By Reuters | Updated: 3 October 2023

HMD Global, the licensee of Nokia-branded smartphones, has become the first major smartphone company to manufacture devices in Europe, with its first 5G model made in Hungary — aimed at customers keen on data security — now available for purchase.

“We are thrilled to be manufacturing the Nokia XR21, our signature rugged 5G smartphone, in Europe,” HMD Global co-founder, chairman and CEO Jean-Francois Baril said on Tuesday.

“We are dedicated to investing in security, technology and manufacturing processes that make our devices more secure and longer lasting.”

Before HMD opened its Hungarian operations, Europe had no large-scale smartphone manufacturing as major companies like Apple and Samsung make their phones in Asia to cut costs.

HMD said the first European model was designed for enterprise customers, some of whom had requested additional security in conjunction with their IT security partners.

The company already stores data in the European Union, with consumer and corporate data from all of its smartphones held and processed on servers in Finland since 2019.

The company signed in 2016 an exclusive 10-year licensing agreement with Nokia Oyj, once the world’s largest phone maker, to make Nokia-branded smartphones and tablets.

It said in March it would start manufacturing in the European Union, which has been encouraging companies to set up production in key sectors such as semiconductors.

The Nokia XR21 European edition is priced from EUR 649 (nearly Rs. 56,500), the company said.

A limited edition of 30 units from the European production line in frosted platinum will be available for purchase from the company’s website from EUR 699, it said.

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By Reuters | Updated: 22 September 2023

Apple is expected to gain a larger share of India’s smartphone sales, with the high-end iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max models accounting for more of its shipments. The company is projected to account for 7 percent of all smartphone sales in the country from July to December, up from 5 percent in the first half of 2023, according to data from market researcher Counterpoint shared exclusively with Reuters.

The tech giant has been touting India as its next big growth driver amid declining sales of its flagship device. Its suppliers have also been ramping up manufacturing operations in the region amid weakening demand and regulatory pressure in China.

Wait times in India for Apple’s latest 15 Pro and Pro Max models, which go on sale Friday, are stretching up to late October, mirroring trends seen in China and the US. Counterpoint estimated the models will account for 25 percent of overall iPhone 15 shipments in India in the fourth quarter, a 4 percent increase from what the previous generation top-range models accounted for a year earlier.

“The premium smartphone market in India has climbed tremendously from 0.8 percent of the total market in 2019 to 6.1 percent in the first half of 2023 and this is largely attributed to Apple’s success,” Nabila Popal, a research director at market intelligence firm IDC, said.

Apple is the largest player in the segment for smartphones priced over $800 (roughly Rs. 66,300) in India, with a 67 percent share in the first half, according to IDC data. Samsung accounted for 31 percent of the segment. Apple opened two flagship stores in the country earlier this year and CEO Tim Cook said in August that the company hit “record” revenue in India in the June quarter.

Still, Apple has a long way to go before the country could bring in sales seen in the company’s major markets. Morgan Stanley, in a note earlier this month, estimated that Apple’s revenue from India is about half that of China.

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By Reuters | Updated: 18 September 2023

Apple supplier Foxconn aims to double its workforce and investment in India by next year, a company executive said on Sunday.

Taiwan-based Foxconn, the world’s largest contract manufacturer of electronics, has rapidly expanded its presence in India by investing in manufacturing facilities in the south of the country as the company seeks to move away from China.

V Lee, Foxconn’s representative in India, in a LinkedIn post to mark Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s 73rd birthday, said the company was “aiming for another doubling of employment, FDI (foreign direct investment), and business size in India” by this time next year.

He did not give more details.

Foxconn already has an iPhone factory in the state of Tamil Nadu, which employs 40,000 people.

In August, the state of Karnataka said Foxconn will invest $600 million for two projects in the state to make casing components for iPhones and chip-making equipment.

Some $350 million (roughly Rs. 2,890 crore) will go towards setting up the iPhone component unit which will generate 12,000 jobs, while Foxconn will tie up with Applied Materials in a $250 million (roughly Rs. 2,064 crore) project to make chip-making tools, the government had said last month.

The company also plans to invest Rs. 1,600 crore ($194.45 million) to build a campus in Kancheepuram district, near the Tamil Nadu’s capital of Chennai.

The company’s Chairman Liu Young-way said in an earnings briefing last month that he sees a lot of potential in India, adding: “several billion dollars in investment is only a beginning”.

Foxconn reported a 1 percent drop in second-quarter net profit, as global economic woes hurt demand for smart consumer electronics. The Taiwanese company said net profit for the April-June quarter slipped to TWD 33 billion (roughly Rs. 8,578 crore) from a revised TWD 33.29 billion (roughly Rs. 8,654 crore) in the same period the previous year.

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By Reuters | Updated: 16 September 2023

Apple pledged on Friday to update software on iPhone 12s in France to settle a dispute over radiation levels, but concerns in other European countries signalled it may have to take similar action elsewhere.

France this week suspended sales of iPhone 12 handsets after tests which it said found breaches of radiation exposure limits.

Apple contested the findings, saying the iPhone 12 was certified by multiple international bodies as compliant with global standards, but said on Friday it would issue a software update to accommodate the testing methods used in France.

Researchers have conducted a vast number of studies over the last two decades to assess the health risks of mobile phones. According to the World Health Organisation, no adverse health effects have been established as being caused by them.

But the radiation warning in France, based on results of tests that differ from those carried out in other countries, has prompted concerns across Europe.

Belgium’s state secretary for digitalisation said he had asked Apple to upgrade the iPhone 12 software across EU countries, even though he said that based on the Belgian regulator’s own preliminary review the handset presents no danger to users.

Germany said it was in touch with French authorities to find a European Union-wide solution, while Italy was set to ask Apple to upgrade the software on iPhone 12s there, according to a government source in Rome.

However, any request to Apple or separate decisions by Italian authorities will only come after the end of the French investigation, a second Italian government source said.

The Dutch Authority for Digital Infrastructure said it was also conducting its own investigation, due in two weeks, and was in contact with Apple as well as German and French authorities. The agency said it had received calls from concerned consumers.

The French government welcomed Apple’s software update, saying it would be swiftly tested and should allow for sales of the relatively old iPhone 12 model, launched in 2020, to resume.

“We will issue a software update for users in France to accommodate the protocol used by French regulators. We look forward to iPhone 12 continuing to be available in France,” Apple said in a statement.

“This is related to a specific testing protocol used by French regulators and not a safety concern,” it said.

Apple routinely provides software updates for its phones and computers, mostly to fix a security issue. They can be focused on a particular model or a region, and sometimes Apple issues such updates several times in a month.

Limb tests

France’s Agence Nationale des Frequences (ANFR) said on Tuesday the iPhone 12’s Specific Absorption Rate (SAR) — a measure of the rate of radiofrequency energy absorbed by the body from a piece of equipment — was higher than legally allowed, which prompted the sale suspension.

A change in French regulations in 2020 allowed for testing SAR for limbs — holding a phone in hand — as well as for the head and body, used elsewhere. In the French limb SAR tests, which the iPhone 12 failed, it is measured at a distance of 0 mm compared with a distance of 5mm for body tests.

The Belgian minister for digitalisation, Mathieu Michel, said in a statement on Friday that while a review of the phone by the country’s IBPT regulator was still underway, the first results were “reassuring” and there was no need for a recall of the phone in Belgium.

Even so, he said he had contacted Apple and asked it to “review its software updates in an identical manner within the whole of Europe.”

Denmark too moved to reassure owners of the phone, saying its Safety Authority would not take action following France’s findings and that it was not concerned about radiation levels from using the iPhone 12.

“Based on the available information, the Danish Health Authority’s assessment is that you can continue to use your iPhone 12 without concern,” it said in an emailed statement.

Industry experts said there were no safety risks as regulatory limits, based on the risk of burns or heatstroke from the phone’s radiation, were set well below levels where scientists have found evidence of harm.

“Ultimately I suspect the whole incident will be quickly forgotten,” said Ben Wood, chief analyst at CCS Insight, highlighting that the iPhone 12 is an old model.

Apple launched the iPhone 15 on Tuesday and the iPhone 12 is not available to buy from Apple directly. It can, however, be bought from third parties that have inventory or trade old phones.

A bigger issue would have been a potential recall, which France had threatened if Apple had refused to do a software update.

Apple’s revenues totalled about $95 billion (nearly Rs. 7,89,600 crore) in Europe last year, making the region its second biggest behind the Americas. Some estimates say it sold more than 50 million iPhones last year in Europe.

The US company does not break out its sales by country or model.

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By Reuters | Updated: 13 September 2023

Apple must stop selling its iPhone 12 model in France due to above-threshold radiation levels, France’s junior minister for the digital economy told newspaper Le Parisien in an interview published on Tuesday.

France’s radiation watchdog ANFR notified Apple of its decision to ban iPhone 12 sales after it had carried out tests which showed the smartphone’s Specific Absorption Rate (SAR) was slightly higher than legally allowed, Jean-Noel Barrot told the paper.

Apple did not immediately reply to a Reuters request for comment.

Barrot said a software update would be sufficient to fix the radiation issues linked to the phone which the U.S. company has been selling since 2020.

“Apple is expected to respond within two weeks”, he said, adding: “If they fail to do so, I am prepared to order a recall of all iPhones 12 in circulation. The rule is the same for everyone, including the digital giants.”

The European Union has set safety limits for SAR values linked to exposure to mobile phones, which could increase the risk of some forms of cancer according to scientific studies.

The French watchdog will now pass on its findings to regulators in other EU member states. “In practical terms, this decision could have a snowball effect”, said Barrot.

In 2020, France widened regulations requiring retailers to display the radiation value of products on packaging beyond cell phones, including tablets and other electronic devices.

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By Reuters | Updated: 13 September 2023

In contrast, Microsoft and Alphabet’s Google set ambitious goals for the level of transformation with their AI efforts. Industry leaders have warned about the potential harms of the unchecked development of new tools such as generative AI.

Apple built the Series 9 Watch with a new chip that includes improved data crunching capabilities, notably adding a four-core “Neural Engine” that can process machine learning tasks up to twice as quickly. The Neural Engine is what Apple calls the building blocks for its chips that accelerate AI functions.

The AI components of the watch chip make Siri, Apple’s voice assistant, 25 percent more accurate.

But including the machine learning chip components also enabled Apple to launch a new way to interact with the device: people can “double tap” by finger-pinching with their watch hand to do things like answer or end phone calls, pause music, or launch other information like the weather.

The idea is to give people a way to control the Apple Watch when their non-watch hand is busy holding a cup of coffee or walking a dog. The feature works by using the new chip and machine learning to detect subtle movements and changes in blood flow when users tap their fingers together.

The iPhone maker also showed off improved image capture for its lineup of phones. The company has long offered a “portrait mode” that can blur the backgrounds using computing power to simulate a large camera lens. But users had to remember to turn the feature on. Now, the camera automatically recognizes when a person is in the frame and gathers the data needed to blur the background later.

Apple is far from the only smartphone maker to add AI to its hardware. Google’s Pixel phones, for example, allow users to erase unwanted people or objects from images.

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