Hon Hai to Acquire Premier Image
China’s Music Cellular Phone Demand to Quadruple in 2010
Sanyo Electric Commercializes Digital TV Broadcasting Tuner
NTT DoCoMo Co-develops Windows Mobile Smartphone with HTC
DoCoMo Solicits Vendors for Super3G
Micron to Set up COMS Sensor Manufacturing Facility in Japan
Samsung Electronics Rolls out Compact Slider Phone in China
VK Mobile Goes Under

According to Economic Daily on June 21, 2006, Hon-Hai Precision Industry of Taiwan announced a merger with Taiwan’s leading digital still camera producer, Premier Image on June 20, 2006. Through the merger, Hon Hai will be able to expand its product lines to cameras, projectors and other optical equipment. The company will pay about $930 million for the stock exchange with Premier. Premier, Altus and Foxconn International Holdings (FIH) could tie up to achieve huge cost cuttings.

Altus, 42 percent owned by Hon Hai, is one of the top five camera module manufacturers for cellular phones in the world. FIH, a subsidiary of Hon Hai group, is a leading ODM/OEM handset manufacturer. The alliance could deal a blow to module manufacturers for camera cellular phones, optical component suppliers, and digital camera manufacturers including Liteon, Asia Optical, Kingo and Ability. Hon Hai and Premier’s deal is expected to be finalized in December 2006. [M. Robertson, Portelligent]

Analysys International of China announced result of investigation on handsets with music playback function in China. According to the market research firm, sales of music cellular phones reached 10.26 million units in China in 2005. The firm forecasts the number will grow to 45.38 million units in 2010.

Analysys International says the companies such as Nokia, Motorola, Sony Ericsson and Samsung will drive the growth. Chinese manufacturers are attempting catch up with foreign manufacturers by improving sound quality, storage capacity and layout design.

Analysys International says average sound quality of cellular phones with music playback capability is par with standard MP3 players. The phones are equipped with equalizer, track selection, and repeat play. However, average storage capacity of those phones is at around 32M-64Mbyte. Although storage capacity in phones is improving, it is much less than that of a MP3 player still.

Yet at the end of 2005, a model with 256MByte capacity was introduced. There have been attempts on improving power consumption of chips, improving battery life and unique designs.

Analysys International forecasts that development of music cellular phones will continue with focus on Hi-Fi sound quality, improvements on storage capacity, individuality, and support of multiple file formats (MP3, WMA, AAC). [M. Robertson, Portelligent]

Sanyo Electric of Japan announced an external TV tuner for the company’s portable DVD player Movish series. The DVF-DTV100 is priced at 35700 yen and will be on sale on August 21, 2006.

The DVF-DTV100 supports both One Segment broadcasting (the name for Japan’s digital terrestrial broadcasting standard for portable devices) tuner and terrestrial analog tuner. The tuners are changeable depending on receiving condition of radio signals. The tuner is compatible with the five models: DVD-HP71T, DVD-HP70T, DVDHP62, DVD-HP90T and DVD-HP170.

The DVG-DVT100 allows two screen sizes (full and normal). It supports subtitle display and EPG of One Segment broadcasting. The tuner measures 75 mm x 45 mm x 135 mm and weighs about 300g. The power source is supplied from the DVD player. Images are located at http://plusd.itmedia.co.jp/lifestyle/articles/0607/11/news080.html [M. Robertson, Portelligent]

NTT DoCoMo, Japan’s largest wireless service carrier and High Tech Computer (HTC) of Taiwan, a leading manufacturer of Smartphones, jointly developed a Smartphone based on Windows Mobile 5.0, the hTc Z. DoCoMo will begin marketing the Smartphone towards corporate customers at the end of July 2006. The pricing will be 15 million yen for bundle of a server and 100 units of the Smartphone. The handset will not be available to general consumers.

The hTc Z was developed for corporate customers. Through synchronization with Windows Server and Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 SP2, Push mail of Direct Push, schedule synchronization and remote wipe are possible.

The phone supports POP3 and IMAP4 mails and text input is supported by QWERTY keyboard. It supports viewing and editing of Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel files and viewing of Microsoft PowerPoint and PDF files.

The hTc Z supports IEEE802.11b/g wireless LAN and Bluetooth. The Bluetooth profiles include Generic Object Exchange, Generic Access, Serial Port, Headset, Object Push, Dial-Up Networking, and Hands-Free. The handset supports W-CDMA and GSM/GPRS protocols, enabling use in overseas. The handset supports i-mode packet data communication but does not support other i-mode services.

The hTc Z supports a 2.8-inch QVGA LCD with 65,536 colors, microSD card, 2-million pixel CMOS camera, 100,000-pixel sub camera and Japanese text input system, MSIME. The hTc Z will be showcased in Wireless Japan 2006, which will be held between July 19 and 21, 2006 in Tokyo. [M. Robertson, Portelligent]

NTT DoCoMo, Japan’s largest wireless service carrier, began soliciting manufacturers of base stations and cellular phones for the Super3G standard. The Super3G standard is a step before 4G wireless generation and is considered as 3.9^th generation. DoCoMo will choose one base station supplier and one handset supplier in October 2006 and development is scheduled to complete in 2009.

Communication throughput of the Super3G standard is 50Mbps for uplink and 100Mbps for downlink. The current 3G wireless handsets achieve 384kbps for both up and downlink. Commercialization of the Super3G is planned for 2009-2010.

Standardization organization of W-CDMA is close to finalizing specifications of the 3.9^th generation technology. The 4^th generation technology is going to achieve 100Mbps-1Gbps communication speed. Transition from the 3.9^th generation to the 4^th generation is designed to be smooth, allowing the 4^th generation technology to be put in effect after 2010.

The solicitation period will last through August 23, 2006. DoCoMo solicited developers for its 3G wireless (FOMA) base stations in 1999. [M. Robertson, Portelligent]

Micron Technology of the U.S. reported on its CMOS sensor business, Nikkei Electronics reported in its June 5^th issue. Micron’s sensor operation generated 21.7 percent sales profit during October 2005 and March 2006. While many of its competitors had deteriorated profitability in the same time frame, Micron fared well. It generated $312.8 million in sales for the same period, tripled from the same period of the previous year. The sales profit was $67.9 million. It posted $13.6 million losses for the same period of the previous year.

Micron is aggressively expanding its plants. It currently has CMOS manufacturing plants in the U.S. and Italy. Each plant has monthly output capacity equivalent to 50,000 8-inch wafers.

In addition to those existing plants, Micron plans to build No. 2 plant in the U.S. and another plant in Nishiwaki City in Hyogo Prefecture, Japan. The company already started preparation work for the No. 2 plant in the U.S. Launch of the new plant in Japan will follow. [M. Robertson, Portelligent]

Although it has not been reported widely in Western media, Samsung Electronics of South Korea released a compact slider phone for the Chinese market. The SCH-F379 measures 135 mm x 53 mm x 19.5 mm at 78 g of weight. The CDMA 2000 1x phone features 32 polyphonic ring tone, 65,000-color TFT LCD, 300,000-pixel camera, and FM tuner. The SCH-F379 retails for about $235. Images of the SCH-F379 are located at: http://it.enorth.com.cn/system/2006/07/07/001351017.shtml [M. Robertson, Portelligent]

South Korea’s mid tier cellular phone supplier, VK Mobile was declared insolvent by the company’s main creditor, the Industrial Bank of Korea. VK filed revival proceedings and asset protection at the Suwon District Court on July 6, 2006. After three months of auditing of assets, it will be decided whether the company will be liquidated or not.

VK Mobile defaulted on 1.78 billion won ($1.9 million) worth maturing debts on July 7, 2006. South Korea’s stock market Kosdaq is going to delist shares of VK on July 22, 2006. Trading of VK Mobile’s stock was suspended from July 7 to July 11, 2006. From July 12 to July 21, the company’s stocks are placed under governance.

VK Mobile could not repay debts twice at the end of June 2006. Then it could not repay the maturing promissory notes again on July 7, 2006.

Founded in late 1990’s as a mobile phone battery manufacturer, VK Mobile rose and supplied handsets aggressively to China and other foreign markets. However, the recent price cutting war and high won influenced adversely on VK’s performance. Sinking of VK indicates how tough it is to compete globally for a mid size phone supplier against heavyweights such as Nokia and Motorola, not to mention of Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics. [M. Robertson, Portelligent]