The only sore spot for Q4 was Lenovo’s laptop business, which dropped two percent over last year to $4.2 billion, but that’s a far milder plummet than many PC makers saw — thanks to a 74 percent revenue growth in China. Otherwise, desktop PCs held flat for the company at $2.4 billion during an otherwise down period, and it held firm as China’s number two smartphone manufacturer, seeing shipments grow at 206 percent year-over-year, double the average rate. It remains to be seen if Lenovo can continue to buck the downward PC trend that’s continued unabated with the release of Windows 8 — but if not, maybe we’d finally see some of its smartphones over here.

via Lenovo pulls in best-ever revenue of $7.8 billion for Q4 2012/13, record $34 billion for the year.

However, the British electronic parts supplier — whose products range from cell-phone accessories to thermometers — said sales grew 1 percent in the first seven weeks of the new financial year beginning April 1, led mainly by the company’s business outside the UK.

Headline pretax profit fell to 98.7 million pounds ($148.5 million) in the year ended March 31 from 122.3 million pounds a year earlier.

Revenue declined slightly to 1.24 billion pounds.

via Electrocomponents profit falls 19 pct on weak international demand | Reuters.

That’s because the same court hearing a similar case ruled in April that it lacked jurisdiction to hear the case, leaving the rule intact.

For those of you completely in the dark, the US Securities and Exchange Commission adopted in August 2012 a regulation under Section 1502 of the Dodd-Frank Act that requires publicly traded companies to annually disclose information on the source of conflict minerals — including tantalum, tin, gold, or tungsten sourced from covered countries, mostly in Africa — contained in their products. Companies will have to begin to file this with the SEC information in 2014, based on 2013 data, and to disclose that information on their websites.

Several reports, including this EBN blog, authored by Brian Fuller, have disclosed that many companies have not done enough to prepare for this new compliance regime.

Last October, the National Association of Manufacturers and others filed a petition with the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit, challenging the validity of the rule on the grounds that the SEC failed to consider alternatives that could have reduced the burden of compliance.

Meanwhile, another set of petitioners challenged the “resource extraction rule,” adopted by the SEC under Section 1504 of Dodd-Frank. That rule also requires disclosure, in this case of payments to governments — “made to further the commercial development of oil, natural gas, or minerals” — that do not share the wealth with their people.

via EBN – Peter Buxbaum – Time to Saddle Up on Conflict Minerals.

The Galaxy S4 sets a new record for Samsung, generating sales quicker than any of its predecessors. Sales of the Galaxy S III reached the 10-million mark 50 days after its launch in 2012, while the Galaxy S II took five months and the Galaxy S seven months to reach the same milestone.

“On behalf of Samsung, I would like to thank the millions of customers around the world who have chosen the Samsung Galaxy S4. At Samsung we’ll continue to pursue innovation inspired by and for people,” said JK Shin, CEO and President of the IT & Mobile Communications Division at Samsung Electronics.

via iPhone can; but Galaxy S4 too!.

Tablet shipments totaled 5.68 million units in the year ended in March, up 104.3% from the prior year. Market growth was led by small tablets with screen sizes around 7 inches, such as Apple’s iPad mini.

Apple shipped 2.98 million tablets in fiscal 2012, capturing a 52.5% market share. Fujitsu Ltd. (6702) ranked second, followed by Taiwan’s AsusTek Computer Inc., which partnered with Google Inc. to develop the Nexus 7.

The top operating system on tablets was Apple’s iOS, installed on 52.5% of the devices shipped, followed by Google’s Android, which runs on 42.4%. Microsoft Corp.’s Windows 8 and Windows RT made up less than 5% of the market.

Tablet shipments are projected to grow 21.5% to 6.9 million units in fiscal 2013 and reach 9.5 million units in fiscal 2015.

(The Nikkei, May 24 morning edition)

via 2013/05/24 03:10 – Apple Leads Way To Doubling Of Domestic Tablet Shipments.

At the same, many are moving up the value chain beyond simple powders to offer formulations and master-batches. The industry is also slowly realising that grapheneGraphene is an allotrope of carbon, whose structure is one-atom-thick planar sheets of sp2-bonded carbon atoms that are densely packed in a honeycomb crystal lattice. is still far away from high frequencyThe number of complete cycles or vibrations per unit of time. Rate of alternation in an AC current. Expressed in cycles per second or hertz (Hz). application, and is therefore looking for more realistic and lower hanging fruits. All these factors indicate that the hype is beginning to pass. But really hard questions still remain about what comes next and how to grow revenues.

via Nanowerk: GrapheneGraphene is an allotrope of carbon, whose structure is one-atom-thick planar sheets of sp2-bonded carbon atoms that are densely packed in a honeycomb crystal lattice. – what next after the hype?.

The morning’s entertainment came in the form of keynote speaker, Dennis Young, Executive Vice President of Business Development and Marketing, Sanmina-SCI, who gave a presentation on reshoring, the new buzzword representing the return of manufacturing to North America.

In the press, “reshoring” is defined as the repatriation of manufacturing operations from a low-cost country, back to the home country. In Washington, it stands as the repatriation of manufacturing operations from China, back to the U.S. But in reality, according to Young, it is the transfer of “some manufacturing production from a low-cost country back to the home country or to another country, low-cost or not.”

Several factors come into play when manufacturers make the decision to move or reshore (see chart). The wage gap is never the only reason, but in all cases, the move makes business sense – it’s not simply a feel good story.

via Manufacturing.net: Is It Possible to Bring Manufacturing Back To The U.S.?.

In Japan, the Dandong enterprises negotiated with the MGP Co Ltd, Krosaki Co Ltd, Nippon talc Co Ltd, and Wako Co Ltd on the investment and cooperation in the projects concerning super-capacitors, refractory materials and non-metallic mineral resources processing.

In South Korea, the Dandong delegation held talks with the SK Co Ltd, the third multinational enterprise in South Korea, on a storage and logistics center and a project for manufacturing concrete equipment. The investment for the projects is expected to reach 500 million yuan ($ 78.58 million).

The delegation also sought cooperation with STX on logistics, soybean processing and refining, with an investment of 120 million yuan. The Dandong Rilin Co Ltd signed a memorandum of understanding for shipbuilding with DSME, with investment totaling 18.9 billion yuan.

The Dandong delegation introduced the Donggang renewable resource industrial park and Haina Software Park. With advantages in talents, technology, location and industries, Dandong is a desirable place to be invested in by the Japanese and South Korean enterprises, said Shi. Dandong municipal government will try its best to support projects and provide a favorable environment for foreign investors.

Edited by Zhao Qian and Rakhee M

via Dandong heads for Japan and South Korea for potential projects.

The government will levy tariffs ranging from 15 to 40.83 percent on the electrolytic paper, according to an online statement from the ministry.

The duties will last for five years, the ministry said.

Previous five-year anti-dumping duties on the paper were introduced on April 17, 2007.

The final ruling came after the ministry found that domestic industries would likely be harmed by Japanese dumping of the product if the anti-dumping measures were to be suspended.

The ministry has been investigating the issue since April 2012.

via Anti-dumping duties continue on Japan electrolytic paper |Industries |chinadaily.com.cn.

GrapheneGraphene is an allotrope of carbon, whose structure is one-atom-thick planar sheets of sp2-bonded carbon atoms that are densely packed in a honeycomb crystal lattice. is an atomic-scale honeycomb lattice made of carbon atoms. The material is a one-atom thick layer of the mineral graphite, which can transfer electrons around 140 times faster than silicon, the current key material to make chips and transistors.

The Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy (MOTIE) said that it will invest around 47 billion won over the next six years in commercializing the grapheneGraphene is an allotrope of carbon, whose structure is one-atom-thick planar sheets of sp2-bonded carbon atoms that are densely packed in a honeycomb crystal lattice. in the IT sector, noting that more than half of the government investment will be made for small businesses.

The grapheneGraphene is an allotrope of carbon, whose structure is one-atom-thick planar sheets of sp2-bonded carbon atoms that are densely packed in a honeycomb crystal lattice. is currently in the early stage of commercialization, with advanced economies rushing to dominate the market through financial support to their respective companies. The European Union (EU) has been pushing to insert around 1 billion euros over the next 10 years to commercialize the material, while Britain decided to invest around 50 million pounds for the grephene development.

via S. Korea to spend 40 million USD on graphene development|chinadaily.com.cn.