Plan accordingly. Current US + EU5 adult consumer smartphone population: 315m. Which will grow roughly by a third. Note his caveat: "The population is defined as adults using phones for themselves. Meaning it excludes children and phones purchased by companies." Question is whether that is headroom or legroom for growth.]]>
Local vendors continue to dominate the Indian smartphone space with Micromax shipping over 2m smartphones in the quarter making it the second largest player with a market share of 22% behind Samsung’s 26% share. IDC claims that local vendors now account for over half of the total smartphone market in India. It's not a big market in volume terms, but the choice of phablets seems to point to a trend: countries with low PC penetration go for maximum screen sizes along with connectivity. Anecdotally, the Galaxy Note is very popular there.]]>
To summarize, with penetration now at about 60% in the US, the rate of adoption of smartphones is not slowing in any perceptible way.
So not only is there no saturation, but there is no slowing of adoption of smartphones in the US, the most penetrated large market.
Globally, the penetration of smartphones is less than half of that in the US. About 4 billion people are about to switch. If anything, smartphone adoption as a percentage of remaining non-smart users is actually rising. But it's always worth pointing out that the US is an unusual market because of the distortions introduced by its contracts - SIM-only deals are pretty much unheard of, for example.]]>
Secure Work Space will be available before the end of June, and will allow corporate users of BlackBerry Enterprise Service 10 to handle devices using non-BlackBerry operating systems. The move will encourage business customers to continue to use BlackBerry's services to manage devices on their networks, even if employees use them as both business and as personal devices. Neat idea, but does it signal a retreat, or just a redoubt, from the handset business? It also puts BES up against companies such as Airwatch and Citrix, which offer similar products.]]>
The flood of inexpensive devices could hurt struggling phone makers like Nokia and might also force Samsung and Apple to offer cheaper models. “They have reached their peak,” Liang said during an interview near his office in Shenzhen, which has become a hub for electronics makers. “In [manufacturing] technique we are close to the same level. Then the only difference will be the cost and the brand.” Note that though they're Android phones, they generally don't have Google services.]]>
At the end of 2012, Sony was ranked fourth in the global smartphone market by IDC, behind Huawei with 4.9% and ahead of ZTE with 4.3%. Samsung and Apple combined command more than half the market.
However, when you look at the stats for 2012 as a whole Sony doesn't appear in the top five at all, indicating that it is staging something of a resurgence in this space. "Sony happy" here means "Sony will be happy". ]]>
The experiment was hailed a success by the companies involved, but although you can now use NFC credit cards on London buses, there is no sign yet of travellers being allowed to swipe in via their phones.
Still, the GSMA now believes there is enough momentum and enough real-world examples of the technology that millions of us will soon be using it - even if we don't know it.
So convinced were the organisers of Mobile World Congress that they encouraged visitors to get an NFC pass for speedier entry to an event where security involves showing photo ID.
Sadly, the people I met told me that it proved to be a slower way of getting in than the old fashioned non-NFC pass. (Thanks @challengingviews for the link.)]]>
In other words, asking Google about Android activations is a little like asking Microsoft about the Windows install base: it has some idea, but not a very precise one. Over time, with the proliferation of Kindle Fires, Android Car DVD players and all manner of other things, it might be a little like asking Linus Torvalds how many Linux devices there are: how should he know? Note that IDC and Gartner include as "Android" those phones sold in China which don't connect to Google; they're somewhere between a quarter and a third of the "Android" figure quoted in, say, quarterly stats..]]>
Jolla now does R&D in Hong Kong, where local and Chinese chipset vendors, handset and component makers, and retailers are part of an alliance. The partners are kicking in $270m to get Sailfish phones in the hands of Chinese consumers. While Sailfish is open source – cynics might opine that everything in China is open source – Jolla also plans to make money via licensing deals and selling its expertise to install the platform on locally made handsets.]]>
Android's success isn't really about these phones. It's about the ZTE Warp, LG Motion, and Samsung Captivate—which retail for $100, $50, and a penny, respectively. It's about these marginal, middling phones that can be sold like bags of Doritos or bargain-bin sweaters—they're priced to move, not priced to be ogled at or aspired towards. And it's working.
The last study conducted by the Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project shows that Android is the chosen smartphone of people without money. Among respondents, 22% of those with annual incomes below $30,000 were Android owners, as opposed to just 12% for iPhone. With those towards the lower-middle class, the trend holds: Android owns 23% of incomes up to $50,000, with iPhones at 18%. The data makes it clear: the less money you have, the more likely you are to opt for an Android phone over something more expensive. This is emphatically not, in case you were wondering, a bad thing.]]>
Now, of course, Samsung is also selling the prior generation S2, which Cnet tells us, “…is described as a steady bet after recording sales of over 40 million in 20 months.” So that’s about 2m a month for that model to go with the 17m S3 phones Samsung apparently moved in Q3. In other words, if we just compare the last two generations of phones, Apple sold somewhere around 35-45m last quarter while Samsung moved about 23m. It’s certainly true that Samsung has a number of less-expensive entry models and will outsell Apple in raw numbers. But when one looks at “profit share” and wonders why Apple will continue to earn more of it in smartphones than Samsung, those numbers tell the story. ]]>
The Korean technology giant is the world’s largest maker of mobile phones and aims to ship a record 510 million handsets next year. That's a lot of handsets - up 20% from an estimated 420m in 2012. And out of that 510m, it aims for 390m to be smartphones, according to a Samsung supplier.]]>
Adopting Windows Phone also means Nokia is now reliant on Microsoft’s execution — and Redmond continues to lag behind the pace of development on the dominant smartphone platforms. “Microsoft has been slow to innovate with Windows Phone, which has held Nokia back,” says Fogg. “The current version, Windows Phone 8, is little different in consumer features to Windows Phone 7 of two years ago. In the meantime, Apple and Google have piled on numerous more features to iOS and Android.”
“Elop chose Windows Phone also because he could reduce costs by lowering the number of Nokia staff working on content and services. Ironically, Nokia is having to stimulate the Windows Phone ecosystem by content deals to attempt to get the platform moving,” Fogg adds. This is the question on which the whole of Nokia's present and future revolves. Should it have gone with Android? Would it have been able to compete with Samsung and be as big, or would it be struggling as HTC now is, stuck in the mid-market? Though the claim that Android and iOS have added more features than Windows Phone (especially Nokia's version) doesn't quite stack up. Nokia's Windows Phone has plenty of standout features (Kids Corner, Nokia Music, City Lens).]]>
On December 3, security firm Lookout detected the threat, which it dubbed SpamSoldier, in cooperation with one of its unnamed carrier partners. It spreads through SMS messages (it has not yet been detected on any major app stores) that advertise free versions of popular paid games like Angry Birds Space. The text that spreads it looks pretty obviously spam. Except people fall for spam.]]>
“It’s a content play with Android. Amazon is selling books and Google is making it up with search. So far we couldn’t find a way to build a business on Android,” added [Jeff] Clarke [head of Dell's Consumer Division].]]>
That does not mean that mobile devices will displace PCs altogether. The rise of mobile phones, after all, did not mean that fixed-line phones stopped working, even if their number is now in decline. Although mobile devices and users will soon be more numerous, for the time being they will account for a smaller volume of traffic and fewer minutes of overall use than PC-based browsing. Yet the centre of gravity of the internet will have shifted.]]>
"Vendors ramped up shipments and aggressively launched new models to meet consumer demand during the Q3 summer school vacation and the National Day holiday period," said James Yan, Senior Market Analyst for Computing Systems Research at IDC China. "A new wave of sub-US$150 smartphones with upgraded specifications, such as a 4-inch+ screen size and dual-core application processors, were especially popular." That's mainland China (as opposed to Taiwan.)]]>
Excluding any local taxes or operator subsidies, the Nokia Lumia 620 will cost around $249 USD and will be available from Q1 2013. To quote a former Nokia head of PR, "survival is in our DNA." (Thanks @rquick for the link.)]]>
“I think the [Windows Phone] software is interesting,” he said. “The devices are coming. Whether it is going to be market moving, the jury is out. Do we see it will help us rapidly drive adoption in Latin America? No. Do we see Mozilla stuff we are doing? Yes.
“We are over-reliant on [two manufacturers] iOS with Apple and Android with Samsung. For us to have a third OS is an important de-risker from a strategic perspective.” The "third OS" isn't BlackBerry or Windows Phone; it's Mozilla's Firefox OS.]]>
The latest numbers come from a report issued by the state-linked China Internet Network Information Centre (CINIC) and cited by On Device Research.]]>
Lenovo Chief Executive Yang Yuanqing said recently that the company hasn't been able to generate a profit in smartphones in part because of its investment in marketing and sales. He expects the business to become profitable in China in two to three quarters, he said…
Still, some analysts are skeptical about whether Lenovo can be successful world-wide.
"The strategy of initially seeking a large market share in terms of volume, and then trying to increase margins later, rarely works," said Nicolas Baratte, CLSA's head of technology research for the Asian-Pacific region. Price competition keeps margins thin, he said. Dramatic. (Subscription required.)]]>
It might be surprising to note that Samsung spends considerably more than Apple and Microsoft. But it also spends more than Coca Cola, a company whose primary cost of sales is advertising. Though the post doesn't mention this, Samsung probably spent somewhere north of $1bn on its Olympics sponsorship this year. Even so, when you look at its "marketing expenses", they total more than $8bn in each of the previous two years - and perhaps $11bn this year. Apple spends around $1bn on marketing by the same comparator.]]>
• In October, the Defense Department requested a software contract to monitor security for mobile devices from Apple and Android, but not BlackBerry. The Defense Information Systems Agency program will initially support 162,500 devices and could ultimately support 8 million devices.
• In September, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which had relied on BlackBerry for eight years, announced it was switching to iPhones for 17,676 users because BlackBerry could "no longer meet the mobile technology needs of the agency."
• In May, the Transportation Security Administration, which had relied mainly on Microsoft Windows and BlackBerry devices, announced plans to spend $3m on Apple products to support its counter-terrorism mission.]]>
But I’m also a fan of “easy.” And of “good design.” So, for the past couple of years, I’ve been an iPhone user, mainly because it was easy, and had better design than any alternative. Also, my company supported the iPhone, even though it was terrible for calendar, contacts, email, you know, pretty much everything that mattered to me.
But because I’m no longer day to day at my company, I’ve been eager to move away from the iPhone, for many reasons, including the extraordinarily awful experience I recently had, chronicled here. And I really like the philosophy of Android. It’s open, it’s hackable, it’s generative in all the right ways.
However, it’s also a utterly confusing mess. Alas, this seems to be the price of “open” – chaos. He wants an Android phone, with one proviso: "once I buy it, I don’t want to spend three days figuring out how to make it work."]]>
How worried should Apple really be about this market share dilemma? Probably not as worried as Blodget thinks. Mum, Dad, stop fighting!]]>
The hardware varies in the absence of a home button and the inclusion of a red LED light that flashes when a message comes in. According to earlier announcements by [Thorsten] Heins, RIM is also making a model with a physical keyboard. Steady as she goes. Also: the description of BB10 makes it sound a lot like Windows Phone.]]>
In other words, the net cost of the Microsoft exclusive relationship is at least $2bn in operating profit.
This turns out to be the difference between being profitable and being distressed. Utterly stunning. Nokia has in fact only sold 96m Symbian phones since announcing their end.]]>
Occasionally, dramatic change sweeps through the personal computer world, and I think Windows 8 and touch screens are driving one of those big changes now. It remains to be seen whether consumers will embrace the changes, of course, but there's no doubt many of next year's PCs will be very different from last year's PCs.
But what's going to drive the next big change in mobile phones?]]>
For the first eight months of 2012, revenues amounted to NT$207.87bn, decreasing 34.8% from a year earlier, according to a company filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange (TSE). Expects to break that in September following Asian launches, but this does not look healthy for HTC. Those are very large decreases in revenue in this market.]]>
This is a very significant development because it means that Motorola Mobility will have to rely on non-standard-essential patents in its efforts to gain leverage over Apple. It is enforcing one such patent (one that covers push email notifications). With standard-essential patents, it appears that the only thing Google (Motorola) can do now against Apple in Germany is to push for as high a royalty rate as possible, but even in a hypothetical worst-case scenario to Apple, the limit will be the 2.25% rate that Motorola has been demanding for a long time. Spotting that MMI has licensed the standards-essential patents requires a very careful reading of two different filings. Definitely correct, though. It would be useful to know how many of MMI's patents are FRAND, and how many non-FRAND.]]>
It’s a lottery at best, a time and money sink at worst. Considering the analogy to litigation as drama, I would re-phrase this caution as a warning not to treat litigation as Deus ex Machina. It’s not something that will get your business out of a jam or reward you for a violation, perceived or real. An excellent counterpoint to all the other readings of That Trial.]]>
"It’s absolutely the worst scenario for us," a senior Samsung executive said as he rushed into the company’s compound in southern Seoul.
Inside the building, Choi Gee-sung, former Samsung Electronics CEO and now the head of Samsung Group’s corporate strategy division, was holding an emergency meeting attended by Shin Jong-kyun, the company’s mobile devices chief, and Lee Don-joo, lead marketing official.]]>
“It only cost $1 billion to become the #2 most profitable mobile company. Remember how much Microsoft paid for Skype? $8 billion. So, for 1/8th of a Skype Samsung took RIM’s place and kicked HTC’s behind…I bet that RIM wishes it had copied the iPhone a lot sooner than it did. So does Nokia, I bet. Samsung is a much healthier company than any of those BECAUSE it copied the iPhone,” he wrote.
Analyst Jeremiah Owyang, of Altimeter Group, agreed saying Samsung still comes out ahead despite the potential ban on sales and punishment. He said Samsung does $1 billion in revenue every 2.4 days.]]>
Ilagan told CNET in an exclusive interview that the jury had several sometimes "heated" debates before reaching its verdict yesterday. He also said nothing in the deliberation process was rushed and that the jury carefully weighed the evidence.
"We found for Apple because of the evidence they presented," Ilagan said. "It was clear there was infringement…What was happening was that the appearance [of Samsung's phone] was their downfall. You copied the appearance.... Nokia is still selling phones. BlackBerry is selling phones. Those phones aren't infringing. There are alternatives out there."" Worth reading in full as an insight into the jury's deliberations.]]>
It’s tempting, after such a sweeping verdict in Apple’s favor, to conclude that Samsung’s decision to mimic the iPhone was a terrible mistake. The firm will now be on the hook for at least $1bn in damages, and the judge could triple that amount. Samsung will likely face sales injunctions on many of its products, and will be forced to quickly design around Apple’s patents in its current and upcoming devices, if not to pay a steep licensing fee. Other companies that took inspiration from Apple - including Motorola, HTC and, at the top of the chain, Google - will also be stung by this decision.
But if you study what’s happened in the mobile industry since 2007, a different moral emerges. It goes like this: Copying works. Compared to RIM or Nokia's choices, you'd have to say it worked for Samsung. And later in the piece:
Samsung’s decision to copy Apple has also been inarguably good for consumers. If it weren’t for Samsung and Google, Apple would have faced no meaningful competition in smartphones—which would have been great for Apple shareholders but terrible for everyone else, including for Apple’s customers.]]>
Today Sony Mobile filed a redundancy notification (“varsel”) with the Swedish authorities to notify them that the company expects around 650 employees across a number of functions at Sony Mobile in Lund to be affected by job closures. The remaining headcount reductions will be primarily consultants in Sweden. Lund will continue to be an important strategic site for Sony Mobile, with the main focus on software and application development. The company headquarters are moving from Lund to Tokyo.]]>
HTC learned nothing of this episode — on the contrary, it has rushed to repeat LG’s mistakes with an eerie precision.
HTC is guilty of a great folly by refusing to learn from LG’s downfall. Kuittinen is an astute observer of this sector. Is it a Finnish trait?]]>
“Why on earth are these proceedings going ahead?” Bennett asked the lawyers in court today. “It’s just ridiculous.” A similar dispute between any other two companies would be immediately ordered to mediation, she said.
“Why shouldn’t I order the parties to mediation?” she asked. She said she would expect an answer before the end of the week. They simply won't stop, and there doesn't seem to be anything anyone can do to make them stop.]]>
This would be of huge benefit to Apple. Speaking from Ghana (West Africa), I know hundreds of people who have iPhones but use either the GEVEY SIM or ultrasn0w method to unlock their iPhone for it to work here.We don't hear enough about how smartphones are changing developing nations. But they are.]]>
Needham & Company analyst Charlie Wolf's quarterly report on the smartphone industry was issued on Monday, and identified the "big news" of the quarter as the emergence of China as the leading smartphone market. Smartphone shipments in China grew 164% year over year to 33.1m units in the June quarter, topping the 25m units sold in the US. Android share: 69.5% (so Android is outselling iPhone 4:1). That leaves 12.6% for all other platforms.]]>