Mobile Solutions CI

Gartner Says Worldwide Sales of Mobile Phones Declined 2 Percent in First Quarter of 2012; Previous Year-over-Year Decline Occurred in Second Quarter of 2009

“The lower results in the first quarter of 2012 have led us to be cautious about sales for the remainder of the year,” said Annette Zimmermann, principal research analyst at Gartner. “The continued roll-out of third generation (3G)-based smartphones by local and regional manufacturers such as Huawei, ZTE, Lenovo, Yulong and TCL Communication should help spur demand in China. In addition, the arrival of new products in mature markets based on new versions of the Android and Windows Phone operating systems (OSs), and the launch of the Apple iPhone 5 will help drive a stronger second half in Western Europe and North America. However, as we are starting to update our market forecast we feel a downward adjustment to our 2012 figures, in the range of 20 million units, is unavoidable.”

via www.gartner.com

The competitive market of mobile handset manufacturers is about to turn absolutely brutal. Gartner Says Worldwide Sales of Mobile Phones Declined 2 Percent in First Quarter of 2012.

RIM may lose more ground in smartphone market: analyst | Reuters

the company could soon see its share of the global smartphone market dip below 5 percent

via www.reuters.com

I'd say this is a conservative estimate. Will RIM hold on to more than 5% of smartphone market share? It's hard to see how.

LG: No More Windows Phones Planned | PCWorld

LG said in a recent earnings call that it has no plans to release more Windows Phones, because they're not working out financially, WPCentral reports. “The total unit of Windows Phone sold in the global market is not a meaningful figure,” the company said.

via www.pcworld.com

Financial pressure is pushing LG to make hard choices. Not a great sign for Nokia's chances, also makes you wonder about HTC.

LG Swings To 1Q Net Profit; 2Q Sales Likely Higher - WSJ.com

LG's handset division, which has lagged rivals such as Apple Inc. and Samsung Electronics in the mobile devices sector, has been a major drag on the company's overall business, posting losses since the second quarter of 2010 with a marginal return to profit in the last quarter of 2011.

It, however, saw an operating profit margin of 1.4% in the first quarter versus 3.5% margin loss a year earlier, largely helped by increased sales of its high-end smartphones with an advanced network technology, called long-term evolution, even though it sold fewer phones from a year earlier. LG sold 13.7 million handsets in the first quarter, down from 17.7 million units shipped in the fourth quarter.

via online.wsj.com

LG's positive quarter driven by LTE and increased traction in high end smartphone seems to run counter to yesterday's WSJ cover piece on Samsung and Apple emerging as the smartphone winners. Will this really be a two player space or will we see HTC and LG claw back?

comScore Reports February 2012 U.S. Mobile Subscriber Market Share - comScore, Inc

More than 104 million people in the U.S. owned smartphones during the three months ending in February, up 14 percent versus November. Google Android’s share of the smartphone market eclipsed 50 percent in February, an increase of 17 percentage points since February 2011.

via www.comscore.com

Smartphone share continues to climb, with Android taking share from RIM and Microsoft platforms. Apple's growth is also accelerating.

Smartphones Account for Half of all Mobile Phones, Dominate New Phone Purchases in the US | Nielsen Wire

Almost half (49.7%) of U.S. mobile subscribers now own smartphones

via blog.nielsen.com

Amazing how fast this adoption is happening in mass consumer segments.

Huawei Aims to Become More Mature - WSJ.com

After recruiting 50,000 young Chinese engineers, most of them straight out of college over the past five years to gain a total work force of 140,000, Shenzhen-based Huawei, which makes telecommunications equipment as well as mobile devices such as smartphones and tablet computers, is now struggling to become more mature.

via online.wsj.com

This article is a nice high-level overview of Huawei, a company many are not very familiar with despite its size and impact in mobile services infrastructure.

Sprint shares fall as analyst cites bankruptcy risk | Reuters

"To be clear, we are not predicting a Sprint bankruptcy. We are merely acknowledging that it is a very legitimate risk. And notwithstanding a recent rally in Sprint shares, we believe that risk is rising," Moffett said in a research note.

via www.reuters.com

I was wondering how long it would take before this became public discourse. With the iPhone deal it's a real issue. What becomes of Sprint in 2013?

the role of mobile operators in the retail experience remains dominant

This post from tomi ahonen contains a basic but vital point which is still poorly understood in the mobile industry. The retail experience for handsets, which bring to life all web 2.0 experiences, remains very poor and dominated by mobile operators.

 

I have written many articles on this blog to explain the retail side of the mobile handset business. The mobile phone business is totally different from other high tech and consumer industries, like TVs, PCs, videogaming consoles, DVD players, digital cameras, MP3 players etc - where in those industries if you make a good product and sell it at a competitive price, you tend to have market performance commensurate with the 'merits' of your device and its price. That is not true in mobile phones. In this industry, the success of any handset brand is primarily controlled by the carriers/operators of the world. Look at the iPhone. Early on it sold only on one network in many markets such as AT&T in the USA, O2 in Britain, Softbank in Japan etc. When the iPhone expanded to more carriers, it achieved far bigger sales. And look at the Microsoft Kin youth phones. Even as these were highly praised and were expected big sellers, the sudden collapse of carrier support resulted in the phones being discontinued - in only six weeks. This even though Microsoft is the global IT giant who has thousands of resellers to its brand. When the carriers refused the Kin, no matter how 'great' Microsoft was, the handset was doomed.

In mobile phones, the success of any single phone is most determined by the support of the carriers/operators and their stores. In mobile phones, different from any other major home electronics or consumer high tech, there is a gatekeeper that decides who wins and who loses. It is the reseller channel, mostly controlled by the carriers/operators.

via communities-dominate.blogs.com

 

MWC showing 2012 smartphone trends

MWC is in full flight and we are seeing all kinds of interesting news--Nokia's crazy camera phone (41MP, but Symbian!), HTC's brand launch for "one" devices, LG's quad core 3D device.

Here are the things I've been noticing from all the announcements:

Processors are becoming the new battleground. At first it was screens but now we see the core count and AP performance rising in prominence within the industry. The next six months will be make or break for NVDIA--can their Tegra deliver, can they support an on-time go to market? Their track record in tablets was not good and competing against Qualcomm means more than spyder tests. They have to show they can support partners in getting to commercial launch on time and bug free.

The biggest players no longer use these trade shows to drive news cycles. Samsung and Apple will have the most-watched, highest unit volume, heaviest advertised device launches this year and neither is talking about them at MWC. What is not there says volumes about Nokia and HTC efforts to leverage the event.

Screen definition technology is moving past the point of differentation for consumers. Just an opinion, but I don't see how anyone effectively markets around technology or size differentiation now that all players are pushing so hard. Huawei has two 4.5-inch screen devices, but still at resolution of 1280 by 720 pixel, while the LG Optimus 4X HD and the HTC One X both have 4.7-inch screens with a resolution of 1280 by 720 pixels. Blogs are reporting Samsung's new flagship at similar or better resolution.

Finally, everyone is anchoring on bringing best experiences in camera and music. For music I don't see how this wins against a full ecosystem experience such as iTunes (and no, Google music is not there yet). For camera, I have a hard time believing that will be a brand space you can defend beyond a product launch window.

It will be interesting to get a few months down the road and look back at Mobile World Congress and see what sticks.