IF / News

Chipsets

MediaTek has announced the launch of its Helio G90 series chipsets with G90 and G90T exclusively designed to be the core of an incredible smartphone gaming experience. The new platforms utilize an octa-core combination of 2 ARM Cortex-A76 cores and 6 Cortex-A55s alongside the Mali-G76 GPU. Both the G90 and G90T are built on TSMC’s 12nm FinFET process and can be clocked up to 2.05GHz. In addition, the new SoCs support up to 10GB LPDDR4X RAM. (GSM Arena, MediaTek, Digital Trends)

Honor’s smart television, dubbed Honor Vision will have a pop-up camera, and use Honor’s own, new Honghu 818 processor. These are part of Honor’s Sharp Tech concept, which seems to include many of Honor’s other tech innovations, such as the GPU Turbo game enhancements, and the Huawei-developed dual-NPU (neural processing unit). (Bloomberg, Digital Trends, CN Beta)

GlobalFoundries has selected PTC to provide AR solutions to transform its training for chip manufacturing workers. GlobalFoundries will deploy AR headsets and software using Boston-based PTC’s Vuforia software, which can do things like superimpose animations on AR glasses so that a worker can see precisely which valve to turn on a complex piece of machinery. (VentureBeat, PTC, Yivian)

Touch Display

vivo’s design patent illustrates a smartphone with dual-display design. Model A has an O-ring LED on its back. Model B’s ring is also LED-illuminated, but it adopts an oval shape and it is placed in the upper-right corner of the secondary screen. (GSM Arena, LetsGoDigital, CN Beta)

LG has trademarked LG Rolling moniker with Korean Intellectual Property Office (KIPO) in South Korea. In Apr 2019, LG has trademarked names like ‘The Roll’, ‘Bi-Roll’, ‘Double Roll’, ‘Dual Roll’, ‘E Roll’, ‘Signature R’, ‘R Screen’, ‘R Canvas’, ‘Roll Canvas’ and ‘Rotolo’ with European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO). These trademarks suggest that the South Korean company may debut a smartphone with rollable screen in the near future. (CN Beta, GizChina, Nashville Chatter)

Sony is showcasing a transparent cylindrical display that is capable of showing a 360º image. The unique cylindrical projection optical design enables viewing of vivid images from 360° all directions. (My Drivers, Sohu, Sony)

Samsung has allegedly manufactured various curved displays that extend to almost the entire side of the device. A metal frame is no longer visible on the side, the physical buttons will also be replaced by virtual ones. The so-called Full-Screen v2.0 screens will not be used in Galaxy smartphones for the time being, which would be Galaxy A100. (163, Sohu, LetsGoDigital, TechGenyz, Tom’s Hardware)

Battery

Earthtech will be the first Korean company to enter the battery recycling business and recently started construction of a dedicated facility for dismantling electric vehicles and recycling used batteries. Earthtech is reportedly able to dismantle 5,000 electric vehicles per year and process 2,000 tons of used batteries. It will invest KRW24B (about USD20M) in the plant and that it is the first such facility at a single location. (CN Beta, Korea Bizwire, Electrive)

Connectivity

The T-Mobile 5G Field Lab has conducted tests at the head office in The Hague, Netherlands. The company has successfully established a 5G connection with OPPO Reno 5G. Test download speeds of up to 850Mbps and an upload speed of more than 50Mbps were achieved. (CN Beta, LetsGoDigital)

Phone

According to Canalys, Huawei has grown 31% YoY on the back of shipping 37.3M units in China in 2Q19. This is despite an overall 6% shipment decline in China, which fell for the ninth consecutive quarter, to 97.6M units. Huawe’s major competitors lost ground, with OPPO down 18% after shipping 17.9M units, vivo down 19% with 17.1M units, Xiaomi down 20% with 11.5M units, and Apple down 14% with 5.7M units. (CN Beta, GSM Arena, Canalys)

OPPO allegedly plans to launch 5 or 6 new smartphones in the Indian market by Diwali 2019. It is believed that they will fall under the OPPO A and K series. (Gizmo China, 91Mobiles)

On 29 July 2019, Samsung Electronics filed 9 trademarks with the EUIPO related to the Galaxy A-series. These are the model names recorded: Samsung Galaxy A11, A21, A31, A41, A51, A61, A71, A81 and finally the Samsung A91. All trademarks are categorized as Class 9 with description “smartphones, mobile phones, tablet computers. (GSM Arena, LetsGoDigital)

vivo has showcased its new Multi-Turbo Engine, software boosters for its smartphones. The Multi-Turbo Engine is a series of boosters for the software and hardware to provide a better gaming experience. The Multi-Turbo Engine comprise of Game Turbo, Centre Turbo, Cooling Turbo and AI Turbo. (Gizmo China, GSM Arena)

vivo has announced  its expansion plan into the Middle East and Africa markets and will soon launch its latest Y series smartphones in the region. As part of its global expansion, vivo’s products are now available in UAE and Morocco, with Nigeria, Kenya, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain to follow suit in the coming months. (TechCrunch, PR Newswire, Business Report, Sohu)

vivo has submitted multiple copies of the vivox series of trademark applications to the European Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO), which covers APEX, NEX, S, U, V, Y, Z and IQOO. The newly registered trademarks are category 9 that covers smartphones. (CN Beta, LetsGoDigital)

Huawei has announced its business results for 1H19: CNY401.3N in revenue, a 23.2% increase over the same period last year. Net profit margin for 1H19 is 8.7%. Huawei’s smartphone shipments (including Honor phones) reached 118M units, up 24% YoY. (Phone Arena, Huawei)

Despite initially forecasting sales of 5M units for the 2019 financial year (1 Apr 2019 – 31 Mar 2020), Sony has now revised its predictions down to 4M units following a quarter in which it sold just 900K units smartphones. (Phone Arena, Sony)

LG has announced record 2Q19 and 1H19 revenues with consolidated sales of KRW15.63T (USD13.4B) and operating profit of KRW652.3B (USD559.4M) for the period covering Apr-Jun 2019. The LG Mobile Communications Company recorded 2Q19 sales of KRW1.61T (USD1.38B), 21.3% lower than the same period last year. (TechCrunch, LG, Android Central, GSM Arena)

Apple has announced financial results for its fiscal 3Q19 ended 29 Jun 2019. The Company posted quarterly revenue of USD53.8B, an increase of 1% from the year-ago quarter. International sales accounted for 59% of the quarter’s revenue. (VentureBeat, Apple, Neowin, My Drivers)

According to Strategy Analytics, global smartphone shipments fell 3% annually to reach 341M units in 2Q19. Global smartphone shipments continue to stabilize. Samsung maintained first position with 22% global smartphone market share, Huawei surprised with 17%, while Apple held 11% market share in third place. (My Drivers, Strategy Analytics, report)

Automotive

Ford has acquired Journey Holding Corporation, which has developed vehicle tracking software and app-based technology designed for public transportation. Journey Holding will be housed under Ford Smart Mobility,  a Ford subsidiary that invests in and builds the automaker’s transportation services. (TechCrunch, Ford, Teller China)

Ford has acquired a small robotics company Quantum Signal, which has produced mobile robots for a number of clients, including the U.S. military. The company’s specialty is building remote control software for robotic vehicles, specifically, and also responsible for a very highly regarded simulated testing and development environment for autonomous and remotely controlled robotic systems. (TechCrunch, Ford, Teller China)

Fintech

Blockchain has announced the launch of a new “institutional-grade crypto trading platform” called The PIT that aims to allow traders to trade with speed, reliability, and liquidity. They use Equinix LD4, one of the most reliable and lowest-latency data centers in the world. LD4 is the computing infrastructure underpinning many of Europe’s largest global finance, technology, and media companies. (CN Beta, Blockchain, Neowin)