Friday Apple Rumors — Samsung Is No. 1!

by Anthony John Agnello | October 28, 2011 11:32 am

Here are your Apple rumors and news items for Friday:

Samsung Trounces Apple in Smartphone Sales: Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL[1]) shares took a hit Oct. 19 after the company reported its third quarter earnings, chiefly because iPhone sales missed analyst expectations. Selling 17.1 million iPhones just wasn’t good enough[2] for Cupertino, Calif.’s most famous technology company. Now, Apple is taking a more cosmetic hit. According to a Friday Reuters report, Samsung (PINK:SSNLF[3]) passed Apple as the world’s leading smartphone maker in the quarter that ended in September. The company’s phones accounted for nearly 24% of all smartphones sold around the world[4], compared to the iPhone’s 16%. Still, iPhones remain vastly more profitable than Samsung’s phones[5]. And Samsung itself announced some bad news: While sales of its Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) Android-powered phones surged, total revenue for the quarter was down year over year, sinking from around $4.4 billion in 2010 to just under $3 billion in 2011.

Don’t Get Directions from Siri in California: Apple’s new voice-operated software Siri[6] is a boon for iPhone owners that don’t feel like tapping on a screen to find out what the weather is like outside. You also would think it would be a convenient tool for lost drivers trying to find their way home. Provided that home is in the Golden State, however, iPhone owners might be out of luck. According to Mercury News (via 9 to 5 Mac) it’s illegal to use Siri when behind the wheel in California[7]. It depends on how you use the app, though. While it’s legal to ask Siri for directions if it’s already active, it’s illegal to press any buttons on the iPhone to activate Siri or to read directions off of the device’s screen.

Nintendo’s Business Continues to Crumble Due to Apple Sales: Video game maker Nintendo (PINK:NTDOY[8]) reported its third-quarter earnings Wednesday, and the company lost $926 million over the second and third quarters of the year[9]. This is compared to a loss of just $26 million during the same period in 2010. The company is projecting its first annual loss in more than 30 years. While a significant cause of Nintendo’s losses was the relative weakness of the dollar — the majority of Nintendo’s sales come from the U.S. — the migration of consumers from the company’s portable gaming machine, the Nintendo DS, to Apple’s iOS devices was another huge cause. Nintendo sold just 3.35 million of its latest portable device, the Nintendo 3DS, over the period compared to Apple’s 17.1 million iPhones, 11 million iPads and more than 3 million iPod Touches — all of which provide much cheaper games.

As of this writing, Anthony John Agnello did not own a position in any of the stocks named here. Follow him on Twitter at @ajohnagnello[10] and become a fan of InvestorPlace on Facebook[11].

Source URL: https://investorplace.com/2011/10/friday-apple-rumors-samsung-is-no-1-apple-iphone-aapl/

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