Nokia Files Lawsuit Complaint Against 11 LCD Manufacturers In San Francisco Court. Alleges Price Fixing

Posted on December 1, 2009 by admin

Nokia Corp. is suing 11 companies and a number of their units in the U.S., alleging they colluded to fix prices on liquid crystal displays.

Nokia’s suit comes as the LCD industry begins to emerge from a long downturn that had led to weak panel prices. LCDs are used in screens for mobile phones, personal computers and televisions.

The Finnish mobile handset giant alleges in the complaint—filed Nov. 25 with the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California in San Francisco—that the companies raised “the price of LCDs above the price that would have prevailed in a competitive market” from at least Jan. 1, 1996 through Dec. 11, 2006.

Nokia said it purchased LCDs from the companies and then incorporated them into its mobile wireless handsets.

Three of the LCD makers accused in the suit said Tuesday they hadn’t received any documents from the U.S. court, three others said they were looking into the matter, two declined to comment and the rest couldn’t be reached for comment.

Nokia spokesman Mark Durrant said his company also filed related complaints in the U.K., against makers of LCDs and cathode ray tubes, which are used in older televisions.

Nokia believes it has a strong position in the case because there is no doubt that price fixing has been going on, Mr. Durrant said, though he declined to say how much money could be involved.

Mr. Durrant said it could take a few years to reach a settlement in court, but added that his company is interested in discussing compensation outside of the court system.

Analysts said legal battles take a while to settle so the suit won’t likely have an immediate impact on the LCD makers, though they said the companies may need to set aside provisions from their earnings in the longer term.

The complaint against the group of companies—which includes AU Optronics Corp., Chunghwa Picture Tubes Ltd., Samsung Electronics Co., Sharp Corp. and LG Display Co.—is the latest in a string of accusations of price fixing in the LCD industry.

AT&T Corp. alleged in a suit filed in October in U.S. District Court in San Francisco that AU Optronics, LG Display, Samsung Electronics and other LCD makers were involved in a “long-running conspiracy” from January 1996 to December 2006 to fix prices of LCD panels.

That complaint, filed by AT&T and its BellSouth and Pacific Bell units, Southwestern Bell Telephone Co. and others, alleged the LCD makers formed an international cartel to illegally restrict competition in the U.S. for LCD panels.

Nokia’s complaint also comes about a year after the U.S. Justice Department fined several LCD makers for price fixing.

Sharp, Chunghwa and LG Display agreed in November 2008 to plead guilty to the U.S. charges of price fixing in the LCD market from as early as April 2001 to December 2006. The companies paid $585 million in criminal fines.

Samsung Electronics, the world’s largest LCD maker, wasn’t cited in the Justice Department’s decision but it cooperated with U.S. investigators in the probe, people close to the case said. The probe into the LCD industry became public in 2006.

The European Commission in May 2009 sent formal charges to a number of companies supplying LCDs on suspicion that they have operated a cartel. The commission didn’t name the companies at the time but in July, Philips Electronics N.V. confirmed it received cartel charges from the European Commission alleging price fixing.

Other companies named in Nokia’s suit include Philips Electronics, Tatung Co., Seiko EpsonCorp., Samsung SDI Co., Hitachi Displays Ltd. and Toshiba Corp.

Hitachi Displays agreed in March to plead guilty to the U.S. Justice Department’s price-fixing charges and paid a $31 million fine. Hitachi isn’t a defendant in the AT&T case.

“Nokia suffered damages as a result…and is entitled to treble damages and injunctive relief to remedy these injuries,” Nokia said in its complaint.

Chunghwa Picture Tubes deputy spokesman Wilbur Chien said Tuesday his company hasn’t received any court documents and declined to comment further on the Nokia case. Freda Lee, a spokeswoman for AU Optronics, also said the company hasn’t received any court documents from the U.S.

A Tatung investor relations official also said the company hasn’t received any official documents from the court.

Toshiba spokesman Keisuke Ohmori declined to comment. Samsung Electronics also declined to comment.

Officials at Seiko Epson, Samsung SDI and LG Display said they were looking into the matter, while officials at Sharp, Hitachi, and Philips, weren’t immediately available for comment.

Huge Marketing Budget Drives Motorola Droid Sales. Expects to Sell 1 Million Units In 2009.

Posted on December 1, 2009 by admin

Motorola’s and Verizon Wireless’ $100 million marketing campaign for the Motorola Droid seems to be paying off with strong sales that will likely result in more than 1 million devices being sold by the end of the year.

The Droid, the only smartphone currently on the market that uses Google Android‘s 2.0 operating system, is Motorola’s second Android device and it’s available only on Verizon Wireless’s network. The device is turning out to be the hit phone of the season, thanks in large part to an expensive and extensive advertising campaign.

Motorola Droid

(Credit: Motorola)

Neither company is reporting sales figures. But analysts say sales look good. The companies have likely sold between 700,000 and 800,000 Droids since the device was launched in early November, according to equity analyst Mark Sue of RBC Capital Markets.

“Verizon’s big marketing push for the Droid is strengthening as we close in on the holidays, and following our round of checks, we believe about 700,000 to 800,000 Droids have been sold, making our hurdle of 1 [million] Motorola Droids achievable for 4Q09 [ending December 31],” Sue said in his research note. “Motorola, for its part, has done a good job on the production side, and our survey of over 100 stores indicates strong demand, limited stock outs, and very few returns.”

John Stratton, executive vice president and chief marketing officer for Verizon Wireless, said when the device was launched in late October that Verizon would be pouring in more money to market this device than any other phone it has ever sold. And now it looks like the money has been well spent. From advertisements that specificallyhighlight the Droid to ones that focus on Verizon’s extensive and reliable 3G wireless network, it’s clear that the company has AT&T and the Apple iPhone in its crosshairs.

AT&T has actually sued Verizon over the advertisements about its 3G wireless network coverage.

Some Verizon Wireless stores, especially in major cities, are selling between 100 and 200 Droids per week since the launch in early November, Sue added.

The success of the Droid is good news both for Motorola and for Verizon Wireless.

Motorola comeback
For Motorola, the Droid represents a chance to make a comeback in the cell phone market. The iconic American company that practically invented the cell phone market has struggled for the past several years now. After the runaway success of the ultra-thin Motorola Razr in 2004, the company has been unable to come up with a hit phone. And it has steadily lost market share to other competitors, such as Nokia, Samsung, and LG Electronics. It’s also ceded market share in the fastest growing segment of the market, smartphones, to newcomers like Apple and Research In Motion.

Motorola’s mobile devices CEO Sanjay Jha took a bold gamble more than a year ago when he decided to dedicate the company’s resources to building phones using the Google Android operating system. The Droid and theMotorola Cliq, which is exclusively sold on T-Mobile USA’s network, are the first two Motorola Android phones to hit the market.

But Jha said the Google Android operating system will not only be used in high-end devices like the Droid, but it will also be used to power less expensive phones, creating a new tier of smartphones that will eventually replace the basic feature phone category. Jha said the company will launch at least 20 more Android devices in 2010.

The success of the Droid is an important first step in getting Motorola back on track. But equity analyst Ittai Kidron of Oppenheimer said in a research note Monday that sales of the Motorola Cliq are falling short of expectations. Motorola is expected to sell 1.5 million smartphones in the fourth quarter. And two-thirds of them are expected to be Droids.

Kidron said the Cliq is not selling well mostly because of issues with battery life. Motorola is supposedly preparing a software patch to fix the problem. But he also noted that T-Mobile appears to be losing interest in the device and is not marketing it heavily.

But T-Mobile says that the Cliq is doing just fine. And the carrier said that it’s committed to marketing the phone through the holiday season.

“The Motorola Cliq is very popular among our highly connected customers and is the only device with Motorola’s innovative Motoblur solution,” a company spokesman said. “T-Mobile is excited about the Motorola Cliq for the holidays and continues to showcase it prominently in T-Mobile retail stores and with recent holiday deals.”

Verizon’s iPhone alternative
The Droid’s success is also important to Verizon Wireless, the nation’s largest wireless operator in the country. It is the first device that offers a true challenge to Apple’s iPhone, which runs exclusively in the U.S. on AT&T’s network. While Verizon has a strong reputation for its network, consumers often complain about its lack of cool phones. Up to this point, Verizon has mainly competed against AT&T and the iPhone with RIM’s BlackBerry devices. But RIM’s touch-screen BlackBerry Storm, which was first introduced a year ago, was largely a disappointment.

The Droid offers Verizon customers an alternative to the iPhone on the Verizon network. This fact could help Verizon retain some consumers who were thinking of leaving for the iPhone. But it might also attract new customers who are either disappointed with AT&T’s service or have heard bad things about the network.

Verizon Wireless representatives say the Droid is certainly an important part of the company’s device line-up.

“We are pleased with sales over the holiday weekend,” Brenda Raney, a spokeswoman for the carrier said in an e-mail. “This phone clearly fits the needs of a number of customers who are excited about its availability on the Verizon Wireless network.”

But if analyst data is to be trusted, it is clear that the huge marketing budget for the Droid is at least part of the reason why the device has been so successful. The HTC Droid Eris, another Android device sold exclusively on Verizon’s network, is not selling as well as the Droid, Sue said in his note. The HTC Droid Eris went on sale the same day the Droid was launched, but with much less fanfare.

Part of the problem is the fact that there are many Android devices coming to market. And the number will only increase next year. The lesson from the success of the Motorola Droid is clear. If device makers and carriers hope for break-out success, then they will have to spend big on marketing.

Nokia: “Asia Mobile Recycling Yield Beats Europe”

Posted on December 1, 2009 by admin

SINGAPORE–The raw material recovery rate for Nokia, is higher in Asia than in Europe due to low labor costs that allow workers to be employed to separate materials before the recycling process, said a Nokia spokesperson.

“In the West, it’s about 80 to 85 percent yield. Here, because we segregate the materials, we get about 99.5 percent yield.” said Francis Cheong, Nokia’s environmental affairs manager for Southeast Asia and the Pacific.

Nokia outsources its recycling efforts in the country to local recycling service, Total Environmental Solutions-Asset Material Management (TES-AMM).

Joe Vong, TES-AMM’s general manager, explained that low labor costs allow the plant to employ people to separate the materials during what they call the “dismantling” process.

“In Europe, [the plants] have a different recycling management in which a whole phone is crushed and broken down. The recycle yield for this is close to 70 to 80 percent,” said Vong. “This is unlike what we do in Asia, where we crush the plastic and boards separately so we get about 95 to 97 percent yield.”

At the Singapore plant, mobile phones are dismantled by human agents who categorize different parts of the phones into different “streams”. Vong described the separation process as the “choke point”. He added that personnel must be very familiar with the materials they are working with and, on average, process 20 to 30 phones per hour in an 8-hour work day.

Cheong said Nokia collects roughly 1.5 to 2 tons of e-waste each month from the Southeast Asia and Pacific region from the public as well as R&D centers, but did not divulge how much of this waste is derived from mobile phones.

In a presentation, a spokesperson from the plant pointed out that its core business lies in “precious metal recovery from e-waste”. Among the metal that can be recovered are copper, aluminum, nickel, alloy, and even gold.

However, turning waste into gold is not an easy process. Alex Hee, project manager at the plant, said it takes 50,000 to 80,000 phones to extract 1kg of gold.

Nokia’s Cheong revealed that from the recovered material, the phone maker reclaims only the cobalt and lithium salts extracted from the recycled batteries, as these metals are very rare. These are then remade into new lithium-ion batteries.

Nokia this year has invested more than S$1 million (US$720,000) in social responsibility programs in the Southeast Asia and the Pacific region, most specifically in recycling and take-back initiatives, he said.

In a previous study in July 2008, Nokia noted that only 3 percent of the study’s respondentsrecycled their mobile phones. To raise awareness for mobile phone recycling, the handset manufacturer undertakes initiatives to reach out to the local communities in Asia cities like Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand.

SOURCE: ZDNETASIA.COM

By Liau Yun Qing, ZDNet

Sheila Davis (Executive Director, Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition SVTC) Addresses The International Electronics Recycling Conference & Expo IERCE 09′

Posted on November 27, 2009 by admin

Sheila Davis is the Executive Director of Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition (SVTC) based in Northern California. Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition is a diverse organization engaged in research, advocacy and grassroots organizing to promote human health and environmental justice in response to the rapid growth of the high-tech industry. In this Webinar, Sheila shares her organizations discoveries after visiting Taiwan, India, Germany and a host of other countries. VIDEO COMING SOON! Click Sheila’s picture for the audio.

Alfred Hambsch (President, Global Electric & Electronic Processing, G.E.E.P) Addresses The International Electronics Recycling Conference & Expo IERCE’09

Posted on November 27, 2009 by admin

Alfred Hambsch is the President of Canadian based electronic recycler GLOBAL ELECTRIC & ELECTRONICS PROCESSING (G.E.E.P). GEEP is currently one of the largest processors of electronic scrap in North America. In this webinar, Alfred discusses the Canadian electronic waste landscape and the methodologies his company has used to increase market share in North America including ISO certification at all locations and the utilization of technology. He also discusses GEEP’s expansion plans and the company’s vision. Here’s a link to Alfred’s presentation. Alfred Hambsch-GEEP VIDEOS COMING SOON!

Motorola Establishes U.S. Take-Back Recycling Program

Posted on November 23, 2009 by admin

SCHAUMBURG, Ill., Nov. 23 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ –Motorola, Inc. (NYSE: MOT) announced today that it has established a take-back recycling program for its U.S. Enterprise Mobility Solutions (EMS) customers to help them responsibly dispose of used equipment.

The products covered in the program include all Motorola-branded enterprise mobility equipment, such as mobile and portable two-way radios; handheld mobile computers; barcode scanners; imagers; in-vehicle mobile workstations; accessories; network infrastructure equipment; and computers, laptops and monitors. Batteries are also included but must be removed from the equipment before they are shipped for recycling. There is generally no cost incurred by the customer; however, freight charges may be applied in some cases.

“Recycling conserves resources, reduces impact on the environment and makes good business sense,” said Tom Collins, senior vice president, Worldwide Supply Chain & Operations, EMS, Motorola. “We’ve established this program to make it easier for our customers to recycle, while supporting Motorola’s goals of reducing the environmental impact of our own products.”

To return smaller or more portable items, customers can arrange shipment to one of Motorola’s e-waste recycling partnersonline. For larger equipment returns, customers are contacted for pick-up by a Motorola e-waste partner. Motorola audits its recyclers to ensure they comply with laws governing the disposal of electronic equipment, following the company’s supplier code of conduct and industry standards.

In 2008, Motorola collected more than 2,560 tonnes of electronic and electrical equipment waste for recycling. This includes take-back programs, internal electronics recycling efforts and community electronics recycling events sponsored by Motorola.

Additional recycling programs at Motorola

Motorola participates in electronics equipment take-back programs in countries covered by the European Union’s Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) directive. In other countries, take-back bins are located at various collection points, including Motorola service centers, shops and offices. Authorized contractors will collect and transport items to approved recycling facilities.

In the U.S., consumers may print a postage-paid label at www.motorola.com/recycle to return Motorola-branded modems, routers and cordless phones, as well as mobile phones and mobile phone accessories from any manufacturer, at no charge. Consumers may contact their local service providers to return Motorola cable set-tops.

Motorola offers or participates in mobile phone take-back programs in 70 countries around the world. The Race to Recycleprogram enables K-12 schools in the U.S. to earn extra cash for recycling mobile phones. A portion of the proceeds generated from returned mobile phones is distributed to participating schools.

Motorola’s recycling programs are part of the company’s overarching commitment to environmental sustainability. To learn more visit www.motorola.com/environment.