Enterprise
Apple’s sales absolutely collapses in India
OnePlus remains on top
As 2019 started, Apple issued significant warnings about its declining sales around the globe. In 2018, the company’s performance plateaued and, at worst, declined. As a result, Apple CEO Tim Cook warned investors of the rough waters coming ahead. At the very least, Apple’s head honcho offered hope for a future filled with renewed determination.
However, it’s going to get worse before it gets better. Last year’s complete sales charts have finally come in. It’s not looking good for Apple.
According to Counterpoint Research, Apple’s iPhone sales have completely tanked in India. The company fell by almost 50 percent from a staggering performance in 2017.
In 2018, Apple sold only 1.7 million units in India. For comparison, the company sold 3.2 million in 2017. Apple has regressed back to its levels from before 2015.
Besides the raw data, Counterpoint Research has also speculated on the company’s fall. According to Tarun Pathak, Counterpoint’s associate director, OnePlus’ impressive 2018 has caused Apple’s downfall. Last year, OnePlus successfully launched the OnePlus 6 series. The current lineup propelled the company into the upper echelons of the smartphone market. By mid-2018, OnePlus already overtook Samsung and Apple at the head of the Indian phone market. Also, Apple had already collapsed catastrophically by then.
However, at that point, we didn’t know how bad it was yet. Apple’s 2018 in India was a disaster. The company faces a mountain of hurdles in 2019. The new iPhone lineup’s exorbitant prices have scared away potential buyers. Even then, Apple stands by its pricing scheme as a key to victory. If anything, the company’s decline reveals which markets are still willing to pay obscene prices for a new phone.
SEE ALSO: Apple Watch is more popular than the iPod, according to Tim Cook
Enterprise
ACMobility Launches ChargeFleet: Seamless solution for businesses
B2B solution for corporate fleets and transport groups
Ayala Group’s ACMobility has launched ChargeFleet, a new B2B digital solution for corporate fleets and transport groups.
The new service introduces a shareable digital wallet that streamlines charging expenses, reduces manual tracking, and improves cost control.
As more organizations explore electrifying their mobility operations, many continue to face operational challenges — including fragmented payment systems, reimbursement delays, and limited visibility over charging usage.
ChargeFleet addresses these gaps by introducing a centralized, shareable digital wallet. Here, fleet managers can allocate and monitor charging credits across multiple drivers across a single platform.
The system is a seamless process designed for long-term usage and easy deployment across any organization.
Once integrated, ACMobility assigns charging credits to the client’s fleet manager. The manager then can distribute these to multiple drivers. Meanwhile, the latter will be able to see and use their assigned credits via the Evro app.
ChargeFleet is available as a prepaid product through the ChargeFleet Store. Users can buy offers via GCash or credit card. No application process is required.
Looking ahead, ACMobility will continue to enhance the ChargeFleet experience with exclusive value-added perks integrated through Evro and Power on Wheels.
The upcoming features highlight ACMobility’s ongoing push to provide a future-proof support system for the evolving needs of their customers’ businesses.
Enterprise
Sony teams up with 13 companies for sustainable global supply chain
Sustainability through introduction of renewable plastics
Sony, along with several companies, have established the world’s first global supply chain for the production of renewable plastics that can be used in Sony’s high-performance audiovisual products.
The supply chain consists of 14 companies across five countries and regions. The various plastic materials manufacture through this supply are slated for use in Sony’s products that will launch worldwide.
High-performance products such as audiovisual equipment involve a wide variety of plastics. The result is a complex supply chain that makes it difficult to visualize and manage the entire flow.
Additionally, plastic components that require high performance in terms of flame resistance and optical properties cannot be fully replaced with plastics from material recycling.
To address these challenges, these 14 companies have collaborated to visualize the existing supply chain for Sony’s products:
- Sony Corporation
- Mitsubishi Corporation
- ADEKA CORPORATION
- CHIMEI Corporation
- ENEOS Corporation
- Formosa Chemicals & Fibre Corporation
- Hanwha Impact Corporation
- Idemitsu Kosan Co., Ltd.
- Mitsui Chemicals, Inc.
- Neste Corporation
- Qingdao Haier New Material Development Co.
- Ltd., SK Geo Centric Co., Ltd.
- Toray Industries, Inc.
- Toray Advanced Materials Korea Inc.
Sustainability through renewable plastics
The new supply chain created will enable the production of multiple types of renewable plastics from biomass resources with a mass balance approach.
This allows Sony to proactively source raw materials for its products with quality, as well as properties equivalent to virgin fossil-based plastics.
Defining the supply chain also helps the companies track and document GHG (Greenhouse Gas) emissions data in a verifiable way.
This allows participating companies to leverage the data to advance efforts to reduce their carbon footprint going forward.
Sony’s initiative with a wide range of global partners is part of the “Creating NEW from reNEWable materials” jointly launched by the electronics giant and Mitsubishi.
It aims to achieve zero usage of virgin fossil-based plastics through the introduction of renewable plastics.
Enterprise
realme is reportedly going back to being an OPPO sub-brand
All scheduled phones will still launch on time, though.
A popular story among Chinese smartphone brands is whenever a sub-brand spinning off into its own independent entity. A less common one is when an independent entity suddenly merges back into the main entity. And yet, that’s the story we have today. realme is reportedly going back to being a sub-brand of OPPO.
If you don’t remember realme’s time as a sub-brand, then it’s hardly your fault. It’s been a long while since realme was considered a sub-brand. In 2018, the brand spun off on its own to form one of the most popular names in the Chinese smartphone space.
Today, via Leiphone, realme will return to OPPO as a sub-brand. Current realme CEO Sky Li will still retain his responsibilities heading the brand. Plus, all products on the current release schedule will still come out as planned.
However, starting this year, realme will start reintegrating back into OPPO, particularly through the latter’s after-sales programs. OnePlus will also follow the same structure going forward.
Currently, realme has not officially announced the move. That said, we also don’t know how the brand will address the reported change. It’s possible that the shift is just internal and has no effect on how the brand faces the public. For now, only time will tell.
SEE ALSO: realme C85 with 7000mAh battery, 5G connectivity officially launches
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