06
Jul
2012
Electronista: New quarterly data indicates little change in the US cellphone market, according to research firm ComScore. Android devices continue to dominate as a platform, up 0.8 percent to account for 50.9 percent of smartphones. Apple’s iPhone, meanwhile, has grown 1.7 percent to claim a 31.9 percent share. (more…)
04
Feb
2011
GPS Business News: Market research firm Canalys today published its final fourth quarter 2010 global country-level smartphone market data, which revealed that Google’s Android has become the leading platform.
Shipments of Android-based smartphones reached 32.9 million, while devices running Nokia’s Symbian platform trailed slightly at 31.0 million worldwide. But Nokia did retain its position as the leading global smartphone vendor, with a share of 28%.
The fourth quarter also saw the worldwide smartphone market continue to soar, with shipments of 101.2 million units representing year-on-year growth of 89%. The final quarter took shipments for the year to fractionally below 300 million units, with an annual growth rate of 80% over 2009.
During the fourth quarter volumes of Google OS-based smartphones (Android, OMS and Tapas) were again boosted by strong performances from a number of vendors, notably LG, Samsung, Acer and HTC, whose volumes across these platforms grew 4,127%, 1,474%, 709% and 371% respectively year-on-year. HTC and Samsung together accounted for nearly 45% of Google OS-based handset shipments.
At a regional level, Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) remained the largest market, with shipments totalling 38.8 million and a year-on-year growth rate of 90%. Nokia continued to lead in EMEA and Asia Pacific, but in 2010 it was overtaken by RIM in Latin America, which shipped over a million more units than Nokia in Q4 2010. The vendor was particularly helped by the popularity of its mid-range smartphones, such as its Curve family of devices.
The United States continued its reign as the largest country market in terms of shipments, at more than double the size of the Chinese smartphone market. RIM recaptured first place from Apple, as the latter experienced its usual US seasonal dip, and RIM benefited from the first full quarter of shipments for the BlackBerry Torch. HTC successfully maintained its third-place ranking in the US for the third consecutive quarter, driven by its speed to market with the latest Android updates and new Windows Phone 7 devices.
“The US landscape will shift dramatically this coming year, as a result of the Verizon-Apple agreement,” said Canalys Analyst Tim Shepherd. “Verizon will move its focus away from the Droid range, but the overall market impact will mean less carrier-exclusive deals, while increasing the AT&T opportunity for Android vendors, such as HTC, Motorola and Samsung.”
Android was by far the largest smart phone platform in the US market in the fourth quarter 2010, with shipments of 12.1 million units – nearly three times those of RIM’s BlackBerry devices. Windows Phone 7 devices appeared too late in the quarter to take full advantage of holiday season purchasing. As a result, Microsoft lost share in the United States, from 8% in Q4 2009 to 5% in Q4 2010.
South Korea, Japan and China
Analysis of the published country-level data shows that, around the world, the strength of smartphone performances remained diverse. In South Korea, for example, shipments grew from under 700,000 units in Q4 2009 to just under 3.4 million units in Q4 2010, making the country a top 10 market.
In Japan, Android shipments have taken off over the past year, with nearly 1.4 million units shipping from local as well as international vendors, such as HTC. More Japanese vendors have also announced plans to launch Android devices in 2011, such as NEC Casio and Panasonic.
Under pressure from Huawei and Samsung in particular, Nokia’s share in China slipped to 56%, down from 76% a year ago, despite growing its volume in the country by over 70% in the same period. Albeit from a smaller base, the Chinese market grew 134% year-on-year, notably faster than the US market, which grew at 64% in the quarter.
24
Nov
2008
CNET News: Faced with strong competition from Apple and Research In Motion, as well as economic headwinds, Palm has decided to lay off some workers.
Valleywag reported that the layoffs could involve as many as 10 percent of the company’s 1,050 employees. A Palm representative confirmed that layoffs were taking place but did not comment on exactly how many people were affected.
“There have been some layoffs as a result of challenges facing our company and the industry, and we’re restructuring our worldwide operations to better position ourselves for profitability and long-term growth,” said Lynn Fox, a Palm spokeswoman. She declined to comment on exactly where the cuts would come, but she said Palm has decided to “focus our efforts more effectively.”
The layoffs will have no bearing on Palm’s plans to release a new operating system next year, Fox said.
09
Oct
2008
Telegraph.co.uk: When Research In Motion, the Canadian company behind the BlackBerry, decided to make a touchscreen version of its popular mobile email device, it was taking a huge gamble.
Text input is the BlackBerry’s bread and butter – the reason it’s proved such a hit with businessmen is because it allows them to type emails quickly and easily on the go using the miniature Qwerty keyboard.
The BlackBerry Storm is manufacturer Research in Motion’s first touchscreen phone. But it’s one that has paid off in spades – the BlackBerry Storm, Research In Motion’s first attempt at a touchscreen device, is a triumph. It’s a really powerful device with plenty of clever features, but let’s set that to one side for the moment and focus on the question people really want to know the answer to: what’s it like to type on?
A revelation, is the short answer. RIM has managed to develop a touch-screen keyboard that’s as close to typing on real buttons as you’re currently likely to get.
15
Sep
2008
SlashPhone: MySpace and Research In Motion (RIM) are joining forces to develop an integrated MySpace Mobile experience customized for BlackBerry smartphones.
The new MySpace for BlackBerry smartphones application will be fully optimized and provides instant, push-based messaging to BlackBerry and MySpace users. The application will be available in all BlackBerry markets globally.
As part of this collaboration, RIM is also creating a BlackBerry community page on MySpace for users to access the latest BlackBerry smartphone news, content, videos, games, ringtones, skins and other unique and engaging features.
The MySpace for BlackBerry smartphones application is designed with features including a full messaging interface, including comments, bulletins and messaging.
10
Sep
2008
Guardian: The smartphone market is a hard one to track because of devices sold under a wide variety of names, and because research firms have different definitions of smart phones. It’s also subject to change when new products take off (like the Apple iPhone) or fade. In other words, don’t bet your house on anybody’s “real” market share.
Still, according to Gartner, Nokia is still by far the market leader with 47.5% of the smartphone market on 15.2m units sold to users. RIM has done well with BlackBerry sales growing by 126.4% to 5.6m units, year over year, and it has now overtaken Windows Mobile.
Apple did not star in this quarter because it was in a product transition. Gartner comments: “in the second quarter of 2008, Apple’s share of global smartphone sales to end users decreased to 2.8% from 5.3% in the first quarter of 2008. The significant drop in sales was mainly due to the company having to clean the channel of first-generation iPhone units before the arrival of the iPhone 3G in June”.
17
Jul
2008
IntoMobile: Can’t stand the veritable flood of iPhone 3G news? Well, worry not, BlackBerry fanatics. RIM’s touchscreen answer to the iPhone 3G is on its way to a smartphone market near you.
And, to make sure the world isn’t so caught up in iPhone hype that they forget about the rest of the smartphone industry’s touchscreen offerings, it seems that RIM has let a few pictures of their highly anticipated BlackBerry Thunder handset.
A quick refresher – the BlackBerry Thunder will be toting RIM’s new BlackBerry OS – BlackBerry OS 4.7 – and a localized haptic feedback system that vibrates a specific region of touch-input rather than vibrating the entirely device.
09
Jun
2008
IntoMobile: With the highly-anticipate and quite polarizing Apple iPhone on the verge of making its second-generation debut this week, a new research report from Gartner has surfaced. The report puts Apple, with just a single iPhone model to boast of, in the No. 3 spot among global smartphone vendors for Q1 2008. Cupertino took broke into the “Top 3″ in the smartphone market with 1.7 million iPhones sold since it’s debut last year.
Nokia took an astounding 45.2% (14.58 million units) of global smartphone sales, with RIM, makers of the ever-popular push-emailing BlackBerry lineup, garnering 13.4% (4.31 million units) of all smartphone sales.
Compared to the same period last year, smartphone sales grew 29%, with 32.2 million smartphones sold in the first quarter. The growing market didn’t just help Apple, Nokia saw a 25.3% growth in smartphone sales in Q1. But, the most remarkable growth numbers belong to RIM – the BlackBerry maker increased smartphone sales by 107.3%.
05
May
2008
Absolute Gadget: To get a Blackberry device from its users would require you to prise it out of their cold, dead hand but they may well very soon be chucking it away – to get their hands on this new phone that departs from the usual design by going all clamshell-like.
According to Boy Genius Report, Research-in-Motion will be launching the clamshell phone, called the Kickstart, before the end of the year. It should sport a Suretype keyboard as well as a digital camera, an external LCD and, a tiny navigation trackball and a 2.5-inch LCD.
It is rumoured that the new phone will come with an updated version of RIM’s own Operating System, the Blackberrry Device Software 4.6, which should be able to cope with videos.
28
Mar
2008
Camera Core: A lot of people were looking forward for RIM’s newest Blackberry handset. Well, finally, the 8820 was released and proved to be one of the best smartphone’s developed by RIM. This will be the first Blackberry to offer integrated Wi-fi. The 8820 supports 802.11a/b/g standards and is compliant with Wi-Fi security protocols, giving users another avenue to connect to the Web. However, RIM still hasn’t included 3G just yet, but it does continue to offer features that have been popular from its older siblings, like Bluetooth and GPS support.
The 8820 was built with business users in mind, so the phone may not be as popular as the BlackBerry Pearl or BlackBerry Curve that has been a big hit in the consumer market. Another thing that would limit its mass appeal is its lack of camera option. That is surprising even for me, as I would have expect a built-in camera in a smartphone as advanced as this.
19
Feb
2008
Electronista: Research in Motion yesterday filed a lawsuit against rival cellphone designer Motorola, claiming both infringement on patents relating to its handset technology as well abusive licensing practices for its own licenses. Responsible for creating the BlackBerry smartphone line, RIM filed the complaint this weekend in a Northern District of Texas court and argues that Motorola is attempting to exclude competition both by refusing to license certains patents in its phones and by charging “extortionate” licensing fees for those patents it owns, penalizing RIM for using similar technology.
The patents address some of the most important technology at the heart of both firms’ devices, including the ability to connect through Wi-Fi as well as keyboards optimized for thumb typing.
Motorola has so far dismissed the complaint, calling its own patents “critical” to business and saying that it will protect its intellectual property against challenges from competitors.
24
Jan
2008
Electronista: An upcoming update to the BlackBerry line’s OS will bring changes that put on a par or potentially exceed other smartphones, Research in Motion has announced today. Through a combination of BlackBerry version 4.5 for the phones and updates to BlackBerry Enterprise Server, the update will give options previously reserved to devices such as the iPhone or to devices running Microsoft’s Windows Mobile. E-mail on the phone will now support full HTML web code as well as rich text, similar to the Apple device. Any supporting devices will also be able to edit Excel, PowerPoint, and Word documents on the phone itself without having to resort to a third-party tool, RIM adds.
Other changes for the phone users will include the ability to search e-mail on the server even when deleted from the phone or manage some of their phones’ sync over the web rather than install a large amount of software. Businesses in turn will also have more control over the device and will have the option to push wireless upgrades as well as selectively control Bluetooth and GPS, RIM says.