Last week China’s Huawei announced that profits had jumped by 33 per cent from a year earlier with net profits of almost £4billion and worldwide revenues up an impressive 37 percent at over £42billion.
By contrast Blackberry made a loss of $238 million in the last quarter compared to a profit of $28 million for the same quarter in the previous year, blaming delays in rolling out its latest handset, the Priv. Today Blackberry accounts for just 1 percent of the world’s handset market, compared to over 40 percent in 2009. How things can change.
Huawei’s sales of handsets are growing rapidly and it is now one of the biggest smartphone vendors in the world behind only Samsung and Apple.
Huawei is said to be determined to challenge both Samsung and Apple at the top end of the handset market and who’s to say what will happen in the next few years.
Apple, which recently just turned 40, is facing a number of problems, from its clash with the FBI to accusations of tax avoidance. Analysts are suggesting that sales of the iPhone may have plateaued and those same analysts haven’t been impressed with the company’s Apple Watch.
What Apple does next will be crucial, a wrong step here, whether that’s a failure to move into fast growing markets, or there, another piece of bad publicity could have profound consequences.
Just look at Sony as to what can happen to a company that loses its way.
