Chip designer CSR has jumped by more than a third after agreeing to sell its mobile handsets business to Samsung for $310m in cash.
Under the terms of the deal, Samsung will also pay $34.4m to buy a 4.9% stake in CSR at 223p a share. In the market CSR has climbed 78.3p to 296.6p. CSR said it would return $285m to shareholders once the deal completes in the fourth quarter.
The move will allow CSR to focus on areas where it has better market positions, such as audio, automotive and bluetooth. Its handset business had been disadvantaged in recent years since its chips were rarely included in smartphones, now the dominant sector. CSR chief executive Joep van Beurden said:
I believe under Samsung's ownership the handset operations will be in a better position to prosper in the global handset market.
The company added that trading in the second quarter remained robust, and it expected to report second quarter revenues at the top end of the previous guidance of $245m to $265m. Analyst Alex Jarvis at Peel Hunt said:
The move is sensible given [CSR's] inability to compete long-term in this market and completes process of refocusing on platforms in non-handset markets.
But it was unfortunate timing for Citigroup to issue a sell note on CSR and cut its target price from 210p to 205p. The bank said:
In our view, CSR has the weakest fundamentals within our European semiconductor coverage, with headwinds in four end-market segments offsetting stable contributions from the retained Zoran segments (cameras and imaging) and high single digit growth in the rest of the business.
Samsung displays Galaxy S III Developer Edition on website - AndroidSPIN (blog)
With the outrage of Verizon customers, Samsung’s approach towards “making an unlocked bootloader” on Big Red have been quite large. The manufacturer will be releasing a phone designed with an unlocked bootloader, named the “Developer Edition”.
The whole ordeal with Verizon and the encryption have left developers basically “in the dust”. And I do have to say, the Developer Edition S III is pretty damn pricey.
Essentially you feel like you are buying the phone at full cost, but with that all you really get is, as said before, an unlocked bootloader. Samsung displayed the special edition device on their website, but gave very little information on any “upgraded” specs.
All we know is that the 32GB version of the device will cost $599, through Samsung, while the 32GB version at Verizon will cost $50 more! You gotta love the greed.
There is no release date mentioned on the webpage, but perhaps you might want to hold off because Verizon might release a patch to unlock the Galaxy S III’s bootloader.
Even though you should wait on a n official executives word, will you hold off until they unlock the bootloader? Are you getting the Developer Edition? I would love to hear your comments.
[Via: Droid-Life]
Vodafone's TelstraClear deal can only be a good thing - ZDNet
How can the reduction of a market from three firms to two be good for competition?
This is the question that had to be asked after the NZ$840 million Vodafone takeover of TelstraClear was announced late last week.
But contrary to expectations, the consolidation will be good. This is because, for years, New Zealand has been dominated by the monopolistic Telecom.
Like any former state telco monopoly, such as Telstra in Australia and BT in Britain, it has held onto its residential communications market share tenaciously.
Yet, other providers were able to perform when newer technologies came onto the scene, such as mobile or broadband. Indeed, in New Zealand, while we saw Telecom dominant in the residential market, Vodafone was strongest in mobile. TelstraClear seemed to do better on broadband, relatively speaking.
By itself, TelstraClear is pretty weak in the mobile space, just as Vodafone is in the residential and broadband markets. But bring them together and it seems the sum is greater than the constituent parts. The new combined Vodafone will be a big boy that can tackle Telecom.
And, as one industry insider just told me, we might see Vodafone make better use of TelstraClear's fibre investment, which, although it was extensive in New Zealand's major cities, was little exploited. With Telecom grabbing the bulk of the government's ultra-fast broadband project, the battle will be significant.
It's "Game On!", to quote the New Zealand Herald.
Of course, there are other issues to consider. For example, a strong Vodafone might damage the relative newcomer to the mobile space, 2 Degrees, which might harm competition. Regulators will look carefully into this, however, and are supposed to make a ruling on the planned takeover by the end of the month. Although, due to the extent of the deal, it is likely they will ask for more time.
If the regulators say yes, we will have to wait even longer for the results of the deal, as it could well take Vodafone one to two years to integrate the various parts of the new merged entity. But I'm hopeful that, after years of monopoly, we will eventually see a competitive duopoly as two big boys fight it out.
Newspaper readers in Australia might liken it to a fight between Rupert Murdoch and Fairfax; washing powder users to a battle between Proctor & Gamble and Unilever. Such a fight can only mean a better deal for the consumer.
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