Samsung bags over 20 million pre-orders for the Samsung Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge

The Samsung Galaxy S6 and Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge represent the most bold and exciting design change we’ve yet to witness in the history of the series. One look at our hands-on should at least pique your curiosity. Surely this would incite a feeling of excitement within a lot more people than ever before, and Samsung has the numbers to prove that it does.

According to Korea Times, Samsung has confirmed that a combined 20 million+ units of the Samsung Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge have been pre-ordered. More specifically, the Samsung Galaxy S6 commands an overwhelming majority of that number with 15 million units, while the Edge variant accounts for about 5 million. Those are record numbers for the South Korean technology giant, but if those numbers seem strangely high to you there’s a reason for that.

It’s important to note that Samsung doesn’t exactly consider a sell-through situation (that is, a situation where a customer actually purchases a phone) a pre-order. Instead, they’re referring to the many carriers and retailers that place orders for the phone based on the early demand they’re seeing from their consumers.

Why’s that important? Well, if you don’t recall, Apple’s iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus pre-sales were pegged at a whopping 4 million. Inconceivable to think Samsung could lap those results more than 3 times over, no? That’s because Apple reports pre-sales as devices that were actually bought by the consumer instead of carrier and retail partners. The fact that consumer pre-sales for the Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge haven’t yet commenced at most major retailers and carriers also supports that notion.

Still, selling 20 million units of inventory to carriers and retailers before the device’s April 10th launch is a good sign that this will no doubt be Samsung’s most successful phone. And considering the company’s mobile division hasn’t had the happiest of times we’re sure it couldn’t have happened at a better time. Let us know if you’ll be planning to snatch up one of those 20 million handsets once they’re made available April 10th.

Official: Cyanogen has raised $80 million in Series C funding

We’d heard Cyanogen recently secured a massive wad of cash in Series C funding, and now that news has been made official. The company reportedly raked in million of fresh investments from a sizable and noteworthy group of ventures and companies, making it 0 million that they’ve raised to date and should put the company’s valuation at just around billion.

On the list were Twitter Ventures, Qualcomm Incorporated, Telefónica Ventures, Smartfren Telecom, Index Ventures, Access Industries, Rupert Murdoch, Vivi Nevo. They were joined by existing investors Benchmark, Andreessen Horowitz, Redpoint Ventures, and Tencent Holdings Ltd. There were more, though Cyanogen is opting not to disclose who at this time.

There were rumors rampant early on that Microsoft would be billed as a minority investor in this round of funding, though that rumor was later debunked. That doesn’t mean the two didn’t at least talk about it, though, so there’s nothing that stops it from happening at any point in the future.

The growing interest in Cyanogen likely stems from a long-term vision the company has set forth to create a new Android-based ecosystem to make it more approachable for budding device makers than going the Google route. We’ve already seen the tangible results of the partnership in phones like the OnePlus One and Micromax’s Yureka phone, and even Qualcomm has decided to team up with them to make Cyanogen OS available on Snapdragon development prototype devices.

The exact plan for the future is still unclear to the public, but to be able to generate million from a group of money-flooded companies and individuals they have to be onto something big. Let’s hope it won’t take long to find out.

LG sold a respectable 15.4 million smartphones in Q1 2015

LG is really hitting their stride when it comes to knowing how to deliver desirable smartphones, and their latest quarterly results prove it. The company reported revenue and profit of .72 billion and .91 million, respectively. The profit is up “significantly” compared to the last quarter, all the while revenue was virtually the same as it was in the same period a year ago.

LG has many businesses that contributed to the result, though they noted their smartphone business has been doing quite well. The company shipped a total of 15.4 million smartphones last quarter, a 26% increase from the same period a year ago. It also accounted for .27 billion of the overall revenue, which is a 5% year-on-year increase.

The result was helped by particularly strong performances in North America and their hometown of South Korea. The former region’s smartphone sales jumped a whopping 66% year-on-year, while quarter-over-quarter performance in South Korea jumped 57%.

Much of the company’s success in the mobile sector last quarter can be credited to the launch of the intriguing LG G Flex 2, our review of which you can find right here. Expect the forthcoming LG G4 (see our hands-on) to take the baton and do even more. It might not be enough to topple the current smartphone king known as Samsung, after a string of bad years earler in the decade we can’t imagine LG is disappointed about recent results.

HTC turns a modest profit of $11 million in Q1 2015

HTC’s numbers will never look as gaudy as Samsung and LG’s considering they don’t have their hands dipped in nearly the same amount of industries, but the company did do quite well for themselves in Q1 2015.

Revenue for Q1 2015 came in at about .36 billion (25% increase year-on-year), million of which has been marked as profit. That’s not amazing for a company that does business on a global scale, though considering HTC was losing tens of millions of dollars in previous years we’d say they’ve rebounded quite well.

Like Samsung, these results reflect a time just before the company’s latest flagship smartphone was released. The HTC One M9 hadn’t seen a global launch until early April, so their Q2 numbers stand to look far better. We’ve also got the HTC One M9+ and HTC One E9 on tap for several markets, as well as a number of mid-range options on the horizon.

Needless to say HTC has positioned themselves quite well to have a strong first half, though we’ll have to wait another couple of months to see if HTC One M9 can help fully restore them to the former glory they once enjoyed.

[via HTC]

Pebble is putting up $1 million to support Smart Strap development, here are a couple of early prototypes

Pebble’s introduction of Smart Straps for the Pebble Time no doubt delighted technology fans everywhere, but how is Pebble going to develop public interest and incentive for developers to create them? Their answer was made clear recently: a million fund to help turn developer ideas into reality.

Pebble has issued an open call to any and all developers interested in making smart straps to put their projects up on crowdfunding platforms such as IndieGoGo and Kickstarter. They’re willing to throw money your way to help you reach your project’s funding goals and eventually get your smart strap to market.

They’ll be monitoring the popular crowdfunding sites to find projects on their own, but you can also get their attention via Twitter or devsupport@getpebble.com just in case. Pebble was quick to  note that they can’t and won’t promise to fund every project that pops up, so you’ll want to make sure you have a really good idea to get them to open their wallet (and you’ll also probably want to convince them that you actually know what you’re doing, so try to have a solid plan before doing so).

That said, they have suggested they can help in other ways such as highlighting projects to give them more exposure through Kickstarter updates, social media and their website.

With that, Pebble has revealed two of the earliest smart strap concepts to have spawned. One is from Seeed Studio and their Arduino-based Xadow modules. They offer small modules for NFC readers, OLED displays, GPS and even heart rate sensors. These will be available for developers and manufacturers as development boards to use in prototyping smart straps without having to spend a ton on reiteration and R&D.

Second is a prototypical module from Spark.io that can add cellular capabilities to the Pebble Time and use it without the aid of a smartphone. The picture above obviously isn’t indicative of what a final product might look like, but the idea is very interesting and we hope they’ll be able to stuff all of that inside a strap enclosure with some good engineering work. What kind of smart straps would you like to see for Pebble Time? Sound off below!

[via Kickstarter]

Report: the Samsung Galaxy S6 reached 10 million units shipped within a month

It seems Samsung sells their flagship phones faster and faster each year, and 2015’s lineup seems to be no different. The Korea Herald reports that Samsung shipped (which is as good as sold, really) over 10 million Samsung Galaxy S6 smartphones within a month of its April 10th launch.

The report says the Galaxy S6 “models” sold enough to surpass the milestone, so we imagine it includes both the Samsung Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge. For what it’s worth, Samsung’s Galaxy S4 and Galaxy S5 also reached 10 million with a month, so they’re quite used to these results by now.

What’s interesting to note is that Samsung admitted to having supply issues after misjudging the market, particularly in the UK. The company didn’t anticipate that the popularity and demand for the Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge would come close to that of the base model. Had their estimations been accurate they might have been able to produce a sufficient amount and sell even more.

The success of the phone comes at an important time where Samsung has been challenged to start thinking differently about mobile. They’re still by and large one of the biggest single manufacturers in the space, though they’ve had their mettle tested in many different regions, particularly in China where up and coming domestic manufacturers are creating better devices and commanding a lot more market share than years past. A sudden early launch of the Samsung Galaxy Note 5 might do even more to help them regain the strong footing they once had.

AT&T gets slapped with $100 million fine for unlimited data throttling

AT&T seems to have ended up on the FCC’s naughty list. The company has been served with a 0 million fine for misleading unlimited data consumers. Specifically, the company didn’t adequately notify customers that their data would be slowed down to near-unusable speeds if they went over an unspecified threshold.

The FCC says that it’s a violation of 2010’s Open Internet Transparency Rule, a policy that states carriers must be accurate, truthful and upfront about the data services they provide. To be clear, it’s totally within AT&T’s rights to throttle unlimited data, but they also have to tell you that in plain language.

“Consumers deserve to get what they pay for,” said FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler. “Broadband providers must be upfront and transparent about the services they provide. The FCC will not stand idly by while consumers are deceived by misleading marketing materials and insufficient disclosure.”

FCC enforcement chief Travis LeBlanc also added: “Unlimited means unlimited. As today’s action demonstrates, the Commission is committed to holding accountable those broadband providers who fail to be fully transparent about data limits.”

So there you have it. AT&T’s probably never going to do away with their throttling policy for unlimited data users (especially since they’re trying to get everyone onto their Mobile Share plans), but at least the FCC is making sure they’re upfront about it.