Daily Tech Snippet: Thursday, May 5, 20126

• India rejects Apple's plan to import used iPhones: India has rejected a plan by Apple Inc to import used iPhones, government officials said on Wednesday, a blow to the U.S. tech giant that has been seeking to revive waning sales of its flagship smartphones. Apple sells what it calls refurbished iPhones at a discount in some countries, including the United States. Extending this practice to India would have likely helped it increase its share in one of the world's fastest growing smartphone markets against competitors with much cheaper offerings. But India, which is pushing a 'Make in India' initiative to boost the competitiveness of its manufacturing sector, rejected the proposal citing rules against importing used electronics. Apple's proposal was opposed by domestic phone makers who claim selling refurbished iPhones - devices that have been returned by buyers or repaired to factory condition after damage - would breach India's anti-dumping rules. The Consumer Electronics and Appliances Manufacturers Association had written to India's telecom ministry to stall the move. The news comes at a time when Apple posted its first-ever drop in iPhone sales amid weakness in China, its most important market after the United States. In India, Apple only has about a 2 percent market share but its sales there surged 56 percent in the first three months, driven mainly by cheaper older-generation devices such as the iPhone 5S while demand for the new iPhone SE disappointed. "The 5S' success in India has more to do with affordability of a premium brand than a preference for smaller phones, and the move to the more expensive SE will discourage budget buyers," said Wilmer Ang, an analyst at research firm Canalys. The newly launched iPhone SE retails at 39,000 rupees ($585) in India - almost $200 higher than its U.S. price. To successfully tap into India's smartphone boom - where sales are expected to grow 25 percent this year - Apple will need a better retail presence and cheaper versions of the iPhone given the average smartphone in the country sells for less than$150, according to analysts. Apple, which currently retails in India through local partners, is already seeking government approval to set up its first store in the country.

• Tesla's Wild New Forecast Would Change the Trajectory of an Entire Industry - If Met: Tesla just took the most ambitious automotive production timeline since the Ford Model T and moved it up two years. The company now plans to produce 500,000 electric cars every year starting in 2018. That's 10 times the number of vehicles it produced in 2015, and enough to ensure that all 400,000 customers who put down a $1,000 deposit on the forthcoming Model 3 will qualify for a significant U.S. subsidy. Talk about doubling down—even the original 2020 goal was considered a long shot by Wall Street. This new target would pledge the carmaker to a faster production growth rate than Ford Motor Co. managed in the early 1900s. That's when Henry Ford pioneered the production line with the Model T, the first mass-market combustion-driven car. A century later, Tesla Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk wants the Model 3 to be its electric grandchild. He's now aiming for close to a million sales by 2020.  BNEF tracked 234,000 electric car sales worldwide last year, of which Tesla made up a fifth of the market, Morsy said. For Tesla to stay on its new track, it would need to produce more cars next year than the entire global electric-car industry made in 2015. Tesla's first mass-produced car, the $35,000 Model 3, will need to come to market on schedule, and with great momentum, in late 2017. Telsa's battery factory in Nevada must flourish, costs must come down, and car-making capacity must scale up at an astonishing rate. For context: Tesla has never managed to hit one of Musk's timelines for a new product launch. Not once. 

• Fitbit shares tank after reporting a weak outlook amid rising competition: Fitbit is not having a good day, with the stock crashing more than 11 percent after reporting its first-quarter results. Here’s the rub: its guidance for the second quarter came in light. Very light. Industry watchers were expecting the company to report earnings around 26 cents per share, while the company put its outlook at earnings between 8 cents per share and 11 cents per share. That’s a pretty big miss, and another indicator that the company will be facing some challenges in the wearable market. Here’s the quick rundown of the report: Devices: 4.8 million units sold. Earnings: 10 cents per share, against analyst estimates of 3 cents per share. Revenue: $505.4 million, against analyst estimates of $443 million. In the past six months, Fitbit shares are down more than 50 percent. Fitbit is facing a ton of increasing competition, not only from Apple with the Apple Watch, but from international manufacturers like Xiaomi and the usual competition from Jawbone. Fitbit’s usual strategy has been to go after the fitness-tracking market with a portfolio of devices, but recently it’s somewhat diverged from that with the launch of a smartwatch. Naturally, given Fitbit’s previous success, a shift in strategy may not be very welcome to investors looking for continued growth in the company — and a strong return. All this has forced Fitbit to find more unique ways to prove to consumers that it is the best option when it comes to fitness tracking. One recent example was an integration with the Amazon Echo, in which users can ask with their voice how they are performing through their Fitbit devices. It’s novel use cases like these that might propel the company above the competition, but so far we haven’t seen any kind of dramatic success on that front.

• Flipkart valuation marked down by two more investors: Two small mutual fund investors at Flipkart have marked down the company’s valuation, joining other investors who believe that India’s largest e-commerce firm is overvalued. Valic Co 1 marked down Flipkart’s value by 29.4% as of February, compared with August 2015, according to a regulatory filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Valic valued Flipkart’s Series D stock at $98 a share in February, down from $139 a share in August.Fidelity Rutland Square Trust II marked down Flipkart’s value by as much as 39.6% as of February, compared with last August, according to a filing with the SEC. Fidelity valued Flipkart’s Series D stock at $82 a share in February, down from $135.8 a share in August. The Economic Times reported about the markdowns earlier on Wednesday. To be sure, Fidelity and Valic hold very small amounts of Flipkart stock. Their holdings together are worth less than $6 million. That’s a minuscule fraction of Flipkart’s overall value. The company last raised $700 million from investors in July last year at a valuation $15 billion. But taken along with other markdowns by Morgan Stanley and T Rowe Price, both of which together own hundreds of millions of dollars worth of Flipkart stock, it confirms the view that Flipkart’s own investors believe the company is overvalued by a significant amount. In late February, Morgan Stanley Institutional Fund Trust, another mutual fund investor in Flipkart, slashed the value of its holdings by as much as 27%. Then, last month, T Rowe Price disclosed in a filing that it cut the value of its stake in Flipkart by 15%.

• Free Code Camp survey reveals demographics of self-taught coders: If you’ve ever wondered who exactly is signing up for all these free learn-at-home coding classes and tutorial websites, Free Code Camp (which is one of them) has kindly surveyed 15,624 users with regard to various basic demographics and some more code-centric items. Some of the stats are expected (few women — around 1 in 5 surveyed) and a few are surprising — for instance, only 18 percent said they’d like to work for a startup. Thirty-eight percent don’t plan on specializing in UX, backend stuff or other specific disciplines, which they might want to revisit later. And they’re all over the world — mostly the U.S., with India a close second — but the long tail comprises 167 more countries.