Learn about five British technology titans
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Intro |
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| Gabriella: The Five British Technology Titans. |
| Gina: We’ll teach you about the biggest companies and give you some background information on them. |
| Gabriella: Shall we start? |
| Gina: Yeah, I think we should! |
| BODY |
| Gabriella: In at number 5, is CSR plc. |
| Gina: CSR plc was founded as Cambridge Silicon Radio in Cambridge in 1998. It specialises in fabless semi-conductors. |
| Gabriella: What are fabless semi-conductors? |
| Gina: It’s designing and selling conductors while outsourcing the actual fabrication of them, the creation of the integrated circuits, to other companies. |
| Gabriella: Ah, okay! CSR are the 13th biggest fabless semi-conductor company in the world, right? |
| Gina: Yes. You can find their conductors in many products such as mobile phones, digital cameras and Bluetooth devices. They sold their mobile phone connectivity and GPS services to Samsung in 2012 for £198 million. |
| Gabriella: That’s a lot of money! |
| Gina: I wouldn’t turn it down if someone offered me it! |
| Gabriella: At number 4 is Acision. |
| Gina: Acision is a privately held company that provide the networks and infrastructure needed to send messages via mobile phones. |
| Gabriella: So if I send an SMS message to someone on my phone, it might be carried by an Acision network? |
| Gina: It’s highly likely! They are the world number one in providing services for SMS messaging and have a 35% market share, so there’s a 1 in 3 chance that Acision will carry your SMS message. |
| Gabriella: I bet a lot of messages go through their networks. |
| Gina: Roughly two trillion each year! Of the top ten mobile phone operators in the world, eight of them use Acision’s services. |
| Gabriella: That really is a lot of messages! Our 3rd company is Everything Everywhere. |
| Gina: We talked about them a little in the last lesson as one of our top duels in British technology. |
| Gabriella: That’s right! Let’s see what I can remember about them… They’re the number one mobile phone company in the UK, right? |
| Gina: Yes, with about 28 million customers. |
| Gabriella: EE used to be two separate networks, Orange and T-Mobile, but they merged in 2010 and EE are developing 4G services. |
| Gina: Correct! EE are the first network in the UK to have 4G services active and available for their customers. EE are also developing other technology as they’ve partnered with Barclays bank and Mastercard to develop contactless payments. |
| Gabriella: Number 2 is ARM Holdings. We also spoke about this company in the last lesson. |
| Gina: We did! But let’s give some more information on them this time. ARM Holdings was formed in Cambridge in 1990. We mentioned Cambridge before with CSR plc, and that’s because Cambridge is the focal point of most computer related technology companies in the UK. |
| Gabriella: It’s a little like a British Silicon Valley, I guess? |
| Gina: Only on a much smaller scale! |
| Gabriella: Of course! What does ARM stand for? |
| Gina: It originally stood for Advanced RISC Machines, but when the company went public in 1998 they dropped that and simply became ARM Holdings. |
| Gabriella: In the last lesson we spoke about how successful ARM Holdings is in the field of processors. |
| Gina: Yes, it has a 90% market share in mobile phone processors, plus an 80% market share in digital cameras, and overall ARM has a 35% market share in all electronic devices. |
| Gabriella: So it’s highly likely that anybody listening to this podcast has something that contains an ARM processor. |
| Gina: I think so, yes! Over 20 billion ARM based processors and chips have been shipped worldwide and 250 different companies have licences to use their technology. |
| Gabriella: And they now have a stake in the PC market too, don’t they? |
| Gina: Windows 8 has ARM technology inside it and it is predicted that by 2015, 23% of all PCs will have ARM processors inside of them. |
| Gabriella: So ARM has a very bright future ahead, then! So, what company could possibly be at number 1, above ARM Holdings? |
| Gina: You tell me! |
| Gabriella: Okay, it’s Vodafone Group plc! |
| Gina: Vodafone is the second biggest mobile phone company in the world. The biggest company is China Mobile, which is a state-run Chinese mobile phone operator that only operates in China and Pakistan. |
| Gabriella: Ah. Vodafone is a strange name, isn’t it? |
| Gina: It comes from “voice data fone” and the company was formed in 1985. |
| Gabriella: If Vodafone is the second biggest mobile phone company in the world, how many customers does it have? |
| Gina: Vodafone has 403 million customers across 30 countries. |
| Gabriella: That’s a lot of phones! |
| Gina: It is! And in countries where Vodafone doesn’t have its own networks, Vodafone has partnerships with other networks to allow its customers to use services there. They have partnerships such as these in an additional 50 countries. |
| Gabriella: Vodafone is a truly global company! |
| Gina: It is. Worldwide, Vodafone employs over 86,000 people and in 2012 had a profit of nearly £7 billion! |
| Gabriella: Wow. Does Vodafone have any corporate and business customers? |
| Gina: Of course! Vodafone has a sub-company called Vodafone Global Enterprise to deal with businesses. Through this, Vodafone became the first foreign company to be awarded a mobile contract with the US Federal Government. |
| Gabriella: Do you know of any other corporate customers? |
| Gina: There is also Volkswagen, Unilever and the German postal service – Deutsche Post. |
| Gabriella: No wonder Vodafone had £7 billion profit last year. |
| Gina: I know! |
| Gabriella: And that’s our top five businesses in British technology. |
Outro |
| Gina: I hope that was interesting and informative for you! |
| Gabriella: Me too! And we’ll see you next time! |
| Gina: Bye! |
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