Thomas Ricker
Apple’s loss in China is Huawei’s gain.
And Huawei just released its premium Pura 70 series a few days ago as followup to its wildly successful and sanction-skirting Mate 60.
Image: Counterpoint Research
Thomas Ricker
Deputy Editor
Deputy Editor
More From Thomas Ricker
Thomas Ricker
Spotify continues to grow.
Monthly active users were up 19 percent year-over-year to 615 million, while subscribers were up 14 percent to 239 million. Co-founder and CEO Daniel Ek noted that the company just turned 18-years old, and “as an adult company we are now consistently profitable, which is great news.”
Ok, so where’s Spotify HiFi, Mr. Man?
Jon Porter and Thomas Ricker
7
Verge Score
The Soundcore Sleep A20 are decent passive earbuds that are great for side sleepers, even if Anker overpromises.
Thomas Ricker
Thomas Ricker
X prepares to charge all new users to post, like, bookmark, and reply.
After experimenting with its $1-ish annual “Not A Bot” subscriptions in New Zealand and the Philippines, Elon Musk suggests that a broader rollout is coming to the service built upon freely contributed content. Only question is when?
While the fee might curtail bot creation, it will definitely curtail new user signups.
Thomas Ricker
X reverses course on Brazil.
Elon Musk’s lawyers have reportedly undercut his free-speech theatrics related to ye old Twitter’s refusal to block accounts as ordered by the country’s highest court. According to Reuters, X’s lawyers said the following in a letter addressed to Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes on Monday:
“As already communicated to the federal police, X Brasil informs that all orders issued by this Supreme Court and the Superior Electoral Court will continue to be fully complied with by X Corp.”
Thomas Ricker
Samsung’s also getting billions for US chip production.
The $280 billion package linked to the 2022 Chips and Science Act — which has already earmarked up to $8.5b for Intel and $6.6b for TSMC — has now allocated up to $6.4b for Samsung to expand chipmaking efforts in Texas with two new facilities for research and packaging. Samsung will in turn invest roughly $45b in its Texas facilities over the next decade.
Thomas Ricker
iPhone sales plummet allowing Samsung to retake top spot.
According to IDC, iPhone sales fell by nearly 10 percent globally compared to the same Q1 last year as Chinese companies like Huawei, Xiaomi, and budget maker Transsion surged.
While Samsung won the quarter (after Apple took the lead for all of 2023), it’s still down slightly YoY and not keeping up with the 7.8 percent increase in smartphone demand.
Image: IDC