AllThingsD » ChaCha

HTC Sales Continue Steep Upward Trend

Ina Fried — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 19:05:33 +0000

Taiwanese cellphone maker HTC issued another upbeat earnings report on Friday, as second-quarter profit and revenue more than doubled from a year earlier.

The company said it earned 17.52 billion Taiwanese dollars (US $606.7 million) on revenue of NT$124.4 billion ($4.3 billion) in the quarter. Unit shipments of 12.1 million were up 123.7 percent from a year ago and almost 25 percent from an already strong first quarter.

“Consumer reactions to our award-winning designs have driven us to another record-breaking quarter,” HTC CEO Peter Chou said in a statement. “Our teams work so hard to create each individual experience on the device, and it is gratifying for all of us to see them embraced at the volume levels we are consistently reporting across the globe.”

Average selling prices ticked up 2.6 percent from year-ago levels, to $349. The average selling prices did dip a bit from the prior quarter as the company introduced several lower-priced Android smartphones, including its Facebook-centric ChaCha and Salsa phones, as well as the Wildfire S.

For the third quarter, the company said to expect shipments of about 13.5 million units with revenue of around NT$137 billion, up 10 percent from the prior quarter and 80 percent from last year’s third quarter.

HTC and AT&T Update Their Facebook Status to "Coming Soon"

Ina Fried — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 17:47:52 +0000

HTC and AT&T have updated their Facebook status to confirm that their social network-oriented phone is coming later this summer.

The companies announced plans to release the HTC Status, an Android phone with a keyboard and dedicated Facebook button, later this summer. The announcement was made, of course, on a new Facebook page for the device.

Introduced as the Cha Cha at Mobile World Congress in February, the Status allows aficionados of the social network to share all manner of content just by holding down the blue Facebook button at the bottom of the device. The button is context-sensitive, allowing users to share the photo they are taking, the Web page they are viewing or even the song they are listening to. The device was launched first outside North America, but AT&T had said it would bring a version to the United States.

On the technical side, the candy bar-shaped Status features a 2.6-inch screen, the Gingerbread version of Android and the latest version of HTC’s Sense, which allows features such as a ring that gets quieter when a phone is picked up or louder when the phone is in a pocket or purse.

The phone also has other Facebook features, such as the ability to see friends’ statuses via a Facebook Chat widget and the ability to see a friend’s Facebook profile pic and status every time you call them or they call you.

Pricing and exact availability for the phone were not announced.

HTC is not alone in eyeing the market for a Facebook-centric phone. INQ Mobile also debuted an Android phone with ties to the social network, though U.S. plans have yet to be announced.

HTC Posts Strong Results and Outlook, Plans to Add 1,000 Workers

Ina Fried — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 19:02:54 +0000

Taiwan’s HTC continued to benefit from the growth in the smartphone market, reporting Friday first-quarter revenue and profits more than double those of a year ago.

For the first quarter, HTC said it earned $504 million (14.8 million Taiwanese dollars) on revenue of $3.5 billion (104.6 billion Taiwanese dollars). A year ago, earnings and revenue were only a bit more than a third of that.

The company said that it shipped 9.7 million phones in the first quarter, up six percent from the fourth quarter and nearly triple the number of a year ago. HTC’s average selling prices also increased six percent from a year ago, to $359.

“We had a phenomenal quarter with record sales and profits,” HTC CEO Peter Chou said in a statement. “Our innovation and leadership in technology has taken us to new highs.”

For the current quarter, the company expects to ship between 11 and 11.5 million phones, more than double the amount from last year. Revenue is also predicted to nearly double, to around 120 billion Taiwan dollars.

HTC has been working to distinguish itself both through unique hardware like its Facebook-centric Salsa and ChaCha phones as well as with an updated version of its HTC Sense software. The company said it plans to continue to invest in its brand and also plans to add 1,000 new employees to its workforce.

Q&A Service ChaCha Raises $20 Million More

Peter Kafka — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 00:53:23 +0000

Q&A service ChaCha, which has already raised $52 million in funding, has added another $20 million. This round was led by Rho Ventures and VantagePoint, and sources familiar with the transaction insist that the money is for growth and not liquidity for early investors. ChaCha competes in a field chock-full of rivals, from Yahoo and Answers.com down to new entrants like Quora. The company last raised $7 million in an E round in December 2009; the company claims to reach 15 million unique users between its online and mobile platforms.

How Does ChaCha Make Money?

Walter S. Mossberg — Thu, 01 May 2008 00:01:00 +0000

Here are a few questions I’ve received recently from people like you, and my answers. I have edited and restated the questions a bit, for readability.

Last week, when you wrote about the ChaCha cellphone search service, you didn’t say how they make money. Are they collecting phone numbers from customers so they can send spam text messages, or sell the numbers to others who will do so?

ChaCha allows you to ask any Web-searchable question, by speaking it or texting it over a mobile phone, and then it sends you the answer via text message. The company charges consumers nothing, but says it is hoping to make money by striking deals with cellphone carriers to incorporate the ChaCha service into their current 411 phone-number look-up services. Also, it hopes to eventually include ads in the text message answers it provides.

In addition to the message that includes the answer, ChaCha sends you a message saying it is working on your request and restating your question, so you can see if it understood you correctly. It also sends an introductory text message to first-time users and occasional tips on how to use the service. Scott Jones, ChaCha’s chief executive, asserts that “we do not spam” and “we never make phone numbers and/or email addresses available to others.” He said the company is updating its privacy policy to make that clearer.

We have DSL service. I use several Web-based applications, one of which is online backup, and my husband is concerned that they degrade his use of the Web, which includes creating Web sites. I contend that that is like saying turning on one light bulb is using too much electricity, that two people on one DSL line aren’t using up too much bandwidth. Who is right?

Every situation differs, depending on exactly which programs you are each using, how you have them set, whether you are using them simultaneously, and how fast your DSL connection is. However, in general, your husband is correct that it is possible for heavy Internet usage on one computer in a home to slow down Internet speeds on another.

This is especially true with something like online backup, because it relies on your DSL account’s upload speed, which is typically far slower than the download speed. If your online backup program is trying to push a bunch of files over a slow upload connection, while he is in another room trying to upload new versions of a Web site over the same narrow upload pipe, it could affect the speeds he gets. You might try coordinating or staggering those online activities that involve heavy uploading. Normal Web surfing or emailing shouldn’t require any such coordination.

I am thinking about purchasing a Dell (DELL) XPS One all-in-one desktop, but I have one question. Does the Dell’s built-in TV tuner require any extra attachments to watch TV right out of the box?

You can watch over-the-air stations and analog basic cable stations right out of the box, without added equipment. However, you may want to connect a small desktop antenna to improve reception, which is what I did when I tested this machine. To use the XPS One with digital or premium cable or satellite stations, you would have to connect it to a cable or satellite receiver, just as most people do with their TV sets. This requires the use of an adapter that comes with the machine.

You can find Mossberg’s Mailbox, and my other columns, online for free at the new All Things Digital web site, http://walt.allthingsd.com.

If You Have ChaCha and a Cellphone, You Have Answers

Walter S. Mossberg — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 00:01:00 +0000

If you’re sitting in front of a computer, it’s easy to look up information on the Web. It’s almost as easy if you have a sophisticated cellphone with a decent Web browser and you’re in a place with a good Internet connection where it’s possible to type.

But what if you only have a standard cellphone with a lousy Web browser — or even the best Web-browsing phone, but it lacks a fast data connection? What if you’re speeding down the road in a car, where typing is dangerous?

[ See post to watch video ]

Now, there’s a way to get your questions answered despite those hurdles. It’s a free cellphone service that lets you ask any question answerable via a Web search, using any cellphone, by simply making a voice call. It’s called ChaCha, and I’ve been testing it out.

To use ChaCha, you just dial 800-2chacha (800-224-2242) and state your question. In a few minutes, you’ll get an answer via text message. In one test, I asked ChaCha who was the winning pitcher in the previous night’s Red Sox victory against the Yankees. In a few minutes, I received a text message with the correct answer: Daisuke Matsuzaka.

ChaCha requires no registration and works on any cellphone carrier. It needs no special codes or key words. You just state your question as if you were asking a friend. If you prefer to type your question, you can text it to “ChaCha,” or 242242. Though ChaCha itself charges no fees, your phone carrier may charge for the minutes you use, or for the text messages.

The service works by routing your questions to one of 10,000 hired “guides” — students, stay-at-home parents, retirees and others — who look up the questions on the Web and reply. They get paid 20 cents per answer.

Naturally, these guides vary as to their speed and accuracy. If you don’t like the answers they give you, or you want related information, you can call back or reply to the text message with a follow-up question. For instance, after learning which pitcher had won for Boston, I asked who lost the game for New York. I was quickly informed it was Phil Hughes.

Overall, I liked ChaCha. In most cases, I received fast, accurate, useful answers. But it has two weaknesses. One is that the low-paid, part-time guides can provide inconsistent service. When I asked for the best Mexican restaurant in D.C., for example, ChaCha came up with a choice that few locals would cite.

The other is that, unlike many other cellphone information services, ChaCha doesn’t automatically know your location. So, unless you include a location in your query, it’s clueless about questions such as “Where’s the nearest drugstore?”

ChaCha is hardly the only information service for cellphones. Google offers a text-message service where you can ask questions on a wide variety of topics, and a voice-based service that locates businesses near your location. Microsoft’s TellMe subsidiary just introduced a voice-based service that answers location-specific questions about businesses, weather, traffic and movies, and displays the answers on the screens of BlackBerrys.

But these competitors are more limited than ChaCha in key respects. Google’s broader mobile-search service, Google SMS, requires that questions be sent via text message using special key words. Its voice service, Goog411, finds only local businesses. TellMe’s new service is limited to location-based information and works only on certain phones.

I tested ChaCha using three very different phones: a cheap, bare-bones Samsung flip phone from Sprint; a midrange Motorola Razr from Verizon; and an Apple iPhone running on AT&T. I asked questions via voice and text from various locations, including my car, where I used a hands-free microphone.

I asked about sports, TV shows, journalism, history, weather, nutrition, demographics and shopping. ChaCha handled most of these inquiries correctly and was able to fix most of its errors after I asked follow-up questions. For each question, it sends two text messages: one restating your query and saying it’s working on it, and the second containing the answer.

Each ChaCha answer is accompanied by a Web link. If your phone has a decent browser, you can go to that link to learn who the guide was, and what his or her Web-site source was.

ChaCha gave me the weekend weather forecast in Boston, the date of death of Abigail Adams and the cast of the TV show “Brothers & Sisters.” It provided Peyton Manning’s salary and the sodium content of a McDonald’s quarter pounder. Its most impressive performance came when it correctly answered an obscure historical question: “When was the Gaspee burned?” The Gaspee was a British tax-collection ship burned in Rhode Island in 1772 in what is often considered the first act of war of the American Revolution.

The company is working on adding automated location knowledge, at least on certain carriers and phones. For now, you can tell it your location by sending a special command via text message. But even without the location features, ChaCha is a fun and useful service.

Find all of Walt Mossberg’s columns and videos online, free, at the new All Things Digital Web site, http://walt.allthingsd.com. Email him at mossberg@wsj.com.

Corrections & Amplifications

ChaCha, a mobile-phone search service, is incompatible with several small U.S. cellphone carriers. This column incorrectly said that the service works on any cellphone carrier, based on incorrect information supplied by the company.