Category: Industry

Mobile Computing Industry

Which mobile users will platforms harvest first?

When tallying up the race to a billion users, I noted that both iOS and Android seem to have the potential to reach that size of user base. However, that raises the question of where those users will come from. We have to note the fact that there aren’t a billion users to be captured today.

If not today, then how soon, and where are they?

The first question is who is addressable. If we stick with mobile cellular subscribers, there seem to be plenty of users (at least 5.3 billion as of October 2010 according to the ITU). However, the number of “mobile broadband” (i.e. 3+G network subs) is about 940 million. The chart to the left shows the difference and adds the subdivision between developed and developing economies.

Over half (51.1%) of developed nations’ populations have signed up for mobile broadband while only 5.4% of developing country populations are on 3G. And whereas developing countries have added 2.6 billion mobile subs in 5 years, they added only 293 million mobile broadband (MB) subs. Developed nations added 574 million MBs in the same time frame.

As a result, two thirds of mobile broadband subscribers reside in developed nations as of 2010. This number will decrease rapidly as MB penetration reaches saturation in developed countries, however the race to a billion is being run in these markets first.

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Ads for ads: The ad-supported app bubble

By one estimate (Gartner), about 81% of apps downloaded today are free. The way free apps are able to generate revenue is through advertising. 16 percent of application store markets’ $5.2 billion revenue was generated from advertising.

But advertising what?

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Talent follows where business models lead: The Media Business Disruptions

Michael DeGusta created beautiful and informative charts on how The Newspaper Business Implodes.

With charts, he also told the story of how the recorded music industry followed a similar path: Continue reading “Talent follows where business models lead: The Media Business Disruptions”

Who's knifing what?

Microsoft just declared the Zune end of life. This makes it a good time to look back to some notable episodes in the evolution of digital media distribution. First, an episode from 1997:

During two days on the stand, Tevanian accused Microsoft of seeking to divide the multimedia market and then “sabotaging” QuickTime’s ability to work with Windows computers when Apple declined to go along with Microsoft’s plan. Justice also is accusing Microsoft of attempting to illegally allocate the Internet browser market.

In particularly colorful testimony on Nov. 5, Tevanian described an April, 1997, meeting between two Apple and two Microsoft officials. Tevanian, who was not at the meeting, said Microsoft officials suggested that Apple abandon its business of providing “playback” software that enables users to view multimedia content on the computers. Instead, they offered Apple the much smaller portion of the market for the tools that developers use to create the content. In Apple’s mind, though, the playback software was its baby.

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Star-crossed partners

Until very recently, we believed our competitive position in smartphones could be improved with Symbian, as well as MeeGo, and our strategy based on those platforms. We are now of the view, however, that for the longer term our Symbian platform is not sufficiently competitive in leading markets.

Nokia’s SEC Form 20F.

The company’s fiscal year, which ended in June, was one of the worst to date for the mobile space. Although in development since 2008, the Kin was pulled after just over six weeks of sales and amounted to a $240 million write-off before including the $500 million to buy Danger. Windows Mobile’s ramp down is partly intentional as Microsoft is rebooting the platform with Windows Phone 7 and is investing $500 million in marketing to spark new interest.

Microsoft CEO bonus cut for Kin flop, lack of iPad rival | Electronista

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What's a Post-PC device?

Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer argues that the tablet computers (aka slates, media tablets or iPads) are PCs. Steve Jobs argues that they are post-PC devices. There are analogies to trucks, cars and various metaphors for what these new devices symbolize. Some argue that because the iPad needs a PC, it’s not a post-PC device.

But how to define a new generation of computing? Since the PC is not the beginning of computing, it may make sense to look to the eras of computing that preceded it.

Continue reading “What's a Post-PC device?”

On Android [Updated]

Demonstrating the value of openness and broad support from partners:

In terms of openness and broad support we’ve done very well… Literally available on over 150 different handsets. It’s available from over one hundred different mobile operators around the world. We will probably license about 20 million devices this year which is really quite dramatic at least among smartphone systems. So we have great momentum. We’ve brought [a new version] to market. We’re driving forward on our future releases. We’ll have to see what [the competition] does. Right now they have a press release […] We have many many millions of customers, great software, many hardware devices and they’re welcome in our world.

Inspired by a tweet from Charles Arthur.

[Update]

The quote is Steve Ballmer speaking in 2007 soon after the announcement of Android and in response to a question of what he thought about Android. The source video is here.

iTunes App Store generated $3 billion in sales

The announcement of $2 billion total for App store payments to developers did not come as a surprise. On January 22nd Apple reached 10 billion total apps downloaded. From that figure and an earlier derivation of the average selling price, I estimated $2 billion was paid out around the same time frame.

We don’t know exactly how many apps have been sold at exactly the moment when $2 billion was paid out so we don’t have the means to update the ASP of apps (currently estimated at 29c).

We do know for certain however that the app store generated $2.86 billion in sales if $2 billion was paid out.

The new data affirms existing estimates.

Android vs. Windows Phone: Which vendors benefit?

Who is Winning the U.S. Smartphone Battle? | Nielsen Wire.

This is a great chart from Nielsen showing the split in manufacturer share by OS in US installed base. What I consider significant is how the modular software platforms Windows Mobile and Android worked out for the licensees.

Whereas in the case of Windows Mobile HTC took a significant, nearly dominant share, the Android ecosystem was more balanced between HTC and Motorola. However, HP and Motorola left the Microsoft camps, Motorola going exclusively for Android and HP buying Palm. That leaves Microsoft with HTC, Samsung and Other (mainly LG I presume).

The question of how Windows Phone will shape up vs. Windows Mobile and Android remains. Motorola has signaled they are not interested in WP7 for the time being and so it’s likely that they will stick with Android. Samsung is always hedging its bets so it will probably balance its portfolio. One could conceive of Nokia stepping into the US with significant WP volumes, but there are many hurdles on the way.

One can see the challenge individual modular vendors have to edge the overall volumes of the integrated vendors. As Nielsen points out:

But an analysis by manufacturer shows RIM and Apple to be the winners compared to other device makers since they are the only ones creating and selling smartphones with their respective operating systems

Not only are the volumes higher, but so are the margins and hence profit share.

Lookout ZTE and Huawei: Here come NEC, Sharp and Kyocera

Sony Ericsson, NEC and Kyocera are among the other Japanese handset makers also betting on Android as their path to international sales.

via Japanese Phone Makers Look to Ride Android’s Surge – NYTimes.com.

The Japanese positioning is based on the notion that current Android phones are not good enough and that they can bring “great hardware, great R&D and great engineers” to solve the existing problems with Android portfolio phones.

That’s an interesting observation by Google’s own director of Android Global Partnerships. The idea that the market can still reward hardware innovation would also imply that Apple could benefit from that demand.

So is the message that there is still room for device innovation?

Perhaps not. Perhaps Android’s pursuit of Japanese vendors (and vice-versa) is just evidence of the rush into smartphones by those possessing excess hardware R&D and manufacturing capacity and a deficit of software assets.

It’s still striking that there are hundreds of hardware vendors and supposedly “only two” platforms.