ARMdevices.net

Archos worldwide revenues increased 106% in 2011 compared to 2010. For the tablet sales in Europe, Archos is the second biggest tablet maker tied to Samsung. For the sub-400€ tablet market in Europe, Archos is the number one. Archos yearly tablet sales in Asia has exploded 464% going from 4,4M€ to 24,9M€ in revenue.

Think about it for a second. Archos is a 250-employee company based in Paris, and they are the European leader for the sub-400€ tablet market, they are virtually tied with the Samsung tablet sales in Europe and they are far in front of giants like Asus, Acer, Motorola, Toshiba, LG, Huawei, ZTE, HTC tablet sales in Europe.

Archos revenue from US sales “only” increased 57% year/year from 18,2M to 28,6M, my theory is because Archos has to prioritize where to spend their cash for production and distribution. Just as the Samsung Galaxy S2, Galaxy Note were released in Europe and Asia before the USA, Archos also has to choose to prioritize shipments to the European and Asian market, some markets also where Archos may be able to extract larger margins and satisfy resellers more evenly (a US reseller constantly having to be out of stock gets angry..). Over the past 3-4 months, monitoring the forums at forum.archosfans.com one can see hundreds of messages of American consumers being somewhat dissapointed not being able to buy the latest Archos G9 series of tablets, and due to Texas Instruments OMAP4460 1.5Ghz Processor being delayed, Archos can only really start shipping that promised 1.5Ghz tablet speed since recently. Also to consider, Archos has yet to annonce a 3G/4G/LTE USB Stick carrier for the US market, as the US market isn’t compatible with the rest of the worlds open unlocked 3G/HSPA+ SIM card USB stick system (I do believe some carrier, at least an MVNO should soon be allowing Archos provide a USB stick compatible with their network).

Consider this, Archos is a 250-employee company, with currently their record yearly revenue at 171,4 Million Euros ($224.669 Million). Apple has 60400 employees and a 2011 revenue of $108.249 billion. That means Archos makes 481 times less revenue than Apple. Yet, Archos manages to be second largest tablet seller in Europe behind Apple and tied with Samsung.

My theory is that if/when a company like Archos can get access to more cash, they can increase the mass production of their products and I think Archos has no problems selling out of all of their inventory, pretty much regardless of the worldwide region. The likely upcoming Socialist French President Francois Hollande (likely to be elected April 2012 instead of Nicolas Sarkozy) can make it a National priority to use State cash to invest in promising high-tech companies like Archos, France can heavily and rapidly invest in Archos to help Archos grab even more worldwide market share in a tablet market analysts predict to more than double again in 2012 compared to 2011. More investments can create a situation where Archos can expand R&D and Marketing/Sales efforts in Paris, thus upgrading firmwares even faster, developing new hardware skews faster, optimizing manufacturing and BOM techniques faster, something Archos can use to increase the value for money even faster making it even easier to sell all stock regardless of volume produced. With significantly more cash for more production, faster R&D, I believe Archos can grow and be the French high-tech company to seriously compete with Apple worldwide.

The Android tablet market has exploded in 2011. I believe the daily Android tablets activations worldwide has now overtaken the iPad2. The regular stack of analysts will only demonstrate that when they estimate Q1 2012 tablet sales in early April. I base my estimation on the fact most major latest Android tablets were released not before December 2011 (Archos G9, Kindle Fire, Nook Tablet, Motorola XyBoard, Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.0, Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.7, etc), thus counting since December 2011 (and not October 2011 as the latest analysts have) positions Android tablets even more favorably against the iPad2. If you count the Samsung Galaxy Note as a tablet (which most analysts aren’t), it’s even more obvious that Android tablets daily activations have overtaken the iPad.

With excellent value for money in Archos ICS-capable tablets, such as the $279 Archos 101 G9 Turbo 1.5Ghz, the $229 Arnova 9 G2, the $199 Archos 70b Internet Tablet and the $149 Arnova 7b G2, all of them imminently fully running Ice Cream Sandwich, (all those are MSRP prices, street prices can be 20-30% lower than MSRP with volume) I believe Archos is well positioned to continue their growth in tablet market share. It’d be awesome to see Archos find the time to also provide an OMAP4460 1.5Ghz 7″ Kindle Fire killer (at around $249) and a 5″ Galaxy Note killer (at around $199) tablet with USB 3G/4G/LTE stick support as my favorite tablet sizes are 7″ jacket pocket sized and 5″ pants pocket sized.

Revenue for the fourth quarter 2011

Total revenue for 2011

Yearly revenue (Million €)

2009 : 57,9 ($76M)
2010 : 83,3 ($109.5M)
2011 : 171,4 ($224.7M)

Source: Archos Q4 2011 earnings press release on abcbourse.com, boursier.com, easybourse.com and investir.fr

Here’s the third generation MediaTek ARM Processor for low-cost Android phones! This can make the sub-$100 Android phones (no contract, not subsidized) better than the performance of a Nexus One. With support for dual-SIMs, qHD displays, 8MP camera, 720p video playback/recording, 3G/HSPA modem, SGX Series5 GPU (SGX540?). MediaTek claims:

MT6575 offers over 35% improvement for browser applications and over 20% improvement in graphics capabilities for gaming when compared to competitors’ best offerings in these segments.

I don’t know which competitors best offerings MediaTek is comparing with. Are they talking about AmLogic AML8726-M? ST-Ericsson U4500? Freescale i.MX6Solo?

The MT6575, delivered in 40nm CMOS technology, builds on the proven track record of the 2nd generation MT6573 platform – i.e., the platform that powers the Lenovo A60, China Unicom’s top selling handset in the sub‐RMB 1000 (approx. $160 USD) smartphone category.

The MT6575 is currently being incorporated into the latest smartphone offerings by many of MediaTek’s leading customers and the first smartphone models based on this new platform will hit the market in the first quarter of 2012.

Source: mediatek.com

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Google Wallet should rely on ARM TrustZone to make the pin code authentication system 100% secure. I filmed about ARM TrustZone a couple years ago. (I suggested this last May when Google Wallet was launched). The way ARM TrustZone works is to create a separate 100% trusted OS used just to enter the pin code on a hardware level separation, thus a little secure-mode light diode can light up when in it, the main purpose is to prevent software snoopers/fake logon screens etc. I expect something like this is enabled by the NXP PN65 security chip that Google has suggested using on the initial couple NFC-enabled phones on the market, but actually using ARM TrustZone is the best idea. I expect to see new ARM TrustZone enabled phones at Mobile World Congress in a couple weeks from now. Here’s a latest news item about ARM TrustZone for Mobile Wallets: ARM to add NFC mobile wallet support (NFCworld.com)

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