Africa
Vodacom has announced the launch of a new advertising medium with massive potential that reinforces the cellular network operator's move into the multimedia and broadcasting arena. "With the launch of mobile advertising, a first for South Africa, Vodacom is entering the media space in line with our strategy to diversify into a multimedia company. It is a huge new market and we estimate mobile media ad-spend in South Africa could reach R1,5 billion by 2011," said Romeo Kumalo, Vodacom South Africa's commercial executive director.
The International Telecommunication Union has deployed 25 satellite terminals to help restore vital communication links in the aftermath of severe floods that have affected the eastern and northern regions of Uganda since August this year. Several districts were ravaged by torrential rains and flash floods that swept through the country taking lives, marooning over 140 000 people, destroying road and communication links, and submerging crops, compelling the government to declare a state of emergency.
Investments by government and government-aided organisations, contact centre service providers and the primary sector are stimulating growth in the African business telephony market. In particular, multinational aid and international loans have helped governments finance secondary and tertiary sectors in the continent, creating a market for business telephony. New analysis from Frost & Sullivan finds that the African business telephony market earned revenues of 158,3 million Euros in 2005 and expects this to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 12,3% to reach 345,3 million Euros in 2012.
Overseas
Business
RF Micro Devices has reported financial results for its fiscal 2008 second quarter ended 29 September, 2007. Quarterly revenue increased approximately 3,6% year-over-year and approximately 21% sequentially to $255,8 million. Operating income totalled approximately $8,1 million on a GAAP basis and approximately $17,2 million on a non-GAAP basis. The company's September 2007 quarterly performance reflected growth in all three of its business units.
Wavecom has announced unaudited financial results for the third fiscal quarter of 2007. Revenues have dropped since the second quarter from 56,1 million Euros to 52,4 million Euros down also on the same quarter last year at 55,9 million Euros. Gross profit was 23,7 million Euros, better than last year's 19,9 million Euros, but down from the previous sequential quarter's 24,4 million Euros.
Citing good performances in its application-specific wireless and computer products, STMicroelectronics has reported a net revenue increase of 6,1% to reach $2565 million for the third fiscal quarter of 2007. Gross profit of $902 million and a gross margin of 35,2% for the latest quarter were both up from the previous quarter's gross profit of $838 million and gross margin of 34,7%. For the first nine months of fiscal year 2007, net revenues of $7258 million were reported, lower than the $7371 million of 2006.
Freescale has reported a loss for the second quarter in a row. The company posted a loss of $261 million for the third quarter ended 28 September 2007, compared to a profit of $257 million a year ago and a loss of $288 million in the previous sequential period. Net sales of $1,45 billion were up from the 2007 second quarter's $1,4 billion, but down from $1,62 billion in the third quarter of 2006.
Microchip Technology announced the sale of its idled Fab 3 in Puyallup, Washington. The sale was completed on 19 October, 2007, after the company had received an unsolicited offer during September, 2007 for the facility. The facility was sold for $30 million at a loss of $16,5 million net of income taxes, or an earnings per share impact of 7,4 cents in the September quarter.
Broadcom reported net revenue for the third quarter of 2007 of $950,0 million, an increase of 5,8% compared with the $897,9 million reported for the second quarter of 2007 and an increase of 5,2% compared with the $902,6 million reported for the third quarter of 2006. Net income was $27,8 million, or $0,05 per share (diluted), compared with GAAP net income of $34,3 million, or $0,06 per share (diluted), for the second quarter of 2007, and GAAP net income of $110,2 million, or $0,19 per share (diluted), for the third quarter of 2006.
Texas Instruments has reported third-quarter 2007 revenue of $3,66 billion. Revenue increased 7% compared with the prior quarter, primarily due to increased demand for analog semiconductor products. Revenue decreased 3% from a year ago when customers were building inventory. Earnings per share (EPS) were $0,52. This was an increase of $0,10, or 24%, from the prior quarter and $0,07, or 16%, from the year-ago quarter. The third quarter's financial results included a gain of $0,02 from the sale of the company's semiconductor product line for broadband DSL customer-premises equipment.
Sharp has announced that net sales for the six months ended 30 September 2007 were 1640,8 billion yen, up 12,0% compared to the same period last year, reflecting expanded sales of LCD TVs, mobile phones and LCD panels for TVs. Operating income was 79,0 billion yen, down 12,3%, and net income was 43,3 billion yen, down 6,9%, both compared to the same period last year. On the profit side, results were lower than the same period last year due to increased depreciation and amortisation as well as an increase in start-up costs for LCD TV production bases in Poland and Mexico, and a decline in profits for solar cells resulting from shortages and soaring prices of raw materials.
Companies
Arrow Electronics and Intel have finalised an agreement in which Arrow will provide global supply assurance support for a broad range of embedded controller products recently discontinued by Intel. The supply assurance program was developed in response to the number of customers who were affected by this change in product status. The agreement covers over 250 individual part numbers, including the ubiquitous 80C51 family as well as product families that include the 80C188, 80C186, 80960, 80386, and 80486. Automotive CAN (controller area network) controllers were also included in the agreement.
Wind River and Freescale Semiconductor have introduced an enablement platform that addresses growth opportunities in the embedded mass market. The joint platform is designed to simplify and accelerate application development for embedded computing applications using Freescale's multicore MPC5121e processor and the Wind River Linux operating system. The joint MPC5121e platform consists of a Freescale hardware development kit bundled with Wind River's software optimised for the 32-bit MPC5121e processor. The bundled offering includes a choice of Commercial-Grade Linux or Wind River VxWorks operating systems, Wind River Workbench, a feature-rich board support package and a hardware development system optimised for the MPC5121e.
Nortel Networks is picking a minority stake in Bangalore-based optical network firm Tejas Networks. The deal is part of a product sourcing arrangement wherein Nortel, the $11,4 billion Canadian telecom equipment company, was to get the equity stake after certain purchase milestones with Tejas as the original equipment manufacturer (OEM) supplier.
austriamicrosystems, a global designer and manufacturer of high performance analog ICs, and IDS Microchip, a provider of flexible RFID and sensor silicon system solutions, have partnered to develop an innovative UHF RFID reader IC targeted at the portable reader market. These UHF RFID readers would be used to interrogate Gen 2 RFID tags, the latest generation of RFID tag technology.
SanDisk has announced the filing of three patent infringement actions against 25 companies that manufacture, sell and import USB flash drives, CompactFlash cards, multimedia cards, MP3/media players and/or other removable flash storage products. The sued companies include Corsair Memory, Imation/Memorex, Kingston, LG Electronics, Transcend and Verbatim. The actions, filed in the United States District Court in the Western District of Wisconsin and in the United States International Trade Commission ('ITC'), allege that the defendants have infringed various SanDisk system-level patents, and seek damages and a permanent injunction in the federal court actions, as well as a permanent exclusion order from the ITC banning importation of the products into the United States.
Intel has agreed to pay $250 million as part of a settlement with IP firm Transmeta. The agreement between the companies allows for Intel to make an initial payment of $150 million to Transmeta, and to pay off the remainder in five annual licence fee payments of $20 million each. The companies have agreed to settle all legal claims, and Transmeta will licence its patent portfolio to Intel for use in current and future Intel products.
Industry
In the latest development in the intense price battle between Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) and Intel, AMD's share in the global microprocessor market increased by the same amount as Intel's share dropped, according to research firm IDC. In terms of shipments, Intel's share of the global market shrunk by 0,4% compared to the second quarter to reach 76,3%, while AMD gained the same amount to finish the third quarter with a 23,5% share.
According to market research group The Information Network, semiconductor equipment sales are set to improve in the fourth quarter of 2007 and to continue to grow through 2008 and 2009. According to Dr Robert Castellano, president of The Information Network, "The upturn has started. We also raised our equipment forecast for 2009 to 5% growth. That is the good news. The bad news is that we lowered our forecasted growth for 2008 from a 22% increase to 11%."
Worldwide fibre to the x (FTTx) projects continue to increase due to triple play services' huge requirement for bandwidth and the rising demand for last mile and access networks. FTTx offers a reliable solution that provides high-capacity networks and services as well as a secure connection for telecommunications through the use of optical fibre instead of the usual copper loop. This performance reliability will likely drive significant demand for fibre optic testing equipment (FOTE). New analysis from Frost & Sullivan finds that the worldwide fibre-optic test equipment market earned revenues of $586,1 million in 2006 and estimates this to reach $891,7 million in 2013.
Technology
At the recent Ceatec 2007 exhibition in Tokyo, Japanese company NTT DoCoMo unveiled a prototype cellphone with the ability to measure bad breath. The Wellness Navigator - a slider phone with a touch screen, manufactured by Mitsubishi - keeps track of its user's activity level, pulse, and fat levels, thanks to a built-in pedometer, a pulse meter, and a body-fat analyser which sends a small electrical signal through the user's body to assess its composition.
Researchers at Princeton University have demonstrated so-called 'metamaterials' that could be used to make powerful microscopes, flat and distortion-free lenses and even cloaking devices that make objects invisible. Light passing from one ordinary material into another bends slightly, but light passing into a metamaterial bends in the opposite direction. Metamaterials thus have what is called a negative index of refraction. Metamaterials could also be used to route electromagnetic waves around an object, rendering it invisible. Although there have been several developments in this exotic class of materials, particularly in the last year, this latest technology is said to be less expensive than other solutions.
Nissan has developed a system that provides drivers with a top-down view of their car to simplify parking in tight spaces. The Around View Monitor combines images from cameras at the front, rear and sides of the car to generate an aerial view which is displayed on a dashboard screen.
A company called Bug Labs is developing a device called BUG, which is being touted as an open-source hardware platform. The system consists of a range of modules which can be plugged into a base for users to create their own hardware combinations. The company's software development environment can then be used to download or develop applications to control the modules in unique ways. The range of modules is expected to initially consist of GPS, digital camera, LCD screen and accelerometer, and will be expanded on a continual basis.
Researchers at Hitachi claim to have made a breakthrough that could quadruple the capacity of hard drives, to reach four terabytes by 2011. Utilising a technology known as giant magnetoresistance, or GMR, the company claims that read heads can be reduced to the 30 nm to 50 nm range.
Researchers at Harvard University have developed a technique that could ultimately lower the cost of generating electricity from the sun. They have succeeded in making a solar cell from a nanowire just 300 nm wide, which could be used to power tiny sensors or robots for environmental monitoring or military applications. The basic design is also expected to be scalable to make it useful in large-scale power production.
Using 30 nm process technology, Samsung has claimed to have developed the world's first 64-Gbit multilevel cell NAND Flash memory chip. According to Samsung, this marks the eighth consecutive year that the density of memory has doubled and the seventh straight year that the nanometre scale has improved for NAND flash since the 100 nm NAND with a capacity of 1 Gbit was developed in 2001.
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