order that would prevent it from using critical software code another company claims to own, according to legal and industry experts. Last Thursday, video game publisher ZeniMax Media asked a Dallas federal judge to issue an order barring Facebook unit Oculus from using or distributing the disputed code, part of the software development kit that Oculus provides to outside companies creating games for its Rift VR headset. A decision is likely a few months away, but intellectual property lawyers said ZeniMax has a decent chance of getting the order, which would mean Facebook faces a tough choice between paying a possibly hefty settlement or fighting on at risk of jeopardizing its position in the sector. For now, Facebook is fighting on. Oculus spokeswoman Tera Randall said last Thursday the company would challenge a $500 million jury verdict on Feb. 1 against Oculus and its co-founders Palmer Luckey and Brendan Iribe for infringing ZeniMax’s copyrighted code and violating a non-disclosure agreement. Randall said Oculus would possibly file an appeal that would “allow us to put this litigation behind us.” She did not respond to a request for comment for this article. An injunction would require Oculus, which Facebook acquired for $3 billion in 2014, to stop distributing the code to developers or selling those games that use it. Such a court order “would put a huge stumbling block in front” of Oculus, said Stephanie Llamas, an analyst with gaming market research firm SuperData. It would offer the company’s rivals in the new market, which include HTC, Sony Corp, Alphabet Inc and others an “important opportunity for them to become first movers.” Sales of the Rift itself would not be barred, but Llamas, said a lack of available titles could hinder Facebook’s offering relative to HTC’s Vive headset and Sony’s Playstation VR. That market is relatively small at the moment – sales of VR hardware and software totaled $2.7 billion in 2016 – and mainly limited to gaming. But Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg has predicted the technology “will become a part of daily life for billions of people,” revolutionizing social media, entertainment and medicine. SuperData says the VR market will be worth $37 billion by 2020. Likewise, investment firm Cantor Fitzgerald last year issued a report predicting VR would account for 10 percent of Facebook revenue in four years’ time. ZeniMax’s lawsuit arose from 2012 correspondence between Luckey and famed video game developer John Carmack, creator of the Doom and Quake series and then a ZeniMax employee. Luckey signed a non-disclosure agreement with ZeniMax covering his communications with Carmack. Carmack joined Oculus in 2013 as chief technology officer. ZeniMax sued in 2014, claiming Carmack’s work while its employee was crucial to the Rift. At trial, Facebook said ZeniMax concocted its claims because of “sour grapes” over missing the VR trend. Zuckerberg testified that “the idea that Oculus products are based on someone else’s technologyis just wrong.” The jury decided Oculus had not stolen trade secrets but had infringed ZeniMax’s intellectual property. It also said Oculus breached the non-disclosure agreement. IP lawyers said the judge would consider factors such as whether ZeniMax continues to be harmed and whether money is sufficient compensation. Edward Naughton, a Boston-based copyright lawyer with Brown Rudnick, said ZeniMax has a strong argument because its technology continues to be used without its permission and the jury’s verdict does not compensate for that. “I think they have a pretty good shot here,” Naughton said. Mitchell Shelowitz, a copyright lawyer in New York, noted that the non-disclosure agreement explicitly stated ZeniMax would be entitled to an injunction in the event its terms were violated. Not all lawyers agree ZeniMax has the stronger position. Chicago-based IP lawyer Joshua Rich said he thinks Facebook has a good chance to repel the injunction by arguing that ZeniMax is not being harmed by the sale of the Oculus products because it is not direct competitor. If Facebook can get past the injunction fight, the calculus could change, said Naughton. Facebook may believe it has strong arguments on appeal or, because it has so much cash on hand, it may hope to wear ZeniMax down to the point where it settles on favorable terms. “Facebook has deep pockets,” said Naughton. “That allows them to put their opponent into litigation fatigue.” (Reporting by Jan Wolfe; Editing by Anthony Lin and Grant McCool) Business via VentureBeat http://venturebeat.com February 27, 2017 at 03:46PM
http://ift.tt/2m0PACW
People are freaking out over a photo of Kellyanne Conway in the Oval Office http://ift.tt/2lQtIrY Twitter is alive with the sound of outrage after Kellyanne Conway, counselor to the President, was seen in a series of photos taken by photographers in the Oval Office on Monday. In the photos, Conway can be seen kneeling on a couch and taking pictures of President Donald Trump during his meeting with the leaders of some historically black colleges and universities. Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP After news organization AFP posted the image on Twitter, commenters were quick to weigh in on the issue. Some people suggested Conway's disposition hinted at a deeper meaning to the Oval Office meeting:Ben Dreyfuss, engagement editor of Mother Jones, was hardly bothered:NOW WATCH: Merriam-Webster can’t stop trolling the Trump administration on Twitter See Also:
Business via Business Insider http://ift.tt/eKERsB February 27, 2017 at 03:15PM
http://ift.tt/2liCgG2
Renault and Nissan partner with Transdev to build self-driving vehicles http://ift.tt/2m0Aqha Renault and Nissan have signed a research contract with Transdev to develop a public and on-demand transportation service that will connect people to fleets of electric driverless vehicles. The research will initially include field tests in Paris-Saclay with Renault’s electric ZOE vehicles and Transdev’s on-demand dispatch, supervision, and routing platform. Transdev is a private company that consults and helps manage public transportation operations in Asia, Europe, and North America, including rail and bus services, ferries, health care-related transit, and on-demand airport shuttles and taxis. The company also is involved in a number of pilot autonomous vehicle tests and is operating a commercial driverless service on EDF’s campus in Civaux, France. Producing self-driving cars isn’t enough to ensure widespread adoption by consumers. The technology, whether it’s in the form of a self-driving taxi or autonomous public shuttles, needs to be easy to use and operate if companies hope to make any money on it. The Renault-Nissan Alliance, a strategic partnership that allows the companies to function as a single group, aims to develop such a system. The upshot is to create a system for both kinds of users: the person who books a ride and the operator of the self-driving car fleets. The Renault-Nissan Alliance said last year it plans to launch a range of vehicles with autonomous capabilities in the United States, Europe, Japan and China through 2020. The alliance will begin selling vehicles in 2018 with “multiple-lane control,” which can autonomously negotiate hazards and change lanes during highway driving. By 2020, it says it will introduce vehicles that can navigate city intersections and heavy urban traffic without driver intervention. Separately, Nissan tested Monday its autonomous drive prototype vehicles in London, the first time the company has demonstrated its technology on public roads in Europe. Nissan has already conducted public-road testing in Japan and the United States. The agreement with Transdev follows other partnerships aimed at connected car technologies and mobility services. The Renault-Nissan Alliance partnered in September 2016 with Microsoft to develop a single platform that will bring next-generation services like advanced navigation and remote monitoring into cars with wireless Internet capability. The platform is powered by Microsoft a cloud service Azure. Renault and Nissan Motor announced that same month it planned to buy French software development company Sylpheo to develop new services including ride hailing and car sharing. The alliance also partnered with Japanese internet company DeNA to begin tests in Japan to develop driverless vehicles for commercial services. This story originally appeared on Fortune.com. Copyright 2017 Business via VentureBeat http://venturebeat.com February 27, 2017 at 02:42PM
http://ift.tt/2modDgf
'I think he is behind it': Trump suggests Obama is organizing protests against him http://ift.tt/2lOqLJL Screenshot via Twitter/CNN President Donald Trump delivered a scathing accusation against former President Barack Obama. When asked if Obama was responsible for organizing some of the protests — including the widely-publicized demonstrations at GOP town hall meetings of late — Trump had this response: "No, I think he is behind it, I also think it’s politics, that’s the way it is," Trump said in a preview of an interview with "Fox and Friends" released Monday night. "You never know what’s exactly happening behind the scenes," Trump said. "You never know." Trump's comments follow a long-playing battle with his critics and nationwide protests that have steadily grown in the months since he was elected. The president has continued to assert that demonstrators opposing his presidency are professional agitators and has stated, without evidence, that he only lost the popular vote because of election fraud. Multiple state and federal organizations — an Trump's own attorneys — have debunked those claims. Trump's many squabbles have also played out under the specter of his self-declared war with US news organization. Here is the president's full quote on the question of protesters gathering around the country:< “No, I think that President Obama’s behind it because his people are certainly behind it. And some of the leaks … possibly come from that group ... But I also understand that’s politics, and in terms of him being behind things, that’s politics, and it will probably continue." Watch the clip:NOW WATCH: 'I inherited a mess': Watch Trump's full speech at CPAC 2017 See Also:
Business via Business Insider http://ift.tt/eKERsB February 27, 2017 at 02:15PM
http://ift.tt/2mBteoE
The Most Inspiring Moments from This Year's Oscars http://ift.tt/2muiuct This was one Academy Awards that held attentions from start to finish. It might have been Jimmy Kimmel’s comedic timing, an unusually packed slate of hit films, or even the jaw-dropping reversal in the event’s last moments. But in part, the spark came from the night’s theme: inspiration. Here are just a few of those moments from this year's Oscars: 1. Recognizing a real hero
2. Making History
3. Never stopping
So bring on the rebels The ripples from pebbles The painters, and poets, and plays
And here's to the fools who dream Crazy as they may seem Here's to the hearts that break Here's to the mess we make
6. A last-minute reversal Business via Entrepreneur: Latest Articles http://ift.tt/1V7CpeP February 26, 2017 at 04:09PM
http://ift.tt/2l4eT3v
Phonemakers pile in to exploit Samsung weakness http://ift.tt/2mB7KZ6 Phonemakers are piling in to fill a gap in the market left by Samsung, still licking its wounds from a costly recall of its flagship Note 7 and with no key device of its own to launch at the telecom industry’s biggest annual fair. China’s Huawei, the most likely contender to fill the hole in the premium end of the market, took the wraps off a new phone in its quest to displace Samsung as the world’s no. 2 smartphone maker after Apple, during a rush of new product releases on Sunday ahead of this week’s World Mobile Congress. Chinese challengers Xiaomi, Vivo, Oppo and Gionee are in hot pursuit, while BlackBerry and Nokia announced models exploiting their retro appeal. Samsung itself presented two new tablets pending the launch of its next flagship device, the Galaxy S8, expected now at the end of March rather than at Mobile World Congress, its usual showcase. “The past six months have undoubtedly been one of the most challenging periods of our history,” Samsung’s European marketing chief David Lowes told a news conference in Barcelona. “We’re determined to learn every possible lesson.” Samsung withdrew the Galaxy Note 7 last October after faulty batteries led some devices to catch fire, leading to a loss of consumer trust, wiping out more than $5 billion of operating profit, and allowing the iPhone to overtake it in sales. “The competition is feisty but I think we have a good chance,” Richard Yu, chief executive of Huawei’s consumer business group, told Reuters in an interview. Samsung’s smartphone market share dropped to 17.7 percent in the fourth quarter, while Apple’s rose to 17.8 percent, according to market research firm Strategy Analytics. Independent research analyst Richard Windsor of Radio Free Mobile doubts whether Samsung can quickly regain its position. “Samsung has taken a massive $5.4 billion hit to profits, apologized profusely for the recall and admitted shortcomings in its quality and assurance process but I don’t think that the full effects of this issue have fully hit home,” he wrote in a blog post. He pointed to a survey from Harris Poll which shows that Samsung’s reputation has fallen from No. 7 in the United States to No. 42, just one position above the U.S. Postal Service. Huawei has aggressively expanded its mid- to high-end phones and is going head to head in Asia and Europe with Apple and Samsung in the premium phone market. Its new high-end P10 phone will go on sale from March at 649 euros ($685) in Europe, its key target market, likely ahead of the expected Samsung S8 launch. Huawei, which made its name as a builder of telecom networks and only entered the phone market this decade, has made no secret of its ambition to be the world’s number two. But fortunes can change rapidly in the smartphone market, with little-known names in the West pushing established Asian players such as ZTE, LG Electronics and Lenovo-Motorola into the second tier. Oppo, Vivo and Xiaomi are now the fourth, fifth and sixth-biggest smartphone makers in the world, according to Strategy Analytics, with Sony number 16, and HTC in 20th place. “The long game in smartphones simply is a marketing game,” said Tim Coulling, an analyst at research firm Canalys. Business via VentureBeat http://venturebeat.com February 26, 2017 at 03:49PM |
Categories
All
Archives
October 2020
|