Samsung Electronics Co. has shrugged off early court losses in
patent disputes with Apple Inc.,
apparentlyconfident that it will be able to navigate around them.
韩国企业三星电子(Samsung Electronics Co.)前段时间在与苹果公司(Apple Inc.)的专利纠纷中首战告败,但它从容应对,似乎坚信自己可以闯过这一关。
The South Korean company, whose fast-rising smartphone business is poised to
overtake Apple in unit sales this quarter, on Thursday introduced several new phones and
tabletcomputers based on the
Android operating
system that is at the heart of 19 lawsuits brewing between Samsung and Apple in nine countries.
上周四,三星电子推出了几款基于安卓(
Android)操作系统的新手机和平板电脑,该系统是三星电子和苹果在九个国家发起的19场官司的核心所在。三星电子快速增长的智能手机业务有望在这个季度的单位销量上超过苹果。
Unnamed Samsung
executives over the past week have told South Korean media that the company would find ways around recently granted
injunctions in Germany and the Netherlands and portrayed both decisions as victories because the courts narrowed the number of disputed
patents.
未透露姓名的几位三星电子高管上周对韩国媒体说,公司会找到办法,绕过德国和荷兰前不久颁布的禁令。他们认为这两国的禁令对三星电子来说是一种胜利,因为它们缩小了存在争议的专利的数量。
'It is our turn now to take the opportunity to attack,' a Samsung
executive reportedly told a Korean newspaper.
三星电子一位高管据称对韩国一家报纸说,现在轮到我们把握机会发起攻击了。
Apple declined to
comment beyond
previous statements that it believes Samsung has copied the U.S. company's products and that Apple is committed to protecting its
intellectual property.
苹果此前表示,三星电子抄袭了自己的产品,并说公司致力于保护自己的知识产权,此外拒绝进一步置评。
A Samsung
spokesman said he couldn't
comment on the media reports and said the company doesn't discuss Apple because of the litigation. Samsung declined requests for interviews for this article
三星电子发言人说,他无法就媒体报道发表评论,还说三星电子不就诉讼问题评论苹果。三星电子拒绝了本文记者的采访请求。
At Apple's request, courts in Germany and the Netherlands last month issued
preliminaryinjunctions
prohibiting Samsung from selling several
Android-based
tablets and smartphones
pending later hearings. But the judges allowed Samsung to
distribute products through units not covered by the orders.
应苹果的请求,德国和荷兰法院上月颁布了初步禁令,禁止三星电子在后续审理之前销售几款基于安卓系统的平板电脑和智能手机。但法官允许三星电子通过未被禁令规定在内的子公司销售产品。
'If you look at the details of the recent rulings in Europe, their
actualnegativeimpact to operating profit is estimated to be less than 5%,' said Henry Kim, a technology industry analyst at Citigroup Global Markets in Seoul. Samsung investors, as is
typical, are paying more attention to its semiconductor business, which has less
revenue but is a bigger
contributor to Samsung's bottom line. 'The market is more focused on volatility in chips,' Mr. Kim said.
花旗环球金融(Citigroup Global Markets)驻首尔的科技产业分析师Henry Kim说,如果你看了欧洲前不久做出的具体裁决,就会发现这些禁令给三星电子的营业利润带来的负面影响预计不会超过5%。跟往常一样,三星电子的投资者更加关注其半导体业务。虽然该业务营收规模较小,但对三星电子的最终效益贡献较大。Kim说,市场更关心芯片业务的波动。
Samsung's stock price for months has swung largely on perceptions about the company's chip business. Samsung's stock rose 3.6% Thursday after news that memory-chip spot prices rose last month.
三星电子的股价已连续数月呈大幅波动,这主要是因为市场对该公司芯片业务持怀疑态度。不过,当有消息说内存芯片现货价格上月上涨后,三星电子上周四的股价上涨了3.6%。
Samsung has shown some
anxiety, however. It delayed the
introduction of a
tabletcomputer in Australia for two months as a court considered whether to issue a
preliminaryinjunction. And the company stopped releasing cellphone-related sales data and other information that might be associated with Apple.
然而,三星电子也表现出了一些焦虑。该公司已将一款准备在澳大利亚上市的平板电脑的发布时间推迟了两个月,原因是当地法院在考虑是否要针对三星电子颁布初步禁令。此外,三星已停止发布可能与苹果有关的手机销量数据和其它信息。
The most important of the 19 cases between Samsung and Apple will get rolling in U.S. District Court in San Jose, Calif., next month. Preliminary rulings there could
affect Samsung's
ability to sell products in the U.S., its largest market.
三星和苹果19桩诉讼案中最重要的案件将于下个月在加州圣何塞的美国联邦法院进行裁决。在该法院进行的初裁可能会影响三星在自己最大的市场美国销售产品的能力。
Many analysts said they think Samsung and Apple
ultimately will come to a licensing deal, though neither company has indicated as much. 'If they keep scrambling to
prohibit each other's sales, the
conflict will become extreme,' said Lee Ka-keun, an analyst at Hana Daetoo Securities in Seoul.
很多分析人士说,他们认为三星和苹果最终将达成一项授权协议,但两家公司都还没有这样的暗示。首尔券商Hana Daetoo Securities分析师Lee Ka-keun说,如果他们一直忙着阻止对方销售,冲突会走上极端。
Samsung -- the world's second-biggest
seller of cellphones, after Nokia Inc. -- got a later start in smartphones than Apple and didn't make headway until adopting Google Inc.'s
Androidsystem last year.
三星是仅次于诺基亚(Nokia Inc.)的全球第二大手机销售商。三星在智能手机领域起步比苹果晚,在去年采用了谷歌(Google Inc.)安卓(
Android)系统之前,一直没有取得很大进展。
If Apple disrupts that momentum, the blow
ultimately will
affect Samsung's broader
financial performance.
如果苹果打断了三星的增长势头,这一打击最终将影响三星更广泛的财务表现。
While Samsung gets only one-fourth of its
revenue from its telecommunication division, the operation is the company's fastest-growing and the only one producing more profit than it did a year ago -- all due to rising smartphone sales.
尽管三星的收入只有四分之一来自电信部门,电信却是三星增长最快、也是唯一一个利润较去年有所增长的部门,所有这一切都要归因于不断增长的智能手机销售。
Analysts have estimated that smartphones accounted for 25% of Samsung's cellphone shipments in the second quarter but provided more than 60% of the division's
revenue and around 80% of its operating profit.
分析人士估计,二季度智能手机占了三星手机发货量的25%,但收入却占了手机业务的60%以上,营业利润更是占了约80%。
Even as Samsung competes with Apple, the Korean company relies heavily on Apple as the biggest
customer of Samsung's chips and liquid-crystal displays.
就在三星与苹果竞争之际,三星却严重依赖着苹果──苹果是其最大的芯片和液晶显示器客户。
The chip division, though accounting for 23% of Samsung's
revenue, provides 60% of the company's profit. The fastest-growing business inside the chip division is the production of logic chips for Apple.
芯片部门尽管只占了三星收入的23%,却占了公司利润的60%。芯片部门内增长最快的业务正是为苹果生产的逻辑芯片。
That
connection provides an unknown element to the legal strategies of both companies, which are rooted in differing visions of how pricing
affects profit. Apple long has focused on
premium products with high profit margins, while Samsung has been a fast
follower that accepts lower margins for every product and relies on scale to compensate.
这种联系为两家公司的法律战略增添了一个未知元素,两家公司的法律战略根源于对定价会如何影响利润的不同看法。苹果一直专注于能够带来高利润率的优质产品,而三星则一直是薄利多销这一理念的追随者。
Samsung in recent weeks has taken pains to show that it understands the need to focus more on software to boost its margins. Its public-relations department leaked word that Chairman Lee Kun-hee told top
executives last month, 'We must pay attention to the fact that [information technology] power is moving away from
hardware companies such as Samsung to software companies.'
近几周来,三星尽力显示公司明白有必要更多地专注于软件来提高利润率。三星公关部门透露出消息说,董事长李健熙(Lee Kun-hee)上个月对高管说,我们必须注意这样一个事实,信息技术的力量开始从三星这样的硬件公司转移到软件公司了。
Yoon Boo-keun, the head of Samsung's TV business, planned to express a similar thought at the German trade show Thursday. 'We are in a
fascinating period of
transition as we
evolve from our history as a provider of world-class
hardware products to becoming a leader in software and services,' according to prepared remarks.
三星电视机部门主管Yoon Boo-keun计划在周四德国举行的交易会上表达类似的想法。据预先准备好的发言稿说,我们正处于一个令人着迷的转型期,我们逐渐从世界级硬件产品提供商发展成为成为软件和服务方面的领头羊。
Evan Ramstad
Evan Ramstad