Thursday, September 26, 2013

Technology Insider (Bloomberg BusinessWeek) A los que Detestan Apple

Consumer Electronics

Listen Up Apple-Haters: IPhone Sales Eclipse Microsoft and Amazon Revenue

 
Apple CEO Tim Cook announced two new iPhones, on sale globally Sept. 20 
Apple CEO Tim Cook announced two new iPhones, on sale globally Sept. 20
Photograph by David Paul Morris/Bloomberg
 
Apple (AAPL) Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook has taken plenty of flack for running a company that is supposedly well past its glory days—and the iPhone smartphone franchise is sometimes dismissed as a spent force, losing ground to more innovative brands such as Android and Samsung (005930:KS). Well, here’s a little perspective for the Apple-haters.

The iPhone 5s and 5c sold a record 9 million units during the first weekend after its launch. Consider this: The brand’s sales haul over the last four reported quarters eclipses that of such companies as Home Depot (HD), Microsoft (MSFT), Target (TGT), Goldman Sachs (GS), Amazon (AMZN), PepsiCo (PEP), Comcast (CMCSA), Dell (DELL), Google (GOOG), Pfizer (PFE), and UPS (UPS).
 
If this single product were its own company in the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index, IPhone Inc. would outsell 474 of those companies—ranking between Wells Fargo (WFC) ($90.5 billion) and Marathon Petroleum (MPC) ($84.9 billion). The iPhone’s $88.4 billion in annualized revenue tops 21 of the 30 component companies in the Dow Jones industrial average—it would be the ninth-biggest stock in the Dow 30:



Look at that again, this time focusing on the 21 Dow companies the iPhone beats:



One more fun fact: The majority of Apple sales comes from this one product—iPhone sales ($88.4 billion) are greater than the sum of Apple’s remaining products—including the iPad, Mac laptops and desktops, and iTunes—combined ($81 billion).
 
Eric-chemi  Chemi is head of research for Businessweek and Bloomberg TV.
 


 

Friday, September 13, 2013

Los Niños No Necesitan Consolas de Juego ... (BusinessWeek)

The Kids Are All Right Without Game Consoles

The kids are turning away from video game consoles just as the major gaming companies are preparing to woo them with new devices. A new generation of youngsters going through their formative years without ever becoming habituated to the joys of playing the next generation of Xboxes and PlayStations would be an ominous sign for the entire industry.
 
Sixty-four percent of kids use smartphones or tablets for gaming, up eightfold from 2009, according to a survey released on Tuesday by NPD Group. PCs and consoles remain the most popular gaming devices by a small margin, with 67 percent of kids playing games on those devices. But unlike with mobile gaming, the ranks of children using PCs, consoles, and portable gaming consoles such as the PlayStation Vita and the Nintendo 3DS are in decline.
 
This leaves Nintendo (7974:JP) in the worst shape for the immediate future. Its strategy has largely focused on young, casual gamers, letting Sony (SNE) and Microsoft (MSFT) compete for the hard-core set. And the youth movement toward mobile gaming is already evident in Nintendo’s product line: The company’s portable devices are already more popular than its consoles, according to industry analyst Horace Dediu. But that’s hardly a bright spot for a company that’s seen nothing go particularly well of late. Nintendo recently had to reduce prices on its Wii U console and remove the third dimension from the portable 3DS as part of a price cut aimed at luring children away from cheaper rivals.
 
Many industry observers have already written Nintendo off completely. But the big test for Sony and Microsoft comes later this year. With their new consoles, the two companies are hoping to use video games to gain a toehold on other living-room activities, like streaming video. But what if the home proves equally vulnerable to the mobile invasion?
 
That’s the future Dediu expects: “More people will hire mobile devices for their primary gaming activity. And as mobile devices get inexorably better, they will be hired for use in the setting where consoles have been king: the living room,” he wrote this week. In his eyes, the console businesses of all three companies are “beyond the point of no return.”
Brustein is a writer for Businessweek.com in New York.

Thursday, September 12, 2013

Tecnología: In Beijing, the New IPhone Gets a Resounding 'Meh'...(BusinessWeek)

In Beijing, the New IPhone Gets a Resounding 'Meh'

China         By                      

On the day Apple released its new iPhone 5C simultaneously in the U.S. and China, I tromped around Beijing asking yuppies, restaurant workers, and migrant street sweepers what kind of phones they use—and why. It’s hardly a scientific survey, but if the mood at the Yonghegong Costa Coffee shop is any indication, Apple’s marketing people have some work to do.
 
Costa Coffee, near Beijing’s Lama Temple, is the kind of place that attracts the type of latte-sipping young professionals who flocked to buy new iPhones two years ago. In fact, a fair number of its customers are still using older iPhones, but they expressed mixed feelings about whether they’ll stick with Apple (AAPL) in the future—or opt instead for the larger Android-powered Samsung (005930:KS) Galaxy smartphone, which is fast gaining popularity here. The iPhone 5C is routinely mocked as “not attractive.”
 
Slumped in a brown sofa, Susan Li, a prim, middle-aged teacher, toggles between the iPhone 4S she bought in 2011 and her work-issued IBM (IBM) ThinkPad. Both are “good enough,” she says, without enthusiasm; she’ll wait until her phone dies before replacing it. Zhang Ao, another iPhone 4S-user and a young cameraman for Beijing Television (BTV), looks up from the meal he brought in from a nearby KFC (YUM). He says the “wow factor” of owning an Apple product wore off long ago. He dismissed the new, brightly colored iPhone 5C as looking “like a cartoon.” He’s not sure what kind of phone he’ll buy next.
 
His BTV colleague, Angel Kang, who’s wearing black-framed hipster glasses and a svelte purple dress, says, “We are very happy that Apple released the new iPhone in China and the U.S. at same time. It’s a nice friendship gesture.” Not that she actually wants to own one. Kang says she’s very happy with the Samsung Galaxy she bought in July; she especially likes the larger screen size, which she says is better for shooting and viewing photos. Sitting nearby is Joey Zhao, who’s in town from Shanghai, where he works for a Japanese company that makes headphones. Zhao is also a Samsung Galaxy devotee and extols the virtues of the customizable Android operating system, “because I can put whatever I like on it.”
 
One employee of China Telecom (CHA), which has a partnership with Apple, declined to give her name but offered a theory on Apple’s diminished mystique in China. She says Steve Jobs was revered in China as a creative miracle. Now, she says, Apple is just an ordinary company controlled by businessmen.
 
For Apple to find long-term success in China, it needs not only to retain existing customers, but also to entice new smartphone shoppers—people lower down the income ladder. One target might be 35-year-old Chen Guibiao, who works at the Yunlin Delicious Kabob restaurant in Beijing’s Dongzhimen neighborhood. Chen is a migrant worker from rural Jiangsu province, but he has lived in Beijing for 16 years and has adjusted to city life. His job is to sit outside the restaurant on a little white plastic stool and yell at passersby, trying to entice them to dine inside: “Spicy food! Free parking!” Two years ago, Chen paid 2000 renminbi ($325) for his first smartphone, a white Samsung Anycall model. He says he’s ready to buy a new phone, but his upper price limit is 3000 renminbi ($490). Apple’s “cheap” new iPhone 5C—which will start at 4488 renminbi ($735) for the 16GB model in China—is still beyond his reach.
 
By the end of 2013, roughly 500 million people in China are expected to have smartphones. While that’s an impressive total, it also means many folks still aren’t online. At a park near the Russian embassy, Chen Sen, a 47-year-old street sweeper from Shandong province, sits on a wooden bench taking a smoking break. He fumbles in the pockets of his fluorescent-orange uniform vest to take out his “dumb” phone, a domestic-made Changhong model he bought four years ago for 200 renminbi ($30). A friend and fellow street sweeper, leaning on a broom nearby, shows me his 300 renminbi ($45) Nokia model.
 
Do they want to upgrade to smartphones? Chen shrugs. He still isn’t sold on why he needs to carry the Internet around in his pocket. But he adds that if he does go the smartphone route, the 799 renminbi ($130) Hongmi (“Red rice”) model from Xiaomi might be a possibility.
 
Larson is a Bloomberg Businessweek contributor.

Thursday, September 5, 2013

El lado izquierdo y el lado derecho del cerebro son un mito, dice la Ciencia actual

Left Brain vs. Right: It's a Myth, Research Finds

 
     

Tuesday, September 3, 2013

La lógica y el valor de mercado...una fotografía de la realidad

Sin que nos percatásemos, abruptamente Tesla Motors (el fabricante de autos eléctricos de lujo) es valorado por el mercado en unos 20 Billones de Dólares.
 
Es desconcertante que una empresa con el 1% de las ventas de autos que Ford, valga un tercio que Ford, valga más del 40% que General Motors y mucho más que Suzuki o FIAT. Las acciones de Tesla se venden a 260 veces su ganancia, mientras que las de Ford al 11% y las de GM al 10%...
 
Como informamos hace unos días, el TESLA rompió las máquinas diseñadas para probar su resistencia al impacto, entre otras muchos elementos que identifican una calidad extraordinaria en lo que fabrica Tesla Motors, provocando que un gran volumen de personas en todo el mundo deseen comprar un Tesla, poniéndose en una lista de espera y pagando depósitos por adelantado que soñarían otros fabricantes tener. 
 
Ese enorme respeto por la calidad del producto que fabrica y su capacidad de mantenerse al frente de la innovación (sus automóviles eléctricos de lujo tienen una autonomía mucho mayor que la de los demás fabricantes que solo fabrican mini-autos eléctricos poco atractivos para los clientes) explican el fenómeno TESLA en la capitalización, comparándola con los demás en el mundo del automóvil:
 
Si se agrupa por país esos valores, se tiene una idea más clara del poder económico que representa una industria cuyo valor es la aceptación entre los compradores, la calidad, y la innovación. Mundialmente el gráfico refleja el liderazgo de Japón, seguido de Alemania y dejando muy atrás a los demás países. El elemento dinamizador que representa TESLA para los EE UU y la incorporación creciente de Corea pueden dar idea de hacia dónde se dirigen los cambios en esa dinámica.
 
 

En la compra de carros, los mayores dejan detrás a los jóvenes ...

(Tomado de Bloomberg BusinessWeek)
 
By                   
 
In Car Buying, Baby Boomers Surpass the Young
 
Last year, Dave Rodham bought two Ford (F) Mustangs—a red one because it looked cool and a white one with a big V-8 engine because it sounded cool. They were his 50th and 51st car purchases. “I have to have a new car every year and a half to two years,” explains the 63-year-old, of Virginia Beach, Va., who says he pays cash. “After I retired 10 years ago, I didn’t have anything else to do, so I went out and bought new cars.”
 
For generations, auto buying declined for consumers entering their golden years. Now, baby boomers are refusing to go gently into that car-buying night. The 55- to 64-year-old age group, the oldest of the boomers, has become the cohort most likely to buy a new car, according to a recent study by the University of Michigan’s Transportation Research Institute. Graying boomers replaced the 35- to 44-year-old age group, the most likely to buy four years ago.
 
The findings show that boomers’ automotive passions—and pocketbooks—have plenty of miles left. The study also suggests that the billions the auto industry spends to woo the elusive Generation Y might generate a higher return on investment if they were aimed at their parents. “You shouldn’t be chasing the younger people, you should be looking at the older people,” says Michael Sivak, author of the study. “Baby boomers are trying to extend their youth as long as they can, both in terms of taking care of their bodies and in their expenditures.”
 
The dicey economic times have extended the working years and peak earnings period of the 76 million Americans who were born during the post-World War II birth boom from 1946 through 1964. “People’s nest eggs were decreased, including their retirement portfolios, by the recession,” says Lacey Plache, chief economist for auto researcher Edmunds.com. “We can expect these people to be in the workforce longer and, as a result, buying cars longer.”
 
There’s also a strong psychological motive driving boomers back to the dealer’s lot year after year: Their automobiles define them. “For people who grew up and lived in the 20th century, the car was … a visible expression of you and your personality,” says John Wolkonowicz, an automotive historian and former Ford Motor product planner. “A 20-year-old doesn’t see the car the same way.”
 
In recent years, fewer young people are interested in driving. Just 79 percent of people between 20 and 24 had a driver’s license in 2011, compared with 92 percent in 1983, according to the Michigan study. Conversely, the oldest boomers are trooping down to the Department of Motor Vehicles in growing numbers to remain licensed to drive. Almost 93 percent of those aged 60 to 64 had a driver’s license in 2011, up from 84 percent in 1983.
 
That helps explain why consumers aged 55 to 64 had the highest rate of vehicle purchases in 2011 and the youngest age groups had the lowest. Even consumers 75 and older bought cars at a higher rate than 18- to 34-year-olds, the Michigan study found. “I have a son who lives in San Francisco. When I get a new car, and I tell him what I got, he couldn’t care less,” Sivak says. “To him, it’s a means of getting from A to B. He goes to great lengths about taking a BART [Bay Area Rapid Transit] or bus, even though it takes him an hour longer. He does have a car but uses it very rarely.”
 
Automakers have spent billions coming up with youth-oriented vehicles and marketing campaigns that ended up selling better to boomers. A decade ago, Honda Motor (HMC) rolled out the boxy Element sport-utility vehicle, with clamshell doors and rubber floors that could be hosed out by on-the-go Gen Xers. Instead, Honda’s boomer loyalists bought the car until it was discontinued in 2011. “One of the dirty little secrets of the auto industry is all these cars are positioned in advertising and public relations as something a 25-year-old will buy,” says John Morel, a market researcher for Honda. “But your propensity to buy a car at 25 is roughly a quarter of what it is at age 65. By definition, very few cars sell in high volume to twentysomethings.”
 
Toyota Motor’s (TM) Scion line, marketed to Gen Y, has also sputtered. Scion sales fell 9.3 percent in July after a 25 percent plunge in June and are down 1.8 percent for the year, at 41,261, according to researcher Autodata. Toyota sold 73,505 Scion models in 2012, down more than half from a peak of about 173,000 in 2006. Scion still has a devoted follower, however, in Michael Leek, a 60-year-old city planner in Shakopee, Minn. He drives a “Cherry Coke” red Scion tC that he upgraded with gray pinstripes, a lowered suspension, and a growling, chrome-tipped exhaust. Now he’s shopping for a new Scion FR-S sports car. “City planners ought not to like cars as much as I do, and guys who are 60 should be getting over it, but I haven’t,” Leek says.