Opportunity India

The Opportunity in India is amazing. Apple is treating its retailers in India shabbily, the demand for smart phones is huge.

Top this off with them loving their movies, and a shortage of movie screens... 

Things are looking good for the Voga V in India. INDIA SCREEN SHORTAGE

Voga V Phablet in India (Money symbol in Rupee)

Patently Apple

Now a new bone of contention has surfaced. According to a new report out of India, "Apple has reduced retail margins on the iPhone X by nearly 30%, frustrating large format chain owners and small-scale retailers that are crying foul that the Cupertino-based company does not want its retail partners to benefit while the company itself profits from the massive margins it makes.

Some like Bengaluru-based Sangeetha Mobiles have stopped taking orders of the new flagship, even as the costliest iPhone ever faces huge supply-demand mismatch in India, leading analysts to say that Apple should slot India far higher in its priority list and bring in larger shipments of the iPhone X."

Subhash Chandra, managing director at Sangeetha Mobiles, which has 400 stores across the country said that "Apple has cut margins on the iPhone X from 6.5% to 4.5% for large retailers like us, and if a customer pays by card, which is usually the case, the margin reduces to almost 1.5-2%."

Chandra added that "Apple gives the least margins… How on earth do they expect the retailer to work for them for free -- our overheads are anywhere around 10%."

The Economic Times report further noted that a "Industry insiders reveal that typically, brands such as Samsung or Xiaomi offer more than double the margin that Apple offers, around 12-15%. To gain share from competition, players like Oppo and Vivo were also giving higher than usual margins to retailers, but Apple has refrained from this practice.

Thanks for the heads-up Ron!

LG --- isn't that interesting?

Just had an interesting conversation with Joe Spaz. He asked if I noticed something. As usual he noticed a little more than I did. 

Thanks Joe!!

Go to the Microvision site.

Find the investors' presentations here: MicroVision Presentations  (The LD Micro Conference PDF, download it.)

Look on page 15: You'll see this picture:

You'll notice that the smartphone is LG. The Robot is LG, the AR/VR is LG, as is the smartwatch. 

Does something look familiar?  - More at the source

LG 360 VR

LG announced a VR headset which is a departure from the usual bulky ones available today. Weighing only 118 grams, the headset works with the LG G5 over a wired connection. The prototype was working though the resolution was low and it allowed a lot of ambient light in which ruined the experience. These issues might be sorted in the final version. No price or availability was announced but it should be out later this year. 

Anandtech  -- more at the source

Today LG pre-announced significant additions to their high-end wearable, the LG Watch Urbane, via a new edition called the LG Watch Urbane LTE. Both devices will officially launch at Mobile World Congress next week. From a feature standpoint, the LG Watch Urbane LTE adds more wireless functionality via the inclusion of LTE, VoLTE (not 3G voice), GPS, and NFC.

These additions dramatically expand LG's ability to cover the movement use case of wearables and places the Watch Urbane LTE alongside the Samsung Gear S as the only devices to include cellular functionality. This provides a safety net when making a fitness excursion, as emergency calls are now possible. LG had this use case in mind specifically as they included a single key press to initiate an emergency call. Additionally, the inclusion of NFC enables mobile payments, although LG has not yet provided details on how this works. Finally, LG has dramatically increased the battery size from 410mAH to 700mAH, which will help immensely with powering the LTE radio. I should note this is the largest battery I have seen to date in a wearable.