BARCELONA — China’s Huawei isn’t the only smartphone maker adding a third display to its devices.
At the Mobile World Congress (MWC) trade show in Barcelona, a number of firms were showing off their display technology innovations.
The South Korean tech giant Samsung revealed its new “trifold” concept devices at the event: the Flex G and Flex S.
The Flex G has three screens and folds flat inwards and outwards, a bit like a book. The Flex S, on the other hand, has a more zigzag-like shape. It’s meant to resemble an “S” — hence the name.
The Flex S is another concept device Samsung showed off at MWC. It folds in a more zigzag-like way to make an “S” shape.
Samsung stressed that its Flex G and S models were only concept devices — so don’t expect to find them on shelves anytime soon.
Still, it’s a sign of where smartphone makers are seeing the next wave of innovation.
‘Sea of sameness’
The smartphone market has hit something of a plateau over recent years, with many models not straying far from the standard form factor of a bar-shaped device.
Apple set the tone for what the devices in our pockets would look like when it launched the first iPhone in 2008. But smartphone makers are now trying to pull the market out of this so-called “sea of sameness.”
On Tuesday, British consumer tech startup Nothing launched its new Phone (3a), a 329-euro ($356.28) budget model with a quirky design and LED light system that lights up when you get calls or notifications.
Nothing co-founder Akis Evangelidis — who is planning a move to India as the startup plans an aggressive expansion push in the country — told CNBC the company is trying to shake up the smartphone market with something more fun and unique.
Using the Indian market as an example, Evangelidis said: “People are walking away from pure functional needs when it comes to product. They aspire to brands that have more of an emotional benefit, and I think that’s where the opportunity is.”
Innovating on display
However, although smartphone makers have been aggressively working to release new folding devices, the category remains a relatively niche area of the market.
Plus, folding phones can represent a big jump for the average consumer.
For one, they tend to be bulkier than non-folding phones because of the additional screen. And they’re not cheap, either. According to data from market research firm IDC, the average selling price of folding phones is nearly three times higher than that of normal smartphones — roughly $1,218 vs. $421 for non-folding phones.
While the foldable phone market grew 6.4% year-over-year to 19.3 million units, the category “represents only 1.6% of total global shipments,” according to Francisco Jeronimo, vice president EMEA for devices at IDC.
Nevertheless, this year at MWC, phone companies showed they’re getting better at developing folding phones that can better cater to everyday users.
For example, Oppo showed off its new Find N5 device this week. It only has two screens, but it’s a lot thinner than competing folding phones, such as Samsung’s Galaxy Fold 6.
Samsung currently holds the leading position in the global foldables segment. In 2024, it commanded a 32.9% share of the market. Huawei was close behind, with 23.1%, while Motorola was the third-biggest folding phone manufacturer with 17% market share.
And despite the punchy prices, these companies are betting consumers will be willing to pay for a more premium-grade experience.
Oracle’s Federal Electronic Health Record experienced a nation-wide outage on Tuesday, the Department of Veterans Affairs confirmed to CNBC.
The agency said “all users” of the company’s Federal EHR, including the VA, the Department of Defense, the U.S. Coast Guard and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, were impacted. Six VA medical centers, 26 community clinics, and remote VA sites experienced disruptions, the agency said.
“Affected VA medical facilities followed standard contingency procedures during the outage to ensure continuity of care for Veterans,” a VA spokesperson said in a statement Thursday.
An electronic health record, or an EHR, is a digital version of a patient’s medical history that’s updated by doctors and nurses. It’s crucial software within the U.S. health-care system, and outages can cause serious disruptions to patient care.
Oracle is one of the largest EHR vendors thanks to it’s $28 billion acquisition of the medical records giant Cerner in 2022.
The company’s Federal EHR initially started experiencing issues at around 8:37 a.m. Eastern on Tuesday, the VA said. Users reported that the software froze and they were unable to access applications. Access was restored and cleared by 2:05 p.m. Eastern that day after Oracle restarted the system.
Oracle is carrying out an investigation to determine what caused the outage, the VA said. Oracle did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.
The outage marks Oracle’s latest stumble in a thorny, years-long EHR rollout with the VA, which has been marred by patient safety concerns. The agency launched a strategic review of Cerner in 2021, before Oracle’s acquisition, and it temporarily paused deployment of the software in 2023.
Four VA facilities in Michigan are slated to deploy Oracle’s Federal EHR in 2026.
In October, Oracle unveiled a brand-new EHR equipped with fresh cloud and artificial intelligence capabilities. The early adopter program for the software begins this year, though it’s not clear if the VA has plans to utilize it.
Oracle is slated to report third-quarter fiscal 2025 earnings on Monday.
Broadcom reported first-quarter earnings on Thursday that topped analysts’ expectations, and the chipmaker offered strong guidance for the current quarter. The stock jumped 16% in extended trading.
Here’s how the company did versus LSEG consensus estimates:
Earnings per share: $1.60 adjusted vs. $1.49 expected
Revenue: $14.92 billion vs. $14.61 billion expected
Broadcom said it expects about $14.9 billion in second-quarter revenue, higher than the $14.76 billion forecast by Wall Street analysts. Revenue in the last quarter rose 25% from $11.96 billion a year earlier.
The company said net income increased to $5.5 billion, or $1.14 per share, from $1.33 billion, or 28 cents per share, in the same period last year.
Broadcom’s artificial intelligence business is at the center of the company’s recent boom, which saw its stock price more than double last year. The company is one of the primary data center infrastructure vendors for AI, working both on Google’s custom AI chips as well as providing essential components for networking thousands of other chips together to develop advanced AI software.
Prior to the after-hours pop, the stock was down about 23% so far in 2025, as investors rotate out of risk partly due to concern about President Donald Trump’s tariffs.
Broadcom said it recorded $4.1 billion in AI revenue during the first quarter, which is 77% higher on a year-over-year basis. Those sales are reported as part of Broadcom’s semiconductor solutions business, which grew 11% on an annual basis to $8.21 billion during the quarter.
Broadcom CEO Hock Tan said in a statement that the company expects “continued strength in AI semiconductor revenue,” reaching a projected $4.4 billion in the second quarter.
In December, Broadcom said it was developing custom AI chips with three large cloud customers. Tan said on Thursday that in addition to those customers, it had “deeply engaged” with two other hyperscalers, and are working with four other potential customers to develop their own custom AI chips.
Tan said that Broadcom closely chooses partners for developing custom AI chips who can deploy the resulting product in large quantities. “To put it bluntly, we don’t do it for startups,” Tan said.
The other major part of Broadcom’s revenue comes from its infrastructure software division, which includes software from the company’s acquisition of VMware in the fourth fiscal quarter of 2023. Broadcom said it saw $6.7 billion in software sales during the quarter, a 47% increase on an annual basis.
Antonio Neri, CEO of Hewlett Packard Enterprise, speaks during an interview with CNBC on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York City, October 20, 2023.
Brendan McDermid | Reuters
Hewlett Packard Enterprise shares slid 19% in extended trading on Thursday as the data center equipment maker issued quarterly and full-year guidance that came in below consensus.
Here’s how the company did in the fiscal first quarter in comparison with LSEG consensus:
Earnings per share: 49 cents adjusted vs. 49 cents expected
Revenue: $7.85 billion vs. $7.82 billion expected
HPE’s revenue rose 16% year over year in the quarter ending on Jan. 31, according to a statement. The company was left with profit of $598 million, or 44 cents per share, up from $387 million, or 29 cents per share, in the same quarter a year earlier. The adjusted earnings per share excludes stock-based compensation.
“We could have executed better,” CEO Antonio Neri said on a conference call with analysts. The company had higher than normal inventory for artificial intelligence servers because of a shift to next-generation Blackwell graphics processing units from Nvidia.
The backlog for AI systems rose 29% quarter over quarter to $3.1 billion. Total server revenue totaled $4.29 billion.
HPE dealt with extensive discounting in the market while selling traditional servers during the quarter, finance chief Marie Myers said. As the quarter progressed, HPE moved to limit travel and discretionary spending, she said.
“We expect pricing adjustments may negatively impact top-line growth in the near term,” Myers said.
The company said it would implement a cost-cutting program involving layoffs over the next 18 months that will lead to $350 million in gross savings by the 2027 fiscal year. Around 2,500 employees will be affected, a spokesperson said, representing about 5% of the workforce when also factoring in expected attrition. At the end of October, HPE employed 61,000 people, according to its most recent annual report.
In January, the U.S. Justice Department filed in a federal district court to stop HPE from acquiring Juniper Networks. HPE announced the proposed $14 billion deal in January 2024. The court expects a trial to begin in July, according to the statement. The deal should close by October 2025, HPE said. In December, the company had said the transaction would be done in early 2025.
HPE called for 28 cents to 34 cents in adjusted earnings per share for the fiscal second quarter, with revenue coming in between $7.2 billion and $7.6 billion. Analysts surveyed by LSEG had looked for 50 cents per share on $7.93 billion in revenue.
For the 2025 fiscal year, HPE sees $1.70 to $1.90 in adjusted earnings per share. Analysts polled by LSEG had predicted $2.13 per share.
HPE expects to update its prices to reflect higher expenses from U.S. tariffs, Neri said, adding that he has not perceived any business deterioration from President Donald Trump’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency.
As of Thursday’s close, HPE shares were up about 2% so far in 2025, while the S&P 500 index was down 2%.