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Tomi Ahonen data dump – Q1 2012

May 172012

Tomi Ahonen is a tragic figure of the mobile market – he is a total genius, but his blog posts are so long that they are all but impossible to read “quickly”. Nevertheless, his stat dumps contain a huge amount of valuable data – let’s get to it.

Biggest smartphone makers, by # sold
TEN BIGGEST SMARTPHONE MANUFACTURERS BY UNIT SALES IN Q1 2012

Rank . Maker . . . . . . Units . . . Market Share . . . . Was in Q4 of 2011
1 . . . . Samsung . . . 44.5 M . . 30.6 % . . . . . . . . ( 22.8 %)
2 . . . . Apple . . . . . . 35.1 M . . 24.2 % . . . . . . . . ( 23.9 %)
3 . . . . Nokia . . . . . . 11.9 M . . . 8.2 % . . . . . . . . ( 12.6 %)
4 . . . . RIM . . . . . . . 11.1 M . . . 7.6 % . . . . . . . . ( 9.1 %)
5 . . . . HTC . . . . . . . . 7.9 M . . . 5.4 % . . . . . . . . ( 6.1 %)
6 . . . . Sony . . . . . . . 7.3 M . . . 5.0 % . . . . . . . . ( 5.8 %)
7 . . . . Huawei . . . . . 7.0 M . . . 4.8 % . . . . . . . . ( 4.8 %)
8 . . . . LG . . . . . . . . . 5.5 M . . . 3.8 % . . . . . . . . ( 4.5 %)
9 . . . . Motorola . . . . . 5.1 M . . . 3.5 % . . . . . . . . ( 3.4 %)
10 . . . ZTE . . . . . . . . 5.0 M . . . 3.4 % . . . . . . . . ( 3.5 %)
Others . . . . . . . . . . . 4.8 M . . . 3.3 % . . . . . . . . ( 3.5 %)
TOTAL . . . . . . . . . 145.2 M

Biggest smartphone OS, by # sold
Rank . OS Platform . . . . . . Units . . . . . Market share . . Was in Q4 of 2011
1 . . . . Android . . . . . . . . . 80.8 M . . . . 55.6 % . . . . . . . ( 49.0 %)
2 . . . . iOS . . . . . . . . . . . . 35.1 M . . . . 24.2 % . . . . . . . ( 23.9 %)
3 . . . . Blackberry . . . . . . . 11.1 M . . . . . 7.6 % . . . . . . . ( 9.1 %)
4 . . . . Symbian . . . . . . . . . 7.9 M . . . . . 5.4 % . . . . . . . ( 11.5 %)
5 . . . . bada . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.8 M . . . . . 2.6 % . . . . . . . ( 2.3 %)
6 . . . . Windows Phone . . . . 2.3 M . . . . . 1.6 % . . . . . . . ( 1.2 %)
7 . . . . MeeGo . . . . . . . . . . 2.2 M . . . . . 1.5 % . . . . . . . ( 1.2 %)
8 . . . . Windows Mobile . . . . 0.4 M . . . . . 0.3 % . . . . . . . ( 0.4 %)
others . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.6 M . . . . . 1.1 % . . . . . . . ( 1.6 %)
TOTAL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145.2 M

Installed base
Rank . OS Platform . . . . . . Units . . . . . Market share . . Was in Q4 of 2011
1 . . . . Android . . . . . . . . . 328 M . . . . . 32 % . . . . . . . . ( 27 %)
2 . . . . Symbian . . . . . . . . 299 M . . . . . 30 % . . . . . . . . ( 35 %)
3 . . . . iOS . . . . . . . . . . . 178 M . . . . . 18 % . . . . . . . . ( 16 %)
4 . . . . Blackberry . . . . . . 111 M . . . . . 11 % . . . . . . . . ( 12 %)
5 . . . . bada . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 M . . . . . 2 % . . . . . . . . ( 1 %)
6 . . . . Windows Mobile . . . . 16 M . . . . 2 % . . . . . . . . ( 2 %)
7 . . . . Windows Phone . . . . 9 M . . . . . 1 % . . . . . . . . ( 1 %)
Others . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 M . . . . . 5 % . . . . . . . . ( 6 %)
TOTAL Installed Base . . . 1,013 M smartphones in use at end of Q1 2012

Break-down of Android
ANDROID MAKERS IN Q1

Samsung . . . . . . 50%

HTC . . . . . . . . . . 10%

Sony . . . . . . . . . . 9%

Huawei . . . . . . . . 9%

LG . . . . . . . . . . . . 7%

Motorola . . . . . . . . 6%

ZTE . . . . . . . . . . . 6%

Others . . . . . . . . . 3%

Total Android . . . . 80.8 Million

Break-down of WP7
WINDOWS PHONE MAKERS IN Q1

Nokia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87%

Samsung . . . . . . . . . . . . 9%

HTC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4%

Total Windows Phone . . 2.3 Million

(Note above does not include 400,000 Windows Mobile smartphones sold in Q1)

Break-down of Samsung shipments
SAMSUNG SPLIT BY OS IN Q1
Android . . . . . . . . . 91%
bada . . . . . . . . . . . . 9%
Windows Phone . . . . 1%
Total Samsung . . . . 44.5 M

Break-down of Nokia shipments
NOKIA SMARTPHONE SPLIT BY OS IN Q1
– 65% of Nokia branded smartphones still are sold running Symbian.
– 18% are running MeeGo and
– 17% are running Windows Phone.

Of course, his commentary should be read – if you have a can of Red Bull at hand, adjust seat recline and click the link below:
http://communities-dominate.blogs.com/brands/2012/05/smartphone-market-shares-after-q1-its-the-digital-jamboree-year-of-smartphone-bloodbath.html

Attention: activity lifetime limited on HTC One devices

Development, News No Responses »

May 172012

So far, HTC’s One handsets got treated extraordinarily well on this network – after all, their adaptive technology is a strike of genius especially for business users.

Sadly, not all is well. xda-developers reports the following (already confirmed by HTC):

What in the world did HTC do to Android ICS mulitasking!? Apps seem to be completely removed from cache every single time they’re closed for ~30 seconds. They also no longer re-open in the same state that you left them! If I leave the browser, it needs to reload the web page. If I leave a game, I need to start from the beginning. If I pause and exit Slacker radio for a minute, the app closes and I can’t even resume my music with the headphones button! I need to re-open the app and start playing all over again.

With my old Galaxy Nexus I never had ANY of these issues and multitasking was clearly the best of any smartphone on the market. HTC has completely crippled this device and it’s becoming more and more frustrating

For developers, the consequence is clear – restore state similar to the way it worked on Palm OS. For business users, the implications are worse…prepare to loose a LOT of work when multitasking.

OpenSignals on Android fragmentation

Development No Responses »

May 172012

When it comes to dealing with fragmentation on the Android operating system, knowing the surroundings is more important and more difficult than actually adjusting to them.

OpenSignalMaps has now compiled an interesting group of charts explaining how the “device space” breaks down over the various configurations. They conclude as following:

We’ve collected signal data from 195 countries – the variety of Android devices and manufacturers has been crucial in allowing the OS to reach so many markets. For example the 5 countries where OSM gets most use are: US, Brazil, China, Russia, Mexico. From what we’re seeing the developing world is no longer developing but leading Europe.

While the number of different models running Android will continue to increase we’ve seen Samsung take the lion’s share of the Android market, most of that due to the Galaxy product line. Testing on the most popular Samsung & HTC devices will get you a long way.

API and screen fragmentation is probably going to get worse. Android has, however, shown committment to make it easier to target multiple screen sizes – by introducing the (perhaps ironically named) fragments APIs in 2011 which makes it easier to turn view elements into modules.

Hit the URL below to learn more:

Bridgestone to give up on e-paper production

News No Responses »

May 172012

2a Bridgestone to give up on e paper production The (usually monochrome) e-paper technology is used commonly in all kinds of e-readers due to the ultra-low power usage.

Bridgestone, one of the largest makers of these screens, now gives up on them:

Tokyo (May, 15 2012) — Bridgestone Corporation today announced plans to withdraw from electronic paper business.

The company has made this decision after careful consideration of its options and in accordance with its management principal of “selection and concentration” which Bridgestone is implementing to put an increased focus on its core businesses to provide maximum value to its customers and shareholders. Due to increasing competition and rapidly declining prices in the liquid crystal panel business, the company decided that the best course of action for its overall business is to exit the electronic paper market.

Exact timing for the withdrawal is still being determined but the company expects to conclude its production of electronic paper by the end of October 2012.

Even though thus sounds quite a bit strange at first glance, it does make sense – according to optometricists, the backlit OLED screens are more comfortable (read: more ergonomically) to read when looking at textual information. In addition to that, e-paper is unusable when it comes to creating smart tablets which are to run operating systems like Android – let’s see what this will lead us to…

Firefox for Android – new beta out

News No Responses »

May 162012

Even though the default browser used on Android is not at all bad (unlike classic Windows Mobile devices), FireFox is being ported to the operating system actively.

Now, a new beta has been released. The following features were added:

NEW
Faster start-up and page load times
NEW
The user interface has been completely re-designed with a new Awesome Screen
NEW
Re-designed start page with Top Sites
NEW
Support for Adobe Flash
NEW
By default, plugins are only loaded on touch
NEW
Better text readability through font size inflation
NEW
New panning/zooming architecture implemented for better touch responsiveness
NEW
Google searches now utilize HTTPS

Find out more via the URL below:
http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/mobile/14.0beta/releasenotes/

IDC: HTML5 “planned” by almost 80% of developers

Metrics Maid No Responses »

May 162012

When it comes to mobile development, religious wars can be fought about the question of web 2.0 vs native.

Mobile Business Briefing now brings us the following nugget:

Research house IDC said that 79 percent of surveyed mobile app developers plan to integrate HTML5 into products they launch this year.

The company said that by 2015, more than 80 percent of all mobile apps will be either wholly or in-part based on the web technology.

…

Even though I still believe that native apps are the way to go, this sounds interesting – stay tuned for updates as we get them!

Telefonica: 2 € = 25MB, EU-wide

News No Responses »

May 152012

Roaming in the EU is quite a topic – given that Hutchison has used the communality across its network for great advantage, I have frequently predicted that it would be but a question of time when other carriers react.

According to Mobile Business Briefing, Telefonica has just done so:

Telefonica has launched a pan-European data roaming tariff offering smartphone subscribers to its European networks 25MB of data usage for EUR2 a day.

…

The Pan-European tariff launched in Germany in May and will be available this summer to Telefonica’s O2 and Movistar customers in Spain, UK, Ireland, Czech Republic and Slovakia. It will be applicable for roaming across all 27 EU member states.

Let’s see how this one plays out…

Kindle Fire in Europe – unboxing

Hardware reviews No Responses »

May 132012

As of this writing, the official availability of the Kindle Fire is limited to the United States. However, this is not really true – ComStern, an offspring of a large Swiss retailer, has recently started to import the units.

They package the Amazon box inside another box – the unpacking is best seen in the video below:

The actual box of the Kindle Fire is best described as Spartan. All you get is a cheap US wallwart – all those of you expecting a data cable will be disappointed.

The initial start-up can be seen here:

Cutting a long story short: the Kindle Fire is as Spartan as Spartan can be. But, on the other hand, the price of 200 USD – well, tune in soon to find out more!

EU reduces roaming fees further

News No Responses »

May 132012

450px La2 euro EU reduces roaming fees further The EU intends to be a “super state” – in a super state, however, citizens can expect to pay no roaming fees when traveling from one substate to another (similar to the USA).

Sadly, the EU currently has not yet achieved this state. However, it remains work in progress. The Independent now repors the following:

Mobile phone roaming charges will fall again from July following a European Parliament vote today.

…

The cuts involve reducing the cost of making a mobile call from another EU country from about 30p a minute to 24p, while the cost of sending a text drops to just 7p. Overall, roaming costs have fallen by up to 75% since the campaign began in 2007, said the commission.

Stay tuned for further info as we get it!

Image: Wikimedia Commons / Lars Aronsson

Big in Japan: Apple beats Samsung

News No Responses »

May 112012

ntt docomo us mvno Big in Japan: Apple beats Samsung The Japanese cell phone market has always been completely different from the US/European one: handsets which perform well in Japan are extremely unlikely to do well anywhere else and vice versa. Of course, this kind of effect does not apply to Apple.

MacWorld now reports that Apple – usually less “large than” Samsung due to the latter’s wider product portfolio – has taken the lead in Japan:

Nearly one in three smartphones sold in Japan last fiscal year was an iPhone, pushing Apple’s sales far ahead of main rival Samsung in the country, according to data published by a local research firm.

In the fiscal year ending March 31, smartphone vendors shipped 24.2 million devices in Japan, of which 30 percent were iPhones, making Apple the clear leader in the category, according to data vendor MM Research Institute. Samsung captured an 8.3 percent share, trailing Apple as well as domestic makers Sharp, Fujitsu and Sony.

Not much to add here…

Image: Wikimedia Commons / Marus