Samsung Vietnam Starts Building $2 Billion Plant

The Vietnam unit of Samsung Electronics Co. (005930.SE) has started building a $2 billion plant in northern Vietnam, as it seeks to expand its production base in the country, a provincial official said.
Samsung Electronics Vietnam Ltd. on Monday started construction on the plant in Yen Binh Industrial Park in Thai Nguyen province, which is expected to be operational from the end of this year, said Duong Ngoc Long, the chairman of the province.

Mr. Long said the plant will mainly produce mobile phones, cameras and laptops.
Company executives weren't immediately available for comment.

The plant will produce 10 million products a month, according to a report in the Dau Tu newspaper, which is run by the Ministry of Planning and Investment.

This will be Samsung's third plant in Vietnam, after a $1.5 billion electronics plant in Bac Ninh province and another in Ho Chi Minh City, the report said. It added that Samsung Vietnam Electronics is targeting exports of $16.5 billion this year, up from $12.7 billion last year.

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Free-phone service LINE ties up with Nokia

A Japan-based free phone and messaging service called LINE is teaming up with Finnish mobile phone maker Nokia in an attempt to expand into emerging markets.

NHN Japan, which operates LINE, says Nokia's new low-end smartphones will come pre-installed with the LINE application. The app allows users to make free calls on data communication lines.

NHN officials say they hope the tie-up will help boost the number of LINE users in Africa, Latin America and Asia.

The service reached a milestone of 100 million users worldwide in January. But more than 40 percent of these are in Japan.

The use of smartphones is expected to spread rapidly in emerging markets as inexpensive models become available.

The LINE-Nokia tie-up will provide clues as to how free communication services will do in these countries.

Huawei reveals 'fastest smartphone in the world'

BARCELONA, Spain (AP) — Huawei, a Chinese company that recently became the world's third-largest maker of smartphones, calls its new flagship product "the fastest smartphone in the world" and wants to use it to expand global awareness of its brand.


Huawei's new flagship model, which it calls "the fastest smartphone in the world.
(Photo: Huawei/AP)
Parts of the presentation of the phone at a press conference Sunday in Barcelona, Spain, suggest that the company has some way to go in polishing its pitch for a global audience.

Richard Yu, head of Huawei's consumer business group said the new phone can be programmed to display more than 100 different "themes," or looks. This is important because "ladies like flowers, colorful things," Yu said.

Yu also said Huawei is learning from Apple how to make Google's Android software easier to use, a lawsuit-friendly utterance considering that Apple is on a global campaign to sue makers of Android phones for copying from the iPhone.

The new phone, the Ascend P2, will have a 4.7 inch screen. Yu said it will be available in the April to June time frame for about $525 without a contract. It's the "fastest" because it supports faster download speeds than other phones. However, today's wireless networks aren't equipped to supply those speeds.

Huawei Technologies Ltd. was the world's third largest seller of smartphones, after Samsung and Apple, in the fourth quarter of last year, according to research firm IDC. That's despite selling very few phones in the U.S., where the big phone companies mostly ignore it. It has a much better position in Europe, where cellphone companies have embraced its network equipment, and France's Orange is committed to selling the phone.

In the U.S., a congressional panel recommended in October that phone carriers avoid doing business with Huawei or its smaller Chinese rival, ZTE Corp., for fear that its network equipment could contain "back doors" that enable access to communications from outside. The Chinese government rejected the report as false and an effort to block Chinese companies from the U.S. market.

Meanwhile, a report by a private U.S. cybersecurity firm concluded recently that a special unit of China's military is responsible for sustained cyberespionage against U.S. companies and government agencies. China has denied involvement in the attacks in which massive amounts of data and corporate trade secrets, likely worth hundreds of millions of dollars, were stolen.

"It has not been an easy journey for us," Huawei's global brand director, Amy Lou, said Sunday of the company's quest to become globally recognized and trusted. She called the company "a great consumer brand in the making."

The world's largest cellphone trade show, Mobile World Congress, opens Monday in Barcelona.

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Taiwan unveils transparent mobile phone

In this modern age, labelled as the Phone Era, one may wonder what trend will follow after smart phones. We may just have the answer. On Monday, the Taiwan division of a US company released a fully-transparent cell phone.

The Taiwan division of U.S. Polytron Technologies has spent six years researching and developing this transparent mobile phone.

According to the development team, it functions just as well as a smart phone.
The screen is almost completely transparent. Inner workings like the battery and the sim card are miniaturized and placed around the bottom of the phone. The company is still working on reducing the size of the batteries.


The Taiwan division of U.S. Polytron Technologies has spent six years researching
and developing this transparent mobile phone.

Ms. Chen, working for the Taiwan Branch’s Public Relations, explains how the magic works.
"The screen is made of conductive glass. We use this feature to enable the LED to glow without any visible wires."

Despite being only 0.5 centimeters thick, the phone is not as fragile as it seems. In fact, it’s been toughened to resist shocks.


The Taiwan division of U.S. Polytron Technologies has spent six years researching
and developing this transparent mobile phone.

Compared with the iPhone 5, the prototype is 25 percent lighter, with a 4.3-inch screen -- 0.3 inches larger than the iPhone 5’s.

It can be touch-activated only on one side, but can display images on both front and back. Some phones have had transparent components before, but never to this extent.

The phone is expected to be on sale by the end of the year. Its price will be revealed close to its release date. But the company has promised one thing: it will definitely be cheaper than the iPhone 5.

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