Increased ready reckoner rate to impact housing in Mumbai

Maharashtra government’s decision to increase the ready reckoner (RR) rates in the city will impact the housing demand as it will raise stamp duty, according to real estate consultancy firm Jone Lang LaSalle (JLL).

The state government has recently hiked RR rates for both residential and commercial properties in the city, ranging from 5-30 per cent, with effect from January 1.

RR is used to calculate the market value of a property for stamp duty and registration charges. Therefore, any escalation in them results in higher stamp duty.

“The increase in Ready Reckoner rates will definitely have an impact on housing sales as this increases stamp duty. This will hold true for both primary and secondary sales,” JLL Managing Director-West Ramesh Nair said in a statement.

Over the last six months, the housing market in Mumbai had started showing signs of revival after an 18-month sluggishness, beginning in the fourth quarter of 2010.

“The hiked ready reckoner rates could dampen that revival, given the fact that home buyers are already burdened with service tax, sales tax, VAT, taxes and duties on construction materials,” Nair said.

About 25 per cent of the real estate cost to buyers comprises of various taxes such as excise, VAT, service tax, stamp duty, octroi and local corporation taxes.

Reduction of stamp duty and taxes brings down overall costs and increases the affordability of homes. On the contrary, any increase in duty and taxes, which will be ultimately passed on to the buyer, will reduce demand and therefore sales, he explained.

Lenovo makes computer play a family affair; launches interpersonal PC

Lenovo on Sunday unveiled a home tabletop touch-screen computer aimed at turning typically solitary online activities into family affairs.

The Chinese computer colossus proclaimed the arrival of the " interpersonal PC" with the debut of the IdeaCentre Horizon Table in Las Vegas, where the Consumer Electronics Show gadget gala is set to start.

"It's definitely a new category; the world's first home table personal computer," Lenovo director of global marketing Dee Kumar said while giving AFP an early glimpse at the creation in San Francisco.

"This can be a full-power 27-inch PC, but at the same time we want families using this device," she said.

The "multi-user, multi-touch, multi-mode" table computer with a starting price of $1,699 can be used by several people simultaneously for communal activities such as games or for individual endeavors such as updating Facebook.

"We want to take social to the next level," Kumar added. "Smartphones and tablets provide one-to-one interaction, but it is great for a family to come back home and use this device to consume content."

Lenovo worked with videogame industry stalwarts including Ubisoft and Electronic Arts to tailor titles for group play on Horizon table computers.

"These games are simple mechanics-wise but really fun to play in a social space," Pixel, a member of an Ubisoft-backed group of girl gamers known as the Frag Dolls, said as she killed virtual zombies and raced cars on Horizon.

Lenovo promised to showcase a slew of Horizon games and applications at CES, which begins Tuesday.

Horizon is powered by Microsoft Windows 8 software designed with touch-screen controls in mind and recognizes commands from as many as 10 fingers at a time.

"Windows 8 definitely opened the doors to social with 10-finger touch," Kumar said. "You are seeing touch interfaces on bigger devices, and this is kind of the next extension."

Horizon weighs about 18 pounds and is built with a hinged stand in the back so it can be propped upright to serve as a television or desktop computer screen.

Wheeled stands and joysticks are among accessories sold separately. Lenovo said that Horizon table computers would hit the market by the middle of this year.

"Horizon makes personal computing interpersonal computing with shared, collaborative experiences among several people," said Lenovo product group president Peter Hortensius.

Lenovo has been striving to become the world's top computer maker and has made strides with a "protect and attack" strategy when it comes to market share.

Analysts have described Lenovo as a success story due to its tactic of fielding a diverse line-up of products in a global computer industry being roiled by the rise of tablets and smartphones.

Gartner Research in October released preliminary figures indicating Lenovo may have taken Hewlett-Packard's crown as top computer maker in the third quarter of last year.

IDC figures, however, showed that HP retained a tenuous hold on the throne.

Still, "our protect-and-attack strategy is clearly working," Kumar said. "We go after high growth areas and protect core business."

Nokia to rope in young consumers for Lumia 920 marketing campaign

Nokia is bringing on board a group of young consumers to create a multimedia interactive marketing campaign for its flagship Windows phone Lumia 920, which will be launched in the country this month.

Driven largely on social media, the multi-pronged campaign will mark the first time Nokia features real consumers in its advertising campaign anywhere in the world even as the Finnish handset maker struggles to make a comeback in the smartphone market dominated by Samsung and Apple.

Under one of the initiatives, 'TV ad star hunt', Nokia will make a group of friends in the 16-24 year age group use Lumia 920 and then showcase their opinions about the new device through media campaigns to persuade Indian consumers to switch to Lumia.

"This takes advantage of real consumers, their real needs and reasons why they would switch," Viral Oza, marketing director at Nokia India, said. "The chemistry of a real friend group will create emotionally engaging customer stories," he added.

Nokia last week launched a Facebook campaign to shortlist potential groups of five to six friends to be featured in its promotion on the basis of photos and videos they upload on Nokia's Facebook page.

The company plans to extend the campaign to Twitter where it has already launched a second initiative called 'Your wish is my app'.

This campaign asks mobile phone users to suggest the kind of apps they think should be created. A panel will shortlist top 36 app ideas based on Facebook and Twitter votes.

Phablets, chips to drive Samsung Q4 profit

Samsung Electronics, the world leader in mobiles and memory chips, likely earned a quarterly profit of $8.1 billion, as it sold close to 500 handsets every minute and as demand picked up for the flat screens it makes for mobile devices, including those for rival Apple Inc products.

That run of five straight record quarters may end in January-March on weak seasonal demand, though a strong pipeline of smartphones - the South Korean group's biggest earner - and improving chip prices have eased concerns that earnings growth could slow this year, powering Samsung shares to record levels.

"Guidance is unlikely to disappoint given new product launches and a further upturn in cyclical parts of the business," said Morgan Stanley analyst Shawn Kim. "Smartphone momentum has not decelerated, despite Apple's new iPhone, and the business continues to be driven by its flagship products.

"This time, it's the Galaxy Note II ... with the upside in unit shipments mainly from the U.S. We expect strong momentum to continue in the first quarter."

While Apple rolled out just a single new smartphone, the iPhone 5, last year globally, Samsung bombarded the market with 37 variants tweaked for regional and consumer tastes, from high-end smartphones to cheaper low-end models. By comparison, Taiwan's HTC Corp released 18 models, Nokia 9 and LG Electronics 24.

Samsung, valued at close to $230 billion, gives its October-December earnings guidance on Tuesday before the market opens. The full earnings release is expected by Jan. 25.

A HIGH NOTE
Shipments of Samsung's flagship Galaxy S III, which overtook the iPhone 4S in the third quarter to become the world's best-selling smartphone, are likely to have slipped to around 15 million in the last quarter from 18 million in July-September. But estimated sales of around 8 million Galaxy Note II phone-cum-tablets, or 'phablets', should more than make up for that - pushing overall smartphone shipments to around 63 million, analysts estimate.

There has been increased speculation that Samsung will launch the next version of its Galaxy S in the first quarter, possibly with an unbreakable screen and full high-definition quality resolution boasting 440 pixels per inch, as well as a better camera and a more powerful processor.

"Samsung's smartphone shipments are likely to grow even in a seasonally weak first quarter. The early launch of the Galaxy S IV would drive second-quarter growth momentum," said BNP ParibasBSE 0.58 % Securities analyst Peter Yu, who predicts Samsung's 2013 operating profit will grow 25 percent to almost $35 billion.

Samsung is forecast to raise its smartphone sales by 35 percent and widen its lead over Apple this year, driven by its diversified product line-up, said Neil Mawston, Executive Director at market researcher Strategy Analytics, which forecasts Samsung will sell 290 million smartphones this year, up from a projected 215 million in 2012.

Apple's smartphone sales are projected to reach 180 million this year, up by a third from last year's 135 million.

STRONG NUMBERS
Samsung is likely to say on Tuesday that its October-December operating profit increased 65 percent to 8.7 trillion won from a year ago, a Reuters survey of 16 analysts showed. That would be 7 percent higher than its previous record of 8.1 trillion won in July-September.

Profits from the mobile division are seen slightly higher, at around 5.8 trillion won, than the previous quarter's 5.63 trillion won - and more than double last year's level. A recovery in chip prices and flat screens may have also boosted its component earnings, propelled by booming sales of mobiles carrying Samsung's chips, micro-processors and flat screens.

Reflecting the upbeat outlook, shares in Samsung, Asia's most valuable technology stock, last week hit a life high of 1.584 million won ($1,500). The stock gained 44 percent in 2012, easily outpacing a 9 percent rise on the broader Korean market

and topping Apple's 31 percent increase. The shares eased a third of one percent on Monday. Samsung, LG Electronics and four Taiwan companies were last week fined millions of dollars for allegedly manipulating liquid crystal display panel prices in China in 2001-06, the state-run news agency Xinhua reported.