News & Analysis
Yoshida in China: Fallout from Apple-Samsung lawsuit
Junko Yoshida
8/28/2012 8:26 AM EDT
While Apple’s victory in the landmark Apple vs Samsung patent lawsuit dominated the news cycle over the weekend in the Western media, the story got more or less a subdued, understated treatment — buried deep inside the business section — in the China Daily.
Nobody should be surprised at this treatment of a matter on “non-Chinese” news. Yet I confess that I kept looking for reaction stories on the topic in the Chinese media, because I am convinced this will have large repercussions on an army of emerging Chinese Android-based smartphone vendors who don’t think twice about making knock-off, me-too mobile phones.
More specifically, the name ZTE came to my mind. Now the fourth largest mobile phone vendor in the world, ZTE could be the next rival sued by Apple.
While ZTE still may not be a household name among consumers in the West, it is the first Chinese home-grown brand to truly go global.
Gartner’s latest market data shows that ZTE trailed only Samsung (No.1), Nokia (No.2) and Apple (No.3) in global sales of mobile devices [in units] in the second quarter of 2012. Moreover, since earlier this year, ZTE has made clear an ambitious plan to double its smartphone sales in 2012.
In apparently the first story hereabouts on the fallout of the Apple-Samsung patent lawsuit, the China Daily Tuesday (Aug. 27th) quoted Leping Huang, a telecoms analyst at Nomura International Hong Kong Ltd., who said, "In the long term, this is negative to all Android phone makers including ZTE, since US operators may become reluctant to buy Android phones unless they can make sure there is no legal risk."
ZTE’s saving grace is that the company has been already hedging bets by selling not only Android smartphones but also devices running Microsoft’s Windows phone operating system. ZTE is expected to launch Windows 8 smartphones in 2013. Chances are that ZTE will put more emphasis on Windows 8 smartphones for the U.S. market next year, instead of Android.
This is just one more data point supporting speculation that the true winner of Apple’s victory might be Microsoft, after all.
ZTE's Android smartphone deployed by MetroPCS
ZTE's Windows Phone
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Luis Sanchez
8/28/2012 12:09 PM EDT
That sounds interesting. This is perhaps the 2nd time I hear a good omen for Microsoft and its upcoming Windows 8 OS for mobile phones.
Didn’t thought before that this patent’s fight between Apple and Samsung would benefit a 3rd and this being Microsoft.
Your arguments seem to be accurate. Now US operators will want not to buy the Android phones which might infringe Apple’s patents. But, I think the lawsuit involved the physical design also right? So it’s not only Android based phones perhaps but any phone that look very iphone-ish.
But after all this… is Microsoft free of sin? Is the Windows 8 OS free of patent infringement over the iPhone’s GUI?
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http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/poconoarmchairreview
8/28/2012 1:20 PM EDT
Whoa. So is this the real reason why Nokia is going with Windows?
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scanman
8/28/2012 1:21 PM EDT
I wonder how this would impact the emerging MIPS alliance with chinese mobile phone vendors in the Android phones. Will MIPS move to Windows 8 OS??
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wilber_xbox
8/28/2012 3:05 PM EDT
ZTE's windows mobile looks much better than its Android counterpart. I wonder what ZTE is doing right that it has surpassed other well known global brands.
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