Displaying items by tag: 2020

Huawei has announced its financial results for the first half of 2020 which showed a 13.1% increase year-on-year and a net profit margin of 9.2%.

The tech giant generated CNY454 billion in revenue throughout the first half of the year. As for their carrier, consumer and enterprise business, they achieved CNY159.6 billion, CNY255.8 billion and CNY36.3 billion.

As countries across the world have been dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic as best they can, ICT has become absolutely essential to combatting the virus and containing its spread. Not only that, but it has also become an engine for economic recovery.

Huawei has been at the forefront of innovation, namely during this period which has been characterized by economic uncertainty. They have been key enablers in helping many industries maintain stable network operations, support efforts to contain the spread of the virus, accelerate digital transformation and reopen economies.

Social networking behemoth Facebook has formally announced that it would like to launch its own cryptocurrency next year according to reports by the BBC.

Japan’s largest mobile operator, NTT DOCOMO, has signed an agreement with Nokia to supply 5G baseband products for aiming to deploy in a 5G mobile network planned to be in commercial service by 2020.

"We have been collaborating with partners such as Nokia on various 5G technology and use case trials since 2014,” said Hiroshi Nakamura, Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer, NTT DOCOMO. “With this agreement with Nokia, we are now proceeding to the next step to launch 5G mobile services by 2020, and accelerate co-creation of new services and businesses with vertical industry partners."

Nokia will support the telco’s commercial 5G operation in Japan by further enhancing existing baseband units and integrating its 5G New Radio (5G NR)-based AirScale hardware in the network, which will provide NTT DOCOMO's mobile customers with a unique experience fueled by 5G's extreme high speed, superior capacity and ultra-low latency.

With NTT DOCOMO looking to get its 5G commercial service by 2020, Nokia's solution will provide a natural evolution to existing 4G/LTE deployments and also successful integration into the existing operational environment.

"The agreement with NTT DOCOMO is a major milestone in bringing 5G to commercial reality, especially in a country with a long and proud history of technological achievements and early technology adoption,” said Marc Rouanne, president of Mobile Networks at Nokia. “Together we have worked hard in recent months to commence preparations for NTT DOCOMO's eventual launch of its operational 5G service by 2020, which we have now set in motion by this very exciting announcement today."

Nokia has enjoyed a long-term working relationship with Japan's largest operator that has produced supply agreements for 3G and 4G/LTE networking technology. The two companies have also worked closely together in trials of 5G technologies, and now agree on supply of Nokia's 5G BBUs to be able to do centralized management for 5G RRHs (remote radio heads) for aiming to deploy in 5G network.

This is aligned with NTT DOCOMO's 5G direction, which is fully utilizing existing C-RAN architecture for 5G. Based on the agreement, Nokia will support NTT DOCOMO in the evolution of its network from 4G/LTE to 5G, providing technology based on the new 3GPP-compliant 5G NR standard, the first stage of which was published shortly before the end of 2017.

Accenture have disclosed its plans to create an additional 15,000 jobs over the next three years in the US. The technology consulting and services company announced that it will increase its American workforce by 30%. In a statement issued by Accenture they outlined plans to create 15,000 ‘highly skilled new jobs’ which would subsequently increase its overall workforce in the US to more than 65,000 by the end of 2020.

Accenture further disclosed its plans to create 10 new ‘innovation hubs’ and confirmed it will invest $1.4 billion in training employees in order to have ‘leading-edge capabilities’ for doing their jobs. Accenture chief executive, Julie Sweet said the announcement represented a key moment for the company. She said: “Today marks a key moment for Accenture to help our clients play an even bigger part in the nation's growth and innovation agenda.”

Accenture has been a leader in the outsourcing business, and the Accenture boss says the new innovation hubs will be designed to help create the next wave of competitiveness. Sweet added: “That will involve helping companies figure out how to use new technologies in a process of “continuous innovation.” That kind of work "requires proximity to clients,” which is why Accenture is creating the regional centers.

Accenture are the latest in a series of major companies to announce investments or job creation in the United States. It is a trend that has followed the election of US president Donald Trump whose presidential campaign was centered on the theme of job creation. Trump vowed to bring back domestic manufacturing and jobs if he was elected president.

IDC says it expects spending on IoT by Chinese manufacturing enterprises to reach $US127.5 billion by 2020, a compound average growth rate of 14.7 percent from 2016 to 2020.

IDC says software and services between them will account for 60 percent of expenditure. It notes that IoT has been enshrined in China’s 13th Five-Year Development Plan and has become a strategic emerging industry in the country.

“Made in China 2025 is the first 10-year action plan for the Chinese government to implement its strategy of building China into a manufacturing powerhouse,” IDC says. “With the policy and financial support of the Chinese government pushing forward the development of smart manufacturing, raising the level of networked, collaborative manufacturing and speeding up the manufacturing industry’s transformation into services have become the main development direction for the manufacturing industry.”

Wang Yue, Senior Research Manager at IDC China, said: “Many Chinese manufacturers have started to implement an IoT strategy with a view to improving their production and operational efficiency and speeding up their transformation from production to services. With the promotion of smart manufacturing, the fast integration of IT (information technology) and OT (operational technology), and the prevalence of the ‘digital twin’ concept, IoT technology will have more room for development in the manufacturing industry.”

Yue added: “With the integration of emerging technologies (such as cloud computing, big data and mobile technology) and IoT into this industry, and the integration between IT and OT, the potential of IoT technology will be released at an accelerated pace.”

IDC has identified three major development trends it expects to see in the next three years: IoT platform competition will intensify; IoT applications will accelerate innovation in the manufacturing industry; edge computing will become the next hotspot.

“With the large-scale deployment of IoT devices, IoT-generated data is expected to witness exponential growth,” IDC said. “Therefore, data filtering and processing through scattered devices and IoT gateways will become an important direction for IoT applications in the manufacturing industry. Meanwhile, data will gradually become an important asset for enterprises. Edge intelligence will ensure data security and help enterprises to avoid risks when there are network or data center malfunction.”

Frost & Sullivan says Southeast Asia is poised for significant growth in e-commerce revenues. It is tipping the market to be worth in excess of $US25 billion by 2020, more than double its 2015 value of $US11 billion,

F&S says this growth will be achieved despite several acquisitions and market exits and many online retailers struggling to achieve profitability. “While significant challenges persist, Frost & Sullivan remains optimistic about the growth potential of e-commerce in Southeast Asia,” the company said.

F&S says total revenues from business-to-consumer (B2C) e-commerce in the six largest Southeast Asian countries will increase at a CAGR of 17.7 percent. Malaysia and Thailand were the largest e-commerce markets in Southeast Asia in 2015, generating revenues of $US2.3 billion and $US2.1 billion respectively. “Nevertheless, by 2020, both of these markets are expected to be eclipsed by emerging economies in Southeast Asia including Vietnam and Indonesia,” F&S says.

Cris Duy Tran, lead consultant in e-Commerce, digital transformation at Frost & Sullivan Asia-Pacific, said: “Despite being relatively young, the e-commerce market in Southeast Asia is developing quickly, thanks to the astounding rate of digital adoption in the region. However, companies pursuing an Amazon-style B2C mass market business model are struggling to turn a profit and there have been several mergers and acquisitions and market exits in 2015.

“With fewer players in the market, e-commerce players are beginning to compete beyond price points and logistics and moving into new areas such as online-to-offline (O2O) e-commerce and loyalty programs.”

F&S said the mass marketing approach had not worked in Southeast Asia to date, but there were many exciting opportunities in specialized e-commerce and P2P e-commerce. “Services such as Carousell, Tokopedia and Shopee are aggressively pursuing a ‘mobile first’ strategy, and we expect to see more sector-specific services in areas such as travel, food delivery, and luxury good,” the company said.

F&S identified several inhibitors to growth. These include low credit card ownership that stands at less than seven percent in all Southeast Asia markets except for Singapore and Malaysia. “In some countries, more than 50 percent of the population does not have bank accounts, making payment the biggest challenge for e-commerce companies in the region,” F&S said.

Logistics was also identified as an issue hampering the growth of e-commerce in Southeast Asia, especially in areas with complex geographies such as Indonesia and the Philippines. “However, recent investments by regional logistics players such as aCommerce and SingPost to strengthen the e-commerce logistics infrastructure in these markets could accelerate the growth of online retail in the region,” F&S said.

In the new Ericsson ConsumerLab report: “Wearable technology and the Internet of Things”, six in 10 smartphone users state that wearables have uses beyond health and wellness. Devices related to personal safety and security, such as panic buttons and personal locators, attract most interest. Top 5 most-wanted wearables across five markets surveyed (% interested and willing to buy):

1. Panic/SOS button: 32%
2. Smartwatch: 28%
3. Wearable Location Tracker: 27%
4. Identity Authenticator: 25%
5. Wearable Water Purifier: 24%

The report captures the opinions of 5,000 smartphone users (of which 2,500 are wearable users) in Brazil, China, South Korea, the United Kingdom and United States, representing the views of 280 million smartphone users globally. In addition to the top five most-wanted wearables, it shows consumers predict a booming wearables market beyond 2020, as well as that wearables might replace smartphones and will help consumers interact with physical things and objects in the Internet of Things (IoT) era:

A booming wearables market beyond 2020

Ownership of wearables among smartphone users in the surveyed markets has doubled in the past year. However, consumers predict it will take at least another year for the current generation of wearables to go mainstream. A more diverse set of wearables, such as personal safety devices and smart garments, will go mainstream beyond 2020 – but when they do, a booming market can be expected. One in three smartphone users believe they will use at least five connected wearables beyond 2020.

Wearables to turn smartphones into just screens

The integration of smartphones into every aspect of daily life makes it hard to envisage a future without them. But with two in five (43%) smartphone users expecting wearables might replace smartphones, this could indeed happen – although it may take some time. As wearables get smarter and more independent in terms of factors such as connectivity, the smartphone screen may become less significant. Thirty-eight percent of smartphone users say wearables will be used to perform most smartphone functions within just five years.

Jasmeet Singh Sethi, Consumer Insight Expert, Ericsson ConsumerLab, says: “Early signs of detachment from smartphones are visible today with 40 percent of today’s smartwatch users already interacting less with their smartphones.”

Wearables bringing people into IoT

Wearable technology will also accelerate the convergence of the digital and human worlds, by bringing people into the Internet of Things. While consumers are confident that wearable technology will help them interact with objects in their surroundings, they also say that this technology may not necessarily be devices.

60 percent believe that ingestible pills and chips under the skin will be commonly used in the next five years – not only to track vital health data, but also to unlock doors, authenticate transactions and identity, and to control objects. Already today, 25 percent of smartwatch owners use their smartwatch to remotely control other digital devices at home, and 30 percent use voice search on their smartwatches.

Sing Sethi says: “Although consumers show greatest interest in devices related to safety, we also see openness to wearable technology further away from today’s generation. In five years’ time, walking around with an ingestible sensor, which tracks your body temperature and adjusts the thermostat setting automatically once you arrive home, may be a reality.”