Mobiledevworld.com | Mobile Developers Community

Global mobile phone sales rose 10% year over year and 11.3 percent last quarter according to two research firms, Strategy Analytics and IDC.

Strategy Analytics said global handset shipments reached 324 million units last quarter, which represented a 10% gain over the same quarter in 2008.

Nokia, Samsung, and LG held the top spots in global market share during the quarter, with Samsung creeping up on Nokia’s 39.8% market share. Strategy Analytics found that Samsung shipped 69 million phones globally in Q4, a company record that was up 31% over the year before quarter. Likewise, and not surprisingly, Apple shipped a record 8.7 million iPhones during the fourth quarter and grabbed a 2.7% hold of the global phone market. Motorola said yesterday that it estimates it holds a 3.7% share of the global phone market.

2009 4Q Global Handset Shipments And Market Share (Units in millions)

Source: Strategy Analytics

Research firm IDC offered a similar outlook on the global market by stating that phone sales grew 11.3% in the fourth quarter. It said vendors sold 1.13 billion phones worldwide during the year, which was down 5.2 percent from 2008. Despite a flat market in Asia and a decreasing one in Latin America, sales in North America and Western Europe increased year over year. The firm also listed Nokia, Samsung, and LG as the market leaders with Nokia maintaining a 38.7% market share, Samsung a 17.1% share, and LG with an 8.8% share. The report said Motorola and Sony Ericsson lost market share.

Top Five Mobile Phone Vendors, Shipments, and Market Share, Q4 2009 (Units in Millions)

Source: IDC Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker, January 28, 2009

0 people like this post.

Like 

The mobile phone market showed slight signs of recovery in Q3 2009, as 290.5 million cell phones were sold during the quarter, according to Strategy Analytics, or 287.1 million units, according to IDC.

All five major handset vendors sold more phones in Q3 than in Q2, save for Motorola, which slipped to fifth place, previously occupied by Sony Ericsson.

Samsung and LG, the two South Korean giants, both broke new records. Samsung shipped more than 60 million phones in a quarter for the first time, so it now controls more than 20% of the market, as expected. LG shipped only 31.6 million units, but it is its highest number to date.

Global Mobile Handset Shipments and Marketshare – Top 5 Vendors (Units in Millions) – Strategy Analytics

Top 5 Mobile Phone Vendors, Shipments, and Market Share, Q3 2009 (Units in Millions) – IDC

0 people like this post.

Like 

Sony Ericsson announced the availability of Panel SDK for X2, which allows developers to create panels and content for the new Windows Mobile 6.5 smartphone. New Panelizer tools in the Panel SDK make it easy for developers to convert existing applications including native apps, Flash, Java ME and Project Capuchin into a Panel. The Panelizer SDK also enables developers to create native applications and make use of powerful 3D graphics using OpenGL ES 1.1.

From mid-September 2009, developers will be able to submit Panels to PlayNow arena, which operates in 18 countries and offers a 70% net revenue share. From submission to sale takes less than 30 days for accepted Panels, and verification/signing can be delayed until after Sony Ericsson has reviewed the application.

0 people like this post.

Like 

In an introduction to the review of Nokia N900, Mobile-Review provides very interesting insight about the roadmap of some smartphone platforms:

Nokia has decided to put aside its favorite S60 platform and switch to Maemo. Taking into account the growing smartphone market and transformation of ordinary phones into feature-rick monsters most phone makers realize the necessity of having a flexible and open platform, which will help creating true mobile powerhouses. The S60 used to be such a platform for Nokia up until 2007. It seemed to be almost the ideal platform for mobile devices, as it was simply design for this purpose. But that’s exactly the weak and strong point about the S60 at the same time. The market will require vertical OS, which can be applied in cell phones, communicators, laptops and MID devices, i.e. various device types with different architectures, performance levels and so on. And suddenly it becomes apparent that S60 is not up to the task – the only way it can be tailored for the company’s current needs is through a total reconstruction. Had Nokia had an army of developers, plenty of apps and related services for its S60, they would have to center everything around S60. Thankfully (or not!) there is a modest number of developers, programs and software for the S60. In other words, the resources they command are sufficient, but not excessive. The company is willingly sacrificing them, keeping both S60 and Maemo in the service boat at the same time. In addition all key SDK will need to have the ability to work with Maemo in future, allowing developers to migrate to this platform and attract new ones. In fact even Apple developers get an opportunity to create programs for Nokia’s platform in a quick and easy-to-learn fashion, which is definitely a huge advantage.

Microsoft made an unspoken decision to tweak Windows Mobile 7 and then try to migrate to a more “mature” OS. That is, they decided to ditch the idea of a mobile version, keep Windows CE and promote the next Windows 7.5/8 version (scheduled for release in 2012) for mobile platforms . Currently the development of Windows Mobile family is either stopped or frozen.

Since Samsung didn’t have clear-cut favorites in terms of platforms back in 2007, they opted to invest substantial amounts of money into a whole bunch of operating systems. At the same time strategy-wise they had no doubts that mobile devices in 2010 would become convergent devices. Samsung is viewed as the potential driving force for the Symbian Foundation, as their motivation to roll out competitive S60-powered devices seems unqestionable on the surface. However Samsung have managed to see things through, and are now working on a vertical Linux-based solution of their own, using their proprietary TouchWiz interface to tie up various platforms and prepare themselves for the upcoming Linux-powered devices.

In these circumstances the S60 platform will be driven by only one factor – price. By autumn of 2010 most phones will become significantly cheaper, as Maemo-based flagship devices will take the center stage, rivaled by Sony Ericsson’s S60 smartphones, making it the only vendor fighting for a piece of the smartphone market with S60. The fact of the matter is that they don’t have the resources to develop an own Linux-based solution, although the truth is they are negotiating with some players, in an effort to find a compromise and come up with a vertical OS of their own. Without much luck, though.

This situation leaves a huge time lag that will work to Nokia’s Maemo smartphones advantage. In fact, only Nokia and Apple will have similar solutions in 2010-2012 that will enable them to beef up their shares in this segment. While Samsung have almost let their chance slip, through various marketing moves they’ll probably manage to mitigate the negative consequences. Already today widgets are spreading not only among mobile phones, but also netbooks and this integration of UI will go even further, but it’s still not a scalable vertical OS. LG, in turn, don’t stand a chance on this field – they haven’t fully grasped where the market is headed and the outlines of the industry’s future still appear vague to them. Sony Ericsson are going through a tough period in their history, having wasted two years of priceless time and the re-organization initiated by the new management will take another year, so they won’t be able to get back in business until mid 2010, with first results expected only in 2011-2012, when Google, Nokia and Apple will have the market covered. For the first time the companies integrate services, software and devices in a vertical line, so technically we can call this market vertical. That’s the main distinction from the past, the paradigm is changing these days. The market lines up in a vertical, various devices get tied together by one single OS and differ only in terms of specs and size.

5 people like this post.

Like 

Worldwide mobile phone sales totalled 286.1 million units in the Q2 2009, a 6.1 % decrease from the second quarter of 2008, according to Gartner. Smartphone sales surpassed 40 million units, a 27% increase from the same period last year, representing the fastest-growing segment of the mobile-devices market.

Worldwide Mobile Terminal Sales to End Users in 2Q09 (Thousands of Units)

Note: This table includes iDEN shipments but excludes ODM-to-OEM shipments.
Source: Gartner (August 2009)

Nokia maintained its leadership position, but its portfolio remained heavily skewed toward low-end devices. Its flagship high-end N97 smartphone met little enthusiasm at its launch in the second quarter of 2009 and has sold just 500,000 units in the channel since it started to ship in June, compared to Apple’s iPhone 3G S, which sold 1 million units in its first weekend.

Samsung and LG both had a very strong second quarter of 2009 with sales of 55 million units and 30.5 million units, respectively. Samsung’s touchscreen devices, qwerty phones and smartphones drove sales in mature markets, and Gartner expects it will continue to gain market share in the second half of 2009 to close the gap with Nokia. Gartner expects LG to keep moving into lower-tier devices to drive growth in emerging markets and be well-positioned to take advantage of China’s 3G rollout as it can deliver good-value-for-money devices. Motorola’s sales of 15.9 million units were slightly better than expected, but its presence has rapidly concentrated on the Americas, and it has lost most of its share of the Western European market, where it sold fewer than 1 million units in the second quarter of 2009. Most operators and customers will be waiting for Motorola’s new Android-based products planned for the fourth quarter of 2009.

Sony Ericsson’s market share dropped 2.8% points year-on-year in the second quarter of 2009 but its volume dropped 41%. Although the market environment was challenging, Gartner attributes Sony Ericsson’s poor performance to its uncompetitive range of handsets.

Worldwide Smartphone Sales to End Users in 2Q09 (Thousands of Units)

Note: For HTC, Gartner counts only the company’s own-branded devices, including the G1.
Note: Totals may not add to 100.0 percent due to rounding.
Source: Gartner (August 2009)

In the smartphone OS market, Symbian held 51% share, down from 57% a year ago, while RIM and Apple grew their shares year-on-year. Android’s share was just under 2% of the market and more Android-based devices will come to market in the fourth quarter of 2009, intensifying competition in the smartphone OS market, particularly for Symbian and Windows Mobile. Microsoft’s share continued to drop year-on-year to account for 9% of the market in the second quarter of 2009.

0 people like this post.

Like 

Sony Ericsson published today an important notice, announcing a directory structure change between their existing Java Platform JP-8.4 release and the new JP-8.5, changing some of the root paths.

For more details: http://developer.sonyericsson.com/community/message/127339#127339

0 people like this post.

Like 

269 million handsets were shipped in the second quarter of 2009, according to ABI Research.

Samsung (19.4%) and LG (11.1%) did particularly well. LG notched up a 2.2% increase in percentage points, Samsung, 1.45%. Nokia staged a remarkable swing in fortunes to achieve a 1.67% percentage point increase to 38.3%. Nokia is doing all it can to get a number of smartphone models into the market. It will be interesting to see how Nokia’s market share holds up in 2H-2009, as Samsung and LG have carried out major refreshes to their smartphone product lineups. Sony-Ericsson experienced a 0.56% percent point reduction in its market-share while Motorola and RIM also saw contractions.

Top 5 vendors:

0 people like this post.

Like