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Global smartphone sales in the fourth quarter of 2011 soared to 149 million units -- a 47.3 percent increase from the fourth quarter of 2010, according to Gartner. What's more, smartphone sales during full-year 2011 reached 472 million units and accounted for 31 percent of all mobile-device sales -- a 58 percent rise from 2010, the firm's analysts said Wednesday. During the fourth quarter Apple became the world's third-largest mobile-handset vendor overall. The iconic device maker also led the global smartphone field with a 23.8 percent market share and 35.5 million unit shipments. "Western Europe and North America led most of the smartphone growth for Apple during the fourth quarter," said Roberta Cozza, a principal research analyst at Gartner. "In Western Europe the spike in iPhone sales in the fourth quarter saved the overall smartphone market after two consecutive quarters of slow sales." Even better for Apple, it led the global smartphone market by claiming a 19 percent market share for all of 2011. However, given that Apple will not benefit from delayed purchases as it did in the fourth quarter of 2011, Gartner's analysts expect its explosive 121.4 percent iPhone sales growth to decline on a sequential basis in the current quarter. Nokia's Sliding Handset Sales Worldwide sales of mobile devices overall rose 5.4 percent to 476.5 million units in last year's fourth quarter, and for the year as a whole 1.8 billion units were shipped -- an 11.1 percent increase from 2010. This year Gartner expects the handset market overall to grow by about 7 percent. Moreover, smartphone growth is expected to slow to around 39 percent. Nokia led the handset market overall by shipping 111.7 million units in the final quarter of 2011. However, Samsung Mobile narrowed its gap with Nokia by shipping 92.7 million handsets overall, including... newsfactor.com »

(Reuters) - Ciena Corp slashed its first-quarter sales expectations, hurt by delays in recognizing revenue as its customers take time to close deals, sending the network gear maker's shares down as much as 7 percent. Reuters: Internet News »

(Reuters) - Shares of Dell Inc fell more than 7 percent in premarket trading on Wednesday, after the world's No.3 personal computer maker forecast weak sales for the current quarter. Reuters: Internet News »

В систему управления сайтами Fast-Sales интегрирован "QIWI Кошелек". Fast-Sales предназначена для создания интернет-магазина и его быстрого запуска. При этом необязательно обладать знаниями в программировании: CMS уже готова к эксплуатации, достаточно лишь установить ее на сервер и адаптировать под свои потребности. Работая с данной системой, интернет-магазины смогут настроить моментальный прием платежей от покупателей через "QIWI Кошелек". Модуль кошелька, встроенный в систему, дает возможность принимать оплату покупок наличными в 120 тыс. терминалов QIWI, банковскими картами, с лицевых счетов сотовых операторов "Билайн", "МегаФон", МТС и со счета самого кошелька. ... CNews »

(REUTERS) - Twitter users are about to become major marketing fodder, as two research companies get set to release information to clients who will pay for the privilege of mining the data. Reuters: Internet News »

Newspapers need to prioritize digital advertising sales if they expect to thrive, according to a Pew Research Center study released Monday. As advertisers shift spending from traditional print media to the Internet, newspapers are failing to make up for the decline in print advertising revenue with gains in online ads. Pew studied 38 large and small newspapers and found that for every $7 in print ad revenue declines, the companies only generated about $1 in new digital advertising sales. The study suggests, however, that newspapers have the power to change -- if they alter their approach to advertising sales. Papers with the largest circulations and biggest sales forces do a better job increasing online ad sales. But even newspapers with a daily circulation of less than 25,000 printed copies show hefty digital gains with a properly aligned sales force, training and commissions that encourage online ad sales. "The notion that you can only have success in digital if you're bigger is not what we found," said Tom Rosenstiel, director of the Pew's Project for Excellence in Journalism. "You can have success even at small papers if you're willing to change the culture." The newspapers provided Pew with financial data for its study, on the condition that they would not be identified. One newspaper, with a circulation of about 20,000 copies and over $8 million in annual print revenue, managed to boost its annual online ad revenue by 63 percent to more than $500,000 in 2010. In 2011, its digital ad revenue grew about 33 percent. The newspaper's publisher told Pew researchers that the company had aggressively sought to hire ad salespeople who focused on online ads -- mainly display and classified ads. Now, "almost everything we sell has a digital component," the publisher told the center. For all the newspapers that participated, print ad revenue fell... newsfactor.com »

Forrester Research forecasts that 34.3 percent of all U.S. adults will own a media tablet by 2016 -- when the firm's analysts expect 60.3 million units to ship to American consumers. The research firm also foresees similar trends for tablet sales in Europe, where 30.4 percent of consumers are expected to own tablets by 2016. "With an assumed replacement rate of two years, cumulative unit sales will be much higher," Forrester Senior Analyst Sarah Rotman Epps wrote in a blog. "In the U.S., we forecast that consumers will buy 292.5 million tablets from 2010 to 2016." Most industry analysts foresee Apple remaining atop the tablet market for the foreseeable future. Established Android tablet vendors such as HTC, Motorola, Samsung and Sony are expected to continue to trail far behind the market lead. The upwardly revised tablet sales estimates from Forrester are due in part to the introduction of the Kindle Fire by Amazon and the Nook Tablet from Barnes & Noble. "Both devices, in our view, expand the addressable market for tablets with their significantly lower-than-iPad price points," Rotman Epps wrote. A Business Sales Opportunity On the other hand, Apple could recapture any market share lost to the Kindle Fire and Nook Tablet by launching a less-expensive iPad with a smaller screen. "Reports from Apple's Taiwanese suppliers suggest that Apple is testing smaller screen sizes than the current 9.7-inch iPad -- perhaps a 7.85-inch version," Rotman Epps said in a new Forrester report released Tuesday. "While 62 percent of tablet shoppers say that they'd prefer a 10-inch screen, 26 percent say that they'd prefer a smaller screen, and an additional 20 percent are undecided." However, attracting price conscious consumers in the U.S. and abroad isn't the only opportunity for tablet vendors to increase market share. According to industry observers, a significant chunk... newsfactor.com »

Apple said it sold 3 million of the new iPad tablet computers over the weekend, setting a company record. It was "the strongest iPad launch yet," says Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of worldwide marketing. The first iPad in 2010 sold 300,000 on its first day, and it took 28 days to get to 1 million. Apple didn't announce initial iPad 2 sales in 2011, but estimates ranged from 400,000 to about 1 million during its first weekend on sale. By contrast, Apple sold 4 million iPhone 4S smartphones in the first weekend last October. Shaw Wu, an analyst at Sterne Agee, calls the 3 million haul for the new iPad "bigger than I expected, a big number." Wireless carrier AT&T also said Monday that the company set a "single-day record" for iPad sales and activations on March 16, the day it went on sale. The new iPad -- which starts at $499 for a Wi-Fi-only model with 16 gigabytes of storage -- has received a mixed reaction online, where consumers have questioned just how big an improvement the new sharper screen is and the speed of the faster 4G cellular network. There are scattered reports that the new iPad is prone to overheating after about 30 minutes of use. Apple declined to comment. But those concerns didn't stop consumers from snapping them up. Wu says the new features are "huge upgrades, enough to drive incremental buyers." Shipments for online sales are backed up two to three weeks, and in-store stock is hit and miss. A clerk at an Apple Store in Seattle said iPads that connect to the AT&T network were sold out, while a store in downtown New York City also had run out of AT&T iPads in black. Details about iPad sales for Verizon Wireless were not immediately available. In its release, Apple said it would expand... newsfactor.com »

(Reuters) - GameStop Corp gave a stronger fiscal-year outlook than some analysts expected as the retailer expects to generate more sales from used videogames and benefit from the release of new hardware from Nintendo Co Ltd. Reuters: Internet News »

Apple set mobile-device sales records in the first quarter of 2012 by expanding its global iPhone shipments 88 percent year-over-year to 35.1 million units and boosting iPad shipments by 151 percent to 11.8 million units. Apple also outgrew the PC market overall by increasing its quarterly Mac desktop and portable shipments by 7 percent year-over-year to 4 million units. After Verizon Wireless reported lower than expected iPhone activation numbers last week, investments firms reduced their first-quarter iPhone shipment estimates to the range of 31 million to 33 million units. According to Apple executives, however, the iPhone experienced strong sales growth in the Asia Pacific and Japan markets -- where sales more than doubled year-over-year. First-quarter iPhone sales in Greater China, for example, were driven by huge demand following the January launch of the iPhone 4S and China Telecom's debut as an iPhone carrier in March. "On a macro basis, China has an enormous number of people moving into the higher income groups -- the middle class, if you will -- and this is creating a demand for goods, not just Apple's but other companies' goods as well," Apple CEO Tim Cook told investors Tuesday. "There's a tremendous opportunity for companies that understand China, and we're doing everything we can to understand it and serve the market." Huge U.S. Upgrade Opportunity Piper Jaffray said that Apple's record iPhone sales are proof that the iconic device maker's international growth is only just beginning. "Apple's March quarter results are particularly important as they are evidence that the company's growth story can be successful in these emerging markets," said Piper Jaffray analysts Gene Munster and Douglas Clinton. Nevertheless, the U.S. market continues to represent a huge iPhone sales growth opportunity for Apple and its carrier partners. "The bigger story for iPhone is the coming launch of iPhone 5, which we... newsfactor.com »

(Reuters) - Amazon.com agreed to begin collecting sales tax in Texas on Friday, forging a deal that promises to bring more jobs to the southern U.S. state and as the online marketer lost another round in a series of state-by-state sales tax battles. Reuters: Internet News »

Two much-anticipated games, Max Payne 3 and Diablo III, [could] bring respite from a five-month slump in video game retail sales. The arrival of the third-person action game and the PC-based fantasy role-playing game will be welcomed by game fans and retailers, because the release schedule of potential hits so far in 2012 has been underwhelming. Another sign of slumping sales: Retailer GameStop reported last week that first-quarter sales fell 12.5% on a drop in store traffic due to fewer blockbuster titles. Overall April retail sales were $630.4 million, down 32% from $930.9 million in April 2011, reports market tracker the NPD Group. "When we see compelling content come into the market, the games are still selling as well as ever," says NPD analyst Anita Frazier. "We just saw a lot less this April as compared to last." Other factors in the slump: growth in sales of downloadable games and add-on content, as well as a casual gamer shift to mobile and Web games. Some developers have turned design efforts to the next generation of video game consoles, even though only Nintendo's Wii U has been announced, says Geoff Keighley, host of Spike network's GameTrailers TV. "Really, the only big game this year," he says, "has been Mass Effect 3," BioWare's science-fiction role-playing game, which has sold about 4 million copies in two months. With Max Payne 3 ($60, for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and Windows PCs, ages 17 and older), developer Rockstar Games (Grand Theft Auto) revived the police detective from two popular computer games out in 2001 and 2003. The success of the new game, coming to PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and Windows PCs, "is critical for the video game market, not just for Rockstar," says EEDAR analyst Jesse Divnich. Since the impact of mobile games on interest in premium-price console games is hard to quantify,... newsfactor.com »

In January, Oracle acquired RightNow, a leading cloud-based customer service solution, adding it to the Oracle Public Cloud suite of integrated services. On Thursday, the company announced that the RightNow CX Cloud Service customer experience suite will be integrated with its Fusion CRM Sales. Fusion Customer Relationship Management is part of Oracle Fusion Applications, which also includes Fusion Middleware and Oracle Database. Among other features, Fusion CRM provides a single view of customers across the enterprise, optimizes sales territories and sales incentives, and centralizes order and fulfillment systems. Customer Interaction = Opportunity The combination of RightNow with Fusion, the company said, combines service interactions from RightNow with sales predictions and segmentation capabilities from Fusion Sales. This will help businesses generate cross-channel customer interactions and increase opportunities for revenue and efficiencies. Among other things, the company noted that the integration will allow sales personnel to review service histories as preparation for sales calls, and can provide information about buying habits of customers. Through the integration, products and services can be better matched to customers' service history, customer interactions can be better targeted, and new purchasing opportunities for customers can be more readily identified, the company said. David Vap, Oracle group vice president, said in a statement that every customer interaction is an opportunity to grow the business. He added that "customer trust provides an opportunity to increase customer product adoption and to reduce the cost of customer acquisition," which can increase profitability. Web, Social, Contact Center CX According to an annual survey conducted by RightNow, 86 percent of customers choose not to do business with a company because of a bad experience. A cloud-based solution such as RightNow, according to Oracle, can result in a reduction of up to 30 percent in labor costs, as well as increased customer retention and acquisition. RightNow combines Web, social, and... newsfactor.com »

Hewlett-Packard is considering eliminating up to 25,000 jobs -- 7% of its workforce -- to slash costs and help the venerable tech company cope with declining demand for computers and services, according to several reports. The cuts could include 10,000 to 15,000 from HP's enterprise services group, which sells information technology services but has been bedeviled by shrinking profits, according to a report by Bloomberg News, citing unnamed sources. USA TODAY could not confirm the report. HP is mulling reductions to its 349,600-person workforce through early-retirement packages, Bloomberg reported. Purging 18,000 jobs could result in $1.2 billion in savings and add 50 cents to annual per-share earnings, Brian Marshall, an analyst at ISI Group, estimated in a research note this month. HP spokesman Michael Thacker declined to comment. The 73-year-old company, the original garage start-up in Silicon Valley, could announce the layoffs Wednesday when it reports fiscal second-quarter earnings. Meg Whitman, HP's CEO since September, is trying to reverse a series of missteps that led to the ouster of her predecessor, Leo Apotheker. HP faces fierce competition from all sides. Its PC business is under siege from Apple and other computer makers. At the same time, HP vies for corporate sales of hardware, software and services with heavyweights IBM, Oracle and Cisco Systems. The layoffs "might be tied, in part, to marketplace performance of the business units," says Forrester analyst Frank Gillett. In February, HP forecast sales for the quarter through April that fell short of analysts' predictions. Sales in the current year may decline 4% to $122.4 billion, according to average analyst predictions. Whitman, who ran eBay for a decade before an unsuccessful run for governor of California, in March said she would merge HP's PC and printing divisions, step up R&D investments and take steps to shore up HP's balance sheet. "While the (rumored layoff) number sounds big, it... newsfactor.com »

Lenovo Group, the world's second-largest personal computer maker, said Wednesday its quarterly profit rose 59 percent over a year earlier on record sales. Profit for the three months ending March 31 was $67 million, or 0.65 U.S. cents per share, the company announced. Quarterly sales rose 54 percent to $7.5 billion. For the full year ending in March, Lenovo said profit rose 73 percent to $473 million on a 37 percent increase in sales to $29.6 billion. Global PC shipments rose 35 percent over the previous fiscal year, while full-year market share rose to a new high of 12.9 percent. "Our fiscal year ended impressively with strong momentum," said chairman and CEO Yang Yuanqing in a statement. "With the emergence of multiple devices such as smartphones, tablets and smart TV, our industry is entering the `PC-plus' era," Yang said. "Lenovo is focused on leading the PC industry and building upon that leadership in the `PC-plus era." Lenovo, which has headquarters in Beijing and in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, reported strong growth in Europe and North America despite economic problems there. Sales in such mature markets rose 85 percent in the quarter to $3.4 billion, accounting for 45 percent of Lenovo's revenue. It said PC shipments in North American rose 26 percent despite a flat overall market. Growth was helped by a joint venture with NEC Corp. in Japan and the purchase of Germany's Medion AG, a maker of multimedia products and consumer electronics. Both deals were completed in July. In its home China market, shipments rose 22.7 percent over a year earlier and sales gained 32 percent to $2.9 billion. Lenovo entered the wireless Internet market in 2010 and has launched smartphones and Web-linked tablet computers to compete with Apple Inc., South Korea's Samsung Electronics Corp. and Taiwan's HTC Corp. newsfactor.com »