Wednesday’s Apple Rumors — Next Stop, China

by Anthony John Agnello | January 26, 2011 1:36 pm

Here are your daily Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL[1]) news items and rumors for Wednesday:

China Mobile Exec Talks iPhone: China Mobile Chairman Wang Jianzhou told Reuters Wednesday that his company has been working for years to convince Apple to release a phone compatible with China Mobile’s TD-SCDMA 3G network. Bringing a CDMA iPhone, which comes out via Verizon (NYSE:VZ[2]) in two weeks, to China Mobile’s network could b570 million additional customers into Apple’s ever growing stable.

Jianzhou didn’t confirm whether China Mobile would get the CDMA iPhone, but he did offer a tantalizing hint that his network would be supporting a fifth-generation iPhone built for the 4G long-term evolution standard. “These two years we have been discussing the issue,” said Jianzhou, “Right now the situation is moving forward. Apple has made it clear they will support TD-LTE.” An LTE iPhone 5 makes the most sense for Apple’s U.S. strategy, as both Verizon and AT&T’s (NYSE:T[3]) 4G networks are LTE standard.

We’re No. 3!: While most industry analysts view the iPad tablet PC as filling a category separate from traditional desktop, laptop, and notebook computers, it really is just a new variation on the same technology which will likely fold into the broader PC market as it becomes more common. However, if the iPad were considered as one of the traditional modes of computer, Apple would now be the No. 3 global PC manufacturer according to research firm Canalys. Apple shipped 11.5 million PCs in the last quarter of 2010, including both Macs and iPads, helping the company just edge out Dell (NASDAQ:DELL[4]), which shipped 11.4 million PCs. Apple’s impressive holiday quarter that saw up PC sales up 241% over the same period in 2009 places it just behind Acer and market leader Hewlett-Packard (NYSE:HPQ[5]). If Apple can replicate that growth, it may hit No. 2 by the end of 2011.

Website Upgrade: Continuing Apple’s support of the new Web standard language, the company upgraded its website to HTML 5. New editions to the website include improved animated page layouts, a new “product slider” interface for browsing the company’s machines, and new navigation bar. Apple has made HTML 5 adoption a major talking point behind the technology in its popular iPhone and iPad. The new language builds animations and video directly into web pages without the need for secondary media software like Adobe’s (NASDAQ:ADBE[6]) Flash, which Apple has notoriously blocked in its handhelds. To help spur developers to begin using HTML 5 more frequently, Apple has been developing tools to aid those working with the standard. The company’s iAd Producer app, released at the end of December, lets iAd advertisers build and export HTML 5 advertisements easily on the tool. Adobe is also working on a tool that converts Flash coding to HTML 5.

Take That, Android: iPad activations through business clients jumped 64% among business mobile service provider Good Technology’s 2,000 clients last quarter. The jump in iPad adoption at businesses gave Apple a significant boost over Google (NASDAQ:GOOG[7]), with twice as many Apple-platform devices activated than Android devices. Good Technology is a vendor of alternatives to Research In Motion’s (NASDAQ:RIMM[8]) BlackBerry Enterprise Server, setting businesses up with push messaging, security, and connected device management using Android and Apple iOS devices as well as Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT[9]) Windows Mobile and Nokia (NYSE:NOK[10]) Symbian devices. Last year was especially good for iOS devices with Good’s clients, making up 65% of total device activations with the iPad representing 22% of all activations all by itself. Android devices like the Motorola (NYSE:MMI[11]) Droid X were even outpaced by the iPhone 3G and 3GS. Whether these numbers are reflected among other business mobile providers is debatable, but it’s hard to ignore Apple’s fast-growing influence with business clients.

At the time of publication, Anthony John Agnello did not own a position in any of the stocks named here.

Endnotes:

  1. AAPL: http://studio-5.financialcontent.com/investplace/quote?Symbol=AAPL
  2. VZ: http://studio-5.financialcontent.com/investplace/quote?Symbol=VZ
  3. T: http://studio-5.financialcontent.com/investplace/quote?Symbol=T
  4. DELL: http://studio-5.financialcontent.com/investplace/quote?Symbol=DELL
  5. HPQ: http://studio-5.financialcontent.com/investplace/quote?Symbol=HPQ
  6. ADBE: http://studio-5.financialcontent.com/investplace/quote?Symbol=ADBE
  7. GOOG: http://studio-5.financialcontent.com/investplace/quote?Symbol=GOOG
  8. RIMM: http://studio-5.financialcontent.com/investplace/quote?Symbol=RIMM
  9. MSFT: http://studio-5.financialcontent.com/investplace/quote?Symbol=MSFT
  10. NOK: http://studio-5.financialcontent.com/investplace/quote?Symbol=NOK
  11. MMI: http://studio-5.financialcontent.com/investplace/quote?Symbol=MMI

Source URL: https://investorplace.com/2011/01/wednesdays-apple-aaplrumors-next-stop-china/