Samsung Electronics surged past Apple in smartphone shipments in the third quarter, helped by the wide availability of its flagship Galaxy S II handset. Samsung controlled 23.8 percent of the global market for smartphones, according to a recent study released by Strategy Analytics. Apple, meanwhile, had 14.6 percent of the market. It’s been a rapid …

Motorola Mobility posted a third-quarter loss ahead of its acquisition by Google, but it beat Wall Street earnings estimates. The manufacturer of handsets and television set-top boxes posted a third-quarter loss of $32 million, or 11 cents a share. A year ago, when Motorola Mobility was combined with Motorola Solutions, the equivalent business posted a loss of $34 million. Revenue, …

commentary If Hewlett-Packard is flip-flopping on the PC business, it should go all the way and bring WebOS and the mobile business back as well. After an evaluation of the business, HP said today that it would keep its personal systems group, aka its consumer PC business, calling it the best move for shareholders, consumers, and the company. The decision …

Earlier this month, Sprint Nextel’s leadership team sat dumbfounded on stage as an increasingly contentious audience of investors questioned the company’s strategy of pursuing its own 4G network alone. The investor presentation, which came mere days after the unveiling of the iPhone 4S, was among the most raucous in recent memory. The agitation only grew when the executives refused to …

LG Electronics swung to a loss in the third quarter as its television and handset businesses suffered a sharp decline in sales. LG reported a third-quarter loss of 414 billion Korean won ($366 million), compared with a year-earlier loss of 8 billion Korean won. Revenue fell 4 percent to 13.4 trillion Korean won ($11.8 billion). The chief culprits came from …

Sprint Nextel posted a narrower third-quarter loss as customer growth improved ahead of the company getting the Apple iPhone. The country’s third-largest wireless provider reported a third-quarter loss of $301 million, or 10 cents a share, narrower than its year-earlier loss of $911 million, or 30 cents a share. Revenue rose 2 percent to $8.33 billion. Wall Street analysts, on …

AT&T and Verizon Communications face billions of dollars in unfunded pension liabilities, which could significantly weigh on their bottom lines, according to one Wall Street analyst. If the market closed today, AT&T could be on the hook for $41.6 billion in unfunded pension liabilities, while Verizon could see $31.6 billion in liabilities, Sanford C. Bernstein analyst Craig Moffett said in …

Sprint Nextel doesn’t yet have its own 4G LTE network up and running, but that hasn’t stopped it from already talking up plans for the next iteration of LTE. The wireless provider said it plans to deploy LTE-Advanced technology after rolling out its LTE network next year, according to Fierce Wireless. Speaking at the 4G World conference in Chicago today, …

Augmented reality in smartphones is just getting started. If you have a smartphone or Nintendo 3DS, you’ve probably played with some form of augmented reality, which superimposes graphics, words and other useful information over real-life images. Yelp, for instance, offers its Monocle feature, allowing you to see local listings superimposed over the image captured by the phone’s camera. It uses …

For once, Apple’s iPhone wasn’t a major catalyst for customer growth at AT&T or Verizon Wireless. This week, both carriers reported mildly disappointing wireless subscriber growth in the third quarter. Both also blamed the lack of a new iPhone (the iPhone 4S launched after the end of the reporting period) for the weakness. That AT&T’s and Verizon’s wireless fates were …