With the Apple iPhone seemingly dominating the mobile-phone conversation, you would have to forgive LG Electronics Co. Ltd. for backing a superheroic push to earn some buzz. LG is turning to comic-book character Iron Man to launch one of its most aggressive U.S. pushes,...
LG Electronics Co. Ltd. shipped 24.4 million handsets in the first quarter, above analysts' estimates of 23 million to 24 million units.Handset sales reached $3.2 billion, up nearly 36% over the year-ago quarter, while the division's operating profit reached $448 million, a four-fold jump...
OK, Mark Twain's "mysterious stranger" was actually Satan's nephew, and we're certainly not deriding the devilish Steve Jobs or his wonderful company - but the theme of unwanted intrusion is apt.That is, if you consider the perspective of incumbent handset vendors and all network...
AT&T Mobility hopes a new 30-inch touchscreen table will lead to more customers leaving its stores educated and satisfied with the entire shopping experience -- a little fun and simplicity wouldn't hurt either. The nation's largest carrier will be installing Microsoft Corp.'s Surface at...
Like a series of dominos, several of the largest regional carriers fell to consolidation pressures within the past year. The announcements came within a few months of one another: AT&T Inc. would buy Dobson Communications Corp., Verizon Wireless snapped up Rural Cellular Corp., and...
MOTOROLA INC.'S INTENT TO SPLIT into two publicly traded companies should speed the recovery of its mobile devices business by attracting new leadership and developing a fresh focus on a product-led recovery, CEO Greg Brown said last week.And, not incidentally, the announcement may help...
AT&T Mobility and MediaFLO USA Inc. announced they will launch their long-awaited mobile TV service in May, but the details of the offering still remain somewhat unclear.Neither company pointed to a specific date for launch, nor what content would be featured on two channels...
It seems AT&T Mobility and MediaFLO USA Inc. didn't want to risk getting lost in the glare of next week's CTIA Wireless 2008 trade show; the companies rushed out news this afternoon that AT&T Mobile TV with FLO will be launching this May.The service...
CEOs tend to come and go accompanied by headlines of some sort, at least in the American press. Not so for the second-tier executives of multinational corporations, particularly those at Korean conglomerates such as Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. and LG Electronics Co. Ltd., who...
SAMSUNG ELECTRONICS CO. LTD. appears to be upping the ante in the U.S. cellphone market, where it is No. 2 - some distance behind Motorola Inc. and trailed closely by LG Electronics Co.While confident of its future here, Samsung sees the U.S. market's rate...
At the end of the day - the verbal pause du jour - a gathering of thousands of industry people bursting with innovative products, some of them handsets, will undoubtedly kick up a little dust in Las Vegas next week.Whether handset vendors are merely...
Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications warned yesterday that its first quarter results, due April 23, will reflect weaker than anticipated handset volumes, leading to lower revenue and flat gross margins. The company said it would ship about 22 million units for the quarter, well under...
If you add up a number of factors, the new LG Glimmer at Alltel Corp. makes a lot of sense for the two companies. Touchscreens are hot. The Glimmer offers a 2.8-inch touchscreen with slide-out numeric keypad. Multimedia is hot. Glimmer offers a "robust"...
Kenneth C. "Casey" Keller Jr., the package-goods marketing guru who tried to revive Motorola after its popular Razr product started to lose its edge, has been cut from the company.In a statement, Motorola attributed Keller's departure to a restructuring aimed at ensuring "that our...
Hollywood content producers looking to cash in on mobile should take a cue from The Red Hot Chili Peppers and give it away - now.That's the message of a white paper released last week from Parks Associates and the think tank Entertainment Technology Center...
The phrase "iPhone killer" sounds great but it doesn't withstand scrutiny.
Consider that in the 8 months since Apple Inc.'s splashdown in the mobile device market, device vendors have relentlessly chanted the mantra of "user experience" and "ease-of-use."
Sure, that mantra has been a...
Don't be fooled by the flow of VC funding or the fact that Google Inc. and MySpace are in on it. The truth is, mobile social networking is not as cool as its fixed Internet brethren. An obsession with user-generated content, coupled with the...
Mobile phone design efforts over the past two years appear to have taken the handset as far as it will go, for now, if the handsets coming out of the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, are any indication.The forefront of innovation today is...
AT&T Mobility subscribers are still waiting for the carrier to launch MediaFLO USA Inc.'s broadcast television service, and sources say the wait could be anywhere from two to eight weeks longer.The launch seemed all but locked up for earlier this month, but everything from...
BARCELONA, Spain - In a room too crowded to let in all the press, LG Electronics Co. displayed three new handsets with nice form factors, but little pricing or operator information.The KF700 is a multimedia handset with three input methods: a 3-inch touchscreen, a...
Voce's promises are now just a hollow echo of P.T. Barnum's famous dictum, "there's a sucker born every minute." "The ultimate service," the now-defunct mobile virtual network operator's Web site still assures viewers. "Voce redefines customer care." In the case of Voce, which...
The landscape of the wireless industry is in flux as you read this story, with product launches, pre-announcements and hype flying by like so much confetti on the wind.Or is that confetti actually the cellular industry after being fed through a shredder?The traditional cellular...
LG Electronics Inc. shipped 23.7 million handsets in the fourth quarter, up nearly 40% year-on-year, based on its expanded feature phone offerings, the company said.LG's handset revenue for the year-end quarter grew to about $3 billion, 12% above the year-ago quarter. For 2007, operating...
AFTER NUMEROUS DELAYS, AT&T Mobility is preparing to launch broadcast mobile TV service from MediaFLO USA Inc. in early February, according to sources close to the situation.Leaked internal documents and sources indicate that AT&T Mobility is planning to launch the service with two exclusive...
