Business

Leading electronics brand bids farewell to smartphone manufacturing

Published

1 week ago

April 6, 2021

South Korea’s LG Electronics said on Monday it will wind down its loss-making mobile division – a move that is set to make it the first major smartphone brand to completely withdraw from the market.

Its decision to pull out will leave its 10 percent share in North America, where it is the No. 3 brand, to be gobbled up by smartphone titans Apple and Samsung Electronics.

The division has logged nearly six years of losses totaling some $ 4.5 billion (roughly Rs. 33,010 crore), and dropping out of the fiercely competitive sector would allow LG to focus on growth areas such as electric vehicle components, connected devices and smart homes, it said in a statement.

In better times, LG was early to market with a number of cell phone innovations including ultra-wide angle cameras and was once in 2013 the world’s third-largest smartphone manufacturer behind Samsung and Apple.

But later, its flagship models suffered from both software and hardware mishaps which combined with slower software updates saw the brand steadily slip in favor. Analysts have also criticized the company for lack of expertise in marketing compared to Chinese rivals.

Currently its global share is only about 2 percent. It shipped 23 million phones last year which compares with 256 million for Samsung, according to research provider Counterpoint.

In addition to North America, it does have a sizeable presence in Latin America, where it ranks as the No. 5 brand.

“In South America, Samsung and Chinese companies such as Oppo, Vivo, and Xiaomi are expected to benefit in the low to mid-end segment,” said Park Sung-soon, an analyst at Cape Investment & Securities.

While other well-known mobile brands such as Nokia, HTC, and Blackberry have also fallen from lofty heights, they have yet to disappear completely.

LG’s smartphone division – the smallest of its five divisions, accounting for about 7 percent of revenue – is expected to be wound down by July 31.

In South Korea, the division’s employees will be moved to other LG Electronics businesses and affiliates while elsewhere decisions on employment will be made at the local level.

LG will provide service support and software updates for customers of existing mobile products for a period of time which will vary by region, it added.

Talks to sell part of the business to Vietnam’s Vingroup fell through due to differences about terms, sources with knowledge of the matter have said.

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Note those who use MobiKwik; Bank account information leaked; For sale on the Dark Web

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യോനോ ഉപഭോക്താക്കള്‍ക്ക് യുപിഐ ബോധവല്‍ക്കരണ കാമ്പയിനുമായി എസ്ബിഐ-എന്‍പിസിഐ

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കടപ്പാട് :ആഴ്ച്ച വട്ടം ഓൺലൈൻ

Business

Note those who use MobiKwik; Bank account information leaked; For sale on the Dark Web

Published

2 weeks ago

March 31, 2021

theendtimenews

MobiKwik’s user data has allegedly been breached and is purportedly available for access by hackers through a dedicated search engine. The Gurugram-based digital wallet company is denying the data breach. However, independent security researchers have claimed that the data — over 8.2TB in size — has been put on sale on the dark Web for quite some time now. Gadgets 360 was first informed about the alleged data breach in February. The hackers group, that allegedly had access to the data for months, has now made it accessible through a search engine that suggests some of the leaked data elements — including the names, phone numbers, and email IDs of millions of affected users.

Denying the claims of any sensitive data leaks, MobiKwik said that it did not find any evidence of a breach.

“As a regulated entity, the company takes its data security very seriously and is fully compliant with applicable data security laws. The company is subjected to stringent compliance measures under its PCI-DSS and ISO Certifications which includes annual security audits and quarterly penetration tests to ensure security of its platform,” a MobiKwik spokesperson said in an emailed statement.

The spokesperson added that the company was closely “working with requisite authorities” on the matter and will get a third party to conduct a forensic data security audit, considering the seriousness of the allegations.

“For its users, the company reiterates that all MobiKwik accounts and balances are completely safe,” the spokesperson said.

Cyber-security researcher Rajshekhar Rajaharia first informed Gadgets 360 about the data breach on February 25. He had said that credit and debit card details, names, email addresses, and other details of more than 100 million users were leaked on the dark Web. The researcher also stated that apart from the details in text, know-your-customer (KYC) information that included scanned documents such as Permanent Account Number (PAN) and Aadhar cards as well as bank statements of over five crore users were put on sale by the hackers group that is known by pseudonym “ninja_storm.”

The researcher had shared some sample files that included a table structure with a reference about MobiKwik’s payment gateway Zaakpay.

Shortly after receiving the details from the researcher, Gadgets 360 reached out to MobiKwik co-founders Bipin Preet Singh and Upasana Taku. The executives, however, didn’t provide any clarity on the breach at that time. An email sent to CERT-In also didn’t receive any correspondence.

MobiKwik on March 4 publicly denied its role in the data breach and called the researcher “media-crazed”, without naming Rajashekar explicitly. The company also alleged that the researcher in question presented “concocted files” to “grab media attention”.

However on Monday, French security researcher Robert Baptiste, who’s known as Elliot Alderson on Twitter, posted the details about the alleged data breach. He also provided the details about the search engine that was purportedly created by the hackers group on the dark Web and included some user details.

Several users on social media posted that they were able to find their details from that search engine.