Interesting news, in particular since it’s Taiwan related:
[quote]Benq to Take Over Siemens’s Unprofitable Phone Unit (Update5)
June 7 (Bloomberg) – Benq Corp., Taiwan’s biggest mobile- phone maker, agreed to take over Siemens AG’s handset unit after the German company’s market share slid to its lowest level in six years and losses mounted.
Put that together with the fact that many of the lcd companies are realising that smaller screens are more profitable…hmm
Is it lcd stock time agian??
Got a colleague who just bought into BenQ because of this deal. I just read that the merged company is planning on concentrating on upscale units. Then I read that Sony and Motorola are going to start targetting low-end phones (for the Chinese and Indian markets). It seems that getting a good quality image across following the merger is a smart thing to do but maybe Motorola and Sony have done some number crunching and the low end is the way to go. Anyway, it’ll be interesting to see how this situation unfolds in the coming months.
It’s over, no more Benq-Siemens
[quote=“J Hsieh”]It’s over, no more Benq-Siemens
[quote]
BenQ hangs up on Siemens
BenQ’s plans to become a major handset player are in shreds after it pulled the plug on the former Siemens Mobile business. The Taiwanese manufacturer took on the loss-making mobile arm one year ago in a bid to broaden its manufacturing capabilities and its reach into Europe.
mobiletoday.co.uk/content/14 … en=2&sub=1
[/quote][/quote]
Yeah, big trouble in Germany because the Siemens-BenQ employees feel betrayed. Major blow to Siemens’ reputation as people think this was planned, i.e. they claim that Siemens knew that BenQ will ditch the unit and employees. Siemens denies the same and says BenQ was choosen because they committed to keeping the production facilities in Germany.
And all that at a time when the CEO and some other top-level managers of Siemens were to receive a 30% (!) salary increase. Siemens recently decided that this money goes into a fund instead which should benefit the employees. (The CEO earns something like 3.2m a year, before the raise that is)
More here: forbes.com/feeds/ap/2006/10/ … 60762.html
[quote=“Rascal”][quote=“J Hsieh”]It’s over, no more Benq-Siemens
[quote]
BenQ hangs up on Siemens
BenQ’s plans to become a major handset player are in shreds after it pulled the plug on the former Siemens Mobile business. The Taiwanese manufacturer took on the loss-making mobile arm one year ago in a bid to broaden its manufacturing capabilities and its reach into Europe.
mobiletoday.co.uk/content/14 … en=2&sub=1
[/quote][/quote]
Yeah, big trouble in Germany because the Siemens-BenQ employees feel betrayed. Major blow to Siemens’ reputation as people think this was planned, i.e. they claim that Siemens knew that BenQ will ditch the unit and employees. Siemens denies the same and says BenQ was choosen because they committed to keeping the production facilities in Germany.
And all that at a time when the CEO and some other top-level managers of Siemens were to receive a 30% (!) salary increase. Siemens recently decided that this money goes into a fund instead which should benefit the employees. (The CEO earns something like 3.2m a year, before the raise that is)
More here: forbes.com/feeds/ap/2006/10/ … 60762.html[/quote]
Amazing case. What a disaster. BenQ lost over US$1 billion in one year on that deal. Hard to imagine how anyone could screw up so badly, but making mobile phones profitably seems to be even harder than running a profitable airline.
Now just selling the scraps.
[quote]Jan. 2 (Bloomberg) – Benq Corp. will liquidate the German mobile-phone division that it took over from Siemens AG a year ago after the Taiwanese company cut off financing in September and then failed to find an investor for the unprofitable unit. . .
Once among the top phone brands, the handset maker first stumbled under Siemens and then collapsed under Benq because both owners failed to compete on a global scale with rivals such as Nokia Oyj. The five largest phone makers sold 82 percent of all handsets in the third quarter of 2006, according to Gartner Inc., leaving little room for smaller makers such as Benq. . .
The retreat from phones in Oct. 2005 cost Siemens more than $1 billion. The insolvency that followed a year later affects more than 3,000 manufacturing workers and has also hurt suppliers . . .
Taipei-based Benq, Taiwan’s biggest cell-phone maker, in October said it posted its biggest loss in almost five years in the third quarter as it wrote down $330 million of its investment in the handset unit it took from Siemens. . . [/quote]
bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid= … er=germany
I suspect a major part of the problem was the huge cost of IP – paying for all the essential patents owned by Nokia, Ericsson, Motorola, Philips and Siemens, or facing the gigantic lawsuits if they refuse to pay. Little guys like BenQ just can’t compete in that field.
It’s about time to toss out your Siemens and BenQ mobiles …
Didn’t BenQ have a house-cleaning of less than efficient employees a year or so ago? Seems like I remember seeing this.
Maybe they saw this removal of dead-weight as a sign of what was to come?
I guess some German people will have to leave the Rock in the near future… shame
Siemens is doing pretty good on land line phones, but with benQ, they did received the “marketing” behind their products even though they were mostly tested as outstanding quality.
tw.stock.yahoo.com/news_content/ … /94et.html
Benq mobil is going to have the declaration of bankrupt.
In English: BenQ Mobile faces liquidation
Note the following comment:
tw.stock.yahoo.com/news_content/ … /9ap0.html
According to the report from the Die Welt, some French company will buy into the Benq Inservio.
[quote=“Rascal”]In English: BenQ Mobile faces liquidation
Note the following comment:
I’m in the market for a new mobile for the past 6 months and frankly the offerings from Nokia, Motorola, LG, Samsung looks so plain and generic. Had they released their concept products, I’d fork out my money over other offerings.
The black box - uses a touch screen as its keypad
BenQ paid Siemens to take its mobile phone division off its hands in a deal with authors and publishers of accountancy textbooks who had no proper example of negative goodwill despite all the hoohah about such a thing amongst those who worry about the difference between US and UK GAAP.
No way … Siemens paid Benq to take over their ailing mobile phone business, thereby hoping they could erase all the money laundering traces, personal enrichement by Siemens executives …
I am in the market for a new phone, too, and agree with you.
That’s even cooler than the iphone! 