Microsoft Corp begins its drive into the mainstream as it looks to boost market share with Nokia Lumia 521. The world’s largest software company this week shifted tactics as it looks to win mass market share, launching the Nokia Lumia 521 at an unsubsidized USD 150 price point.

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US retailer Best Buy Co Inc has sold its 50 per cent stake in a joint venture with Europe’s biggest independent mobile phone retailer Carphone Warehouse Group over to its European partner. The sale, thought to amount to around GBP 500 million, (USD 775 million) is the latest effort by Best Buy is scale back its overseas operations in order to focus on its troubled US business.

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Samsung Electronics Co Ltd managed to move in on rival Apple Inc.’s market share in the latest quarter, as sales of its phones rose to account for one third of the global market. Research from IDC found sales of the iPhone 5 helped Apple’s volumes grow 6.6 per cent to 37.4 million phones in the quarter from a year before, but it wasn’t enough to stop its share of the market falling to 17.3 per cent from 23 per cent.

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John Lewis reports “unprecedented” rise in online growth as it reaches £1 billion in annual online sales a year ahead of schedule. The department store group on Monday said it reached the milestone on a 52-week rolling basis. John Lewis said it expected to reach the £1 billion mark in 2014, as IT director Paul Coby said the retailer was experiencing “an unprecedented pace of online growth”;
"The billion-pound success of johnlewis.com is a reflection of our strategy to put the customer at the heart of our online operations.

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Carphone Warehouse's first store in Marylebone. Third quarter sales at Carphone Warehouse stores open over a year rose 7.8 per cent, as strong trading in the UK managed to offset more challenging conditions in France. The results came in comfortably ahead of analysts’ consensus forecast for a like-for-like rise of 4 per cent, according to a company poll, and a 5 per cent gain in the previous quarter.

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The release of Apple’s first quarter reports next week is expected to reveal the company’s first decrease in profits since 2003. Apple’s profits have been continuously rising over the past 10 years, ever since the company decided to focus on the production of digital music players and subsequently mobile phones.

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Nokia has announced its plans to cut and outsource hundreds of its jobs in Finland as part of its on-going attempts to reduce costs. Nokia has now announced that it intends to cut 300 jobs from its information technology division in Finland. A further 820 jobs will be outsourced to Indian suppliers HCL and TATA.

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Apple’s iPhone 5 is now set to arrive in China for December after finally receiving necessary approval from the country’s regulators. Despite being Apple’s second-biggest market, the wait for the new iPhone, which came out in the US in September, has caused Apple’s market share to halve in its second quarter as consumers either waited for Apple’s new arrival or purchased alternative brands.

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After revealing a 1.6 per cent rise in like-for-like first half sales at its core European unit on Wednesday, it’s now thought the group could buy US retailer Best Buy out of their joint venture in Europe, in a deal which would put it in line for a return of up to £550 million.

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Europe’s biggest independent mobile phone retailer on Wednesday reported a 1.6 per cent rise in underlying sales at its core European unit, as the company braced itself for a decline in the first six months of the year. Strong demand in the UK for promotions in postpay products and smartphones were said to drive a rise in sales at CPW Europe stores open for more than a year, while the company said it has now forecast a 2 per cent decline overall in the six months to 30 September.

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