Pakistan imported 29.2 million mobile phones and 0.28 million laptops in FY12

Despite economic crunch and shaky state of affairs, mobile phonehandset usage in Pakistan increased witnessed a huge a surge. In the Financial Year (FY) 2012 Pakistanis imported 29.2 million mobile phones amounting to $ 688.4 million registering 137% growth over FY 11.

According to statistics released by State Bank of Pakistan (SBP),  in FY11 number of mobile phone imported were 12.3 million whereas the import figure stood at 11.0 million and 3.8 million  units in FY10 and FY 09 respectively.

The report does not disclose information about Chinese as well as smuggled mobile phones which is also a huge chunk of the pie.

Similarly laptops import in the country grew by 242% reaching 282,559 laptops imported in FY 12 by spending $ 72.1 million.

Analysts are of the view that this sudden increase in laptop growth was mainly caused by Shahbaz Sharif Laptop Scheme in which 100,000 laptops were distributed in the first phase and further distribution of 100,000 laptops among the top ranking students of Punjab is underway.

Import of selected technology item

Source: Pakistan Bureau of Statistics

SBP has shown disappointment over the lack of manufacturing in Pakistan such as opportunities in mobile phone sector which couldn’t convince a local investor to start manufacturing mobile phones in Pakistan despite huge demand as shown by import figures.

Report further says, in F13 government hopes to achieve a fiscal deficit target within 4.7 to 7 percent to be more realistic. In this regard, government of Pakistan is again optimistic on receiving outstanding $ 800 million from Etisalat and conducting 3G auction as soon as possible which can possibly raise a billion dollar revenue. Government is also eyeing considerable revenue from opening of NATO supply routes and Coalition Support Fund.

Apple gets a trademark for their retail store design

Apple has been granted a trademark for the distinctive design of their chain of retail stores. Although the claim was rejected twice in the past, Apple managed to successfully convince the US Patent and Trademark office the third time with a lengthy, 122-page document detailing the reasons.

The trademark includes use of items such as a paneled facade of glass, recessed lighting units and lined rectangular tables, but as usual, the trademark is for the sum of parts rather than any individual item.

While it’s easy to look at this and scoff, it’s fairly common practice for companies to get a trademark on a distinctive design that they have come up with, with examples such as the shape of the Coca-Cola bottle or the Swiss Federal Railways watch face that Apple was recently found using in iOS. A trademark by definition is a ‘recognizable sign, design or expression which identifies products or services of a particular source from those of others’ and differs from a patent. But while other store designers can still use individual elements of Apple’s store (as many do), if the final result ends up looking exactly like an Apple Store, they better lawyer up.

YouTube looking to offer paid channel subscriptions as early as Q2

According to several sources, YouTube hopes to begin offering paid subscription channels which will offer premium, produced content.

In an attempt to lure producers away from the traditional television avenues of content delivery, Google is looking to become the first production company for online content capable of reaching such broad audience.

YouTube has allegedly reached out a select group of channel producers inquiring whether they would like to create channels with paid content, the price of which would be between $1 and $5 a month.

There’s also talk of providing paid access to coverage of live events via pay-per-view, or for specific self-help or financial advice programs.

Likely, the initial group of paid channels will be small, with around 25 being submitted for the trial run, the first of which could appear as early as this Spring.

NVIDIA allegedly to manufacture low-cost Android devices for other companies

Following the rather modest success of the Tegra platform in the smartphone and tablet segment, it seems NVIDIA is now gunning for a bigger share of the pie, so far dominated by the likes of Qualcomm and Mediatek.

According to Eldar Murtazin of Mobile-review.com, NVIDIA is planning on manufacturing smartphones and tablets of its own and will be selling them to companies to be rebranded and sold under their brand.

The plan is to manufacture reference designs for smartphones and tablets, the way they do it for their computer graphic cards (or Intel does for their phones). Then, instead of selling these designs under their own brand name, NVIDIA will license it to companies, who will then rebrand them and sell it in markets around the world. We already see this happening a lot in markets such as Russia and India, where several companies are selling what are essentially cheap, China-made devices under their own brand name.

What this will do is help increase the penetration of the Tegra platform, especially into the budget handset market, which undeniably forms the major portion of all the Android device sales.

This plan is expected to go into action by May-June this year, with both budget as well as premium

WiMAX Forum Issues Requirements for Smart Grids for Utility Networks

WiMAX Forum has announced the publication of “WiMAX Forum® System Profile Requirements for Smart Grid Applications”.

This document codifies work done on WiGRID^TM, an optimized IEEE 802.16 system profile being developed by the WiMAX Forum against the requirements of the Utility companies. This set of requirements was assembled by the WiMAX Forum’s Smart Grid Working Group, which is composed of technical representatives from major electric power utilities, WiMAX vendors and industry experts.

“Approval of the WIMAX System Profile Requirements for Smart Grid Applications document establishes WiMAX as a technology capable of meeting the demands of Smart Grid wireless application,” stated Eugene Crozier, 1800 WG, UTC Canada and Chair of the WiMAX Forum’s Smart Grid Working Group.

“The publication specifically provides the implementation details to meet typical utility use cases and describes the WiMAX specifications required of equipment used for electricity management. It was developed by manufacturers and utilities working together, and is an important step in the road to standardization and certification of IEEE 802.16 products for use in utility networks.”

The proposed WiGRID System profile is an Ethernet version of IEEE 802.16 that includes numerous new features that allow uplink centric data communications, lower latency, extended range, and enables the use of new frequency bands that various Utilities hold, namely 1.4 GHz, 1.8 GHz, 2.3 GHz, 3.65 GHz and 5.8 GHz.

“Electric utilities require nearly ubiquitous telecommunications coverage over their service areas to enable ‘Smart Grid’ applications,” said Paul Senior, Vice Chair of the WiMAX Forum Smart Grid Working Group andCTO of Airspan Networks.“WiGRID technology provides a reliable wireless communications medium to ensure Smart Grid functionality, and is an excellent complement to wireline technologies already in use. Our new requirements document provides utilities and vendors with the information they need to advance this revolution in field area networking technology.”

The WiMAX Forum’s mission is to facilitate the adoption of WiMAX and WiGRID technology across the world and ensure that industry products are interoperable. The publication of the WiMAX Forum® System Profile Requirements for Smart Grid Applications document is the latest step in the organization’s continuing effort to support utilities across the globe.

Wateen has been at the forefront of advocating the adoption of smart grids for electricity and gas to resolve the issues facing the consumption of energy in Pakistan.