LG seems to be having a streak of bad luck lately. Both the G Flex 2 and the G4 have failed to meet sales expectations and now it appears the freshly announced V10 is heading down the same road.

Initial numbers are coming in for domestic sales of the handset and they don’t look very promising. The statistics are courtesy of ATLAS Research & Consulting, focus on the period between October 8 and October 14 and show that the V10 was only the 15th bestselling handset for the period is South Korea.

This is quite a gloomy statistic and although the device is yet to be released in many other markets, it is not a good sign that the V10 can’t rank in the top 10 within the first week of its announcement on LG’s strongest market.

Meanwhile, Samsung maintains a tight grip on the said top 10 list in Korea with the Galaxy Note5 leading the chart for a few weeks now and devices like the Galaxy Grand Max and the Galaxy A5 selling strong as well. This clearly shows that LG’s problem is not an unfavorable market, as it is clear that people are spending in all price ranges. The real issues seems to lie with steep pricing, leaving LG’s devices at a competitive disadvantage.

In fact, this is far from an isolated occurrence, but rather part of an existing trend. Despite being quite well received, the company’s latest flagship device, the G4 was initially supposed to sell 12 million units across the globe, but failed to do so. Retailers were having so much trouble moving stock that the G4 was offered with almost no profit margin. The LG G Flex 2 was in pretty much the same boat a while back.

At this rate LG is steadily heading toward a sales crisis and things might actually get worse, before they get any better, considering the iPhone 6s duo is opening sales in Korea and preorders are already piling up like…

from GSMArena.com – Latest articles http://ift.tt/1S2Df8k
via IFTTT

Nearly a month after Apple Music’s launch back in June this year, Pandora’s CEO Brian McAndrews said their online music streaming service was largely unaffected by the new competitor. However, it has now been revealed that the launch resulted in Pandora losing 1.3 million active users in Q3.

The revelation was made by McAndrews himself, who also noted that this is approximately the same number of users the company lost when iTunes Radio launched around two-years ago. “I am pleased to say that, given the scale of press and consumer attention on this launch, the impact on our active users and listening hours was muted and was, in fact, consistent with what we experienced during the launch of Apple’s radio service in 2013,” he said.

Pandora’s total user base now stands at 78.1 million – while that’s an y-o-y increase of 1.6 million, it’s actually a sequential decline of 1.6%. On the other hand, months-old Apple Music currently has a total of around 15 million subscribers, of which an impressive 6.5 million are paying to use it.

Source |…

from GSMArena.com – Latest articles http://ift.tt/1OY4d0Q
via IFTTT

OnePlus has made a sensible move – the company has extended its invite expiry period to 3 days, which means you’ll now have full three days to claim your OnePlus 2 invites compared to just 24 hours that the company gave you earlier.

The reason it makes sense is that a 3 day period will reduce chances of users missing out on invites sent via email. In addition, the extended period will also give them more options to claim their invites at a time convenient to them.

The move comes just over a week after the Chinese company started a limited-period contest, where-in selected candidates were allowed to trade-in their latest Samsung flagships for a brand new OnePlus 2…

from GSMArena.com – Latest articles http://ift.tt/1Go24ub
via IFTTT

A Florida-based couple has filed a class action lawsuit against Apple, claiming that the iPhone-maker didn’t clearly explain how the WiFi Assist feature in iOS 9 affects cellular data consumption. The couple has accused the company of violating California’s Unfair Competition Law and False Advertising Law, as well as of negligent misrepresentation, and is demanding $5 million in damages.

The feature in question allows your iOS device to quickly switch over to cellular data if the Wi-Fi it’s currently connected to isn’t strong enough. The feature is turned on by default.

The couple has alleged that the feature has resulted in higher-than-usual usage of their cellular data plans (although they didn’t specify the exact amount), and now want Apple to compensate for the same.

It’s worth mentioning that the Cupertino-based company had later updated its website explaining the feature, but the lawsuit alleges that wasn’t enough as the damage was already done.

“Defendant’s above corrective action, however, still downplays the possible data overcharges a user could incur,” the suit reads. “Reasonable and average consumers use their iPhones for streaming of music, videos, and running various applications — all of which can use significant data. Defendant’s corrective statement does not disclose any basis for its conclusion that an average consumer would not see much increase in cellular usage.”

If you aren’t already aware, you can turn the feature off by heading to Settings -> Cellular on your device. However, keep in mind that older iOS devices like the iPhone 4S and the iPad 2 are out of luck as they do not have this…

from GSMArena.com – Latest articles http://ift.tt/1Xpkzme
via IFTTT

Some phones just can’t be reviewed in a vacuum, the competition between them is so fierce – and their price tags so high – that they have to be compared against each other under a microscope to determine the best one for you. The Apple iPhone 6s and Samsung Galaxy S6 are joined by the Sony Xperia Z5 for this three-way fight.

from GSMArena.com – Latest articles http://ift.tt/1GmzwBr
via IFTTT

AT&T is now finally in the process of rolling out the update to Android 5.1.1 Lollipop for its version of the Galaxy S5, Samsung’s flagship from 2014. It’s quite late, of course, seeing as how Google’s already released Android 6.0 Marshmallow to its Nexus devices, but at least owners of the AT&T Galaxy S5 now have something to look forward to.

Aside from bumping up the Android version to 5.1.1, the update also adds Android for Work, a few security updates, as well as a fix to Ultra Power Saving Mode for phones using on-device encryption.

As this is an over-the-air rollout, it may be a few days before you receive the notification that the update is available for your handset. If you’re impatient, you can always manually check for the new software by going to Settings > About device > Software update.

Do note that you must use Wi-Fi to download the new release. The file size is around 609MB. After you’ve applied the update you’ll be on build version LMY47X.G900AUCU4COI5.

Source |…

from GSMArena.com – Latest articles http://ift.tt/1Mf9NNv
via IFTTT

Jonathan Lin, who is Sony Mobile’s General Manager in Taiwan has officially stated that the company won’t be exiting the mobile market. His claim is backed up by a recent meeting of his with Hiroki Totoki, who also firmly denies analyst allegations, yet again.

According to Mr. Lin, Sony Mobile will focus its energy on improving the business and the products it creates. The company’s newly opened factory in Thailand dedicated to smartphone assembly should help in these efforts.

The company’s Xperia Z5 Premium flagship will launch in Taiwain in a month’s time. The price of the handset is expected to be around the $500 mark unlocked. Sony Mobile’s optimistically expects to grab 30% of the high-end Android smartphone market in the country.

We’re yet to see if the executives’ words will hold water in case Sony’s plans on breaking even don’t materialize.

Source |…

from GSMArena.com – Latest articles http://ift.tt/1MeCVVa
via IFTTT

Samsung Galaxy On5 popped up on the official Samsung India website just two days ago, but the page was quickly taken down. We still managed to extract all the interesting details about the 5″ Galaxy On5 and we are pretty much considering it as official.

Today Samsung China official took the wraps off the Galaxy On7 and the Galaxy On5 smartphones – two entry-level offers with attractive designs. While both look a lot like the A series, they are made entirely of plastic with faux-leather rear covers. Samsung says those affordable phones come with “an unprecedentedly thin frames and bezels”.

The Samsung Galaxy On7 is 8.2mm thing, features a 5.5″ 720p TFT display and runs on a quad-core 1.2GHz (Cortex-A53 probably) processor with 1.5GB of RAM. It packs a 13MP rear camera and a 5MP selfie snapper, offers 8GB expandable storage and LTE support.

The Galaxy On7 is powered by a 3,000 mAh battery and runs on Android 5.1 Lollipop (with Samsung Milk Music pre-installed). It will be available in white and gold flavors.

The Galaxy On5, which we already met, has a 5″ HD display and an Exynos 3475 SoC (a quad-core 1.3GHz Cortex-A7, Mali-T720 GPU) and 1.5GB RAM. It employs an 8MP rear snapper and a 5MP selfie shooter, there is 8GB expandable storage and LTE connectivity.

The Galaxy On5 is also running on Lollipop (with Milk Music app), and has a beefy 2,600 mAh under the hood to power the whole thing.

Both Samsung Galaxy On7 and On5 are going on sale in China very soon. We guess India will be next to get those two models, as the On5 briefly popped up on the official site.

The expected retail prices are about $150 for the On5 and about $200 for the…

from GSMArena.com – Latest articles http://ift.tt/1W8NzMA
via IFTTT

Amazon’s financial results for Q3 2015 are in and the company is doing very well, as it’s gearing for the holiday shopping season. The company recorded a 23% increase in sales to $25.4 billion compared to $20.6 billion in Q3 2014.

The result of the boost in sales is a positive quarter balance with a $79 million profit. Amazon’s success is due to a 28% rise of sales in North America and, according to analysts, the Amazon Web Services (AWS) segment.

AWS is the world’s largest public cloud service hosting websites and applications. It brought a revenue of $2.08 billion, which is up 78% from the same period last year. Operating income from AWS is $521 million, up from $98 million from a year ago.

The company didn’t provide any sales figures for its Fire TV sticks and tablets, though.

Source |…

from GSMArena.com – Latest articles http://ift.tt/1MIxlVm
via IFTTT

Q3 2015 is one of Google’s strongest as Alphabet announced the company’s financial results for the quarter. Google’s revenue for the period is $18.7 billion, a 13% year-over-year rise. Google’s websites generated $13 billion of that revenue – a 16% year-over-year increase.

Net income was also high at $3.98 billion, compared to Q3 2014’s $2.74 billion.

Google saw a rise in revenue across its devices and advertising businesses. Other revenue streams, including hardware sales brought $1.89 billion in. Average paid clicks were up 23%.

Ruth Porat, CFO of Alphabet and Google, was quite happy with the results:

Our Q3 results show the strength of Google’s business, particularly in mobile search. With six products now having more than 1 billion users globally, we’re excited about the opportunities ahead of Google, and across Alphabet.

Operating costs were also up totaling to $6.93 billion up from $6.1 billion from the same period last year. Additionally, Alphabet revealed it will be buying back north of $5 billion in stock in the coming…

from GSMArena.com – Latest articles http://ift.tt/1jDH3S4
via IFTTT