Category: Market

Market data & competition.

Microsoft OEM VP on tablets: wait and see, could flop like netbooks

Giving Android the green light:

In addition, for the time being, Microsoft will not offer new Windows versions to support non-Intel architectures that are targeting tablet PC development, noted Guggenheimer.

The formation of a market segment for a new product category necessitates the existence of a supporting ecosystem made up of a complete industry supply chain, Guggenheimer emphasized. He cited the netbook market as an example; units were selling well initially and people believed that the market was going to be established as a new segment, but recently market growth has slowed down considerably, Guggenheimer pointed out.

via Whether tablet PCs can become market segment is still uncertain, says Microsoft VP.

I remember when Microsoft used to be paranoid.

20% of American subs have a smartphone with 1.2 million switching every month

According to The State of Mobile Apps | Nielsen Wire 21% of American wireless subscribers have a smartphone at Q4 2009, up from 19% in the previous quarter and significantly higher than the 14% at the end of 2008.

A previous Comscore survey showed US smartphone penetration at about 17%.

If we were to blend the data to a rough estimate, I would say it’s fair to assume 20% penetration.  The total number of subscribers in the US is about 234 million, which makes for 46.8 million smartphone users.

This still leaves 80% or 187.2 million non-smartphone users.

The share gain of 6%/yr. means another 1.2 million Americans are switching into a smartphone every month.  Another decade and the non-smartphone market will simply be gone.

With AT&T lowering the barriers of entry with data plan pricing and with other operators matching, don’t be surprised if it happens sooner.

As saturation begins around 50% to 60% penetration, price competition will intensify.  That takes the tipping point to about 2013.

Nokia bullish on N900: sales substantially above expectations

A spokesman for Nokia, the world’s top cellphone maker, declined to comment on the sales number, saying the company was pleased with sales, but an executive was more bullish.

“Sales have substantially exceeded expectations,” Alberto Torres, head of Nokia’s solutions business, told the Open Mobile Summit trade conference in London this week.

via Nokia top model N900 sales below 100,000: Gartner | Reuters.

If Alberto Torres’ expectation for a flagship product is substantially less than 100k for a launch quarter, I wonder what disappoints him.

Analysts predict iPad sales (part II)

After 12 million units sold in 28 60 days, it’s time to review the analysts’ predictions:

First year iPad unit forecasts (sourced from TMO Finance Board)

  • Brian Marshall, Broadpoint AmTech 7.0
  • David Bailey, Goldman Sachs 6.2
  • Kathryn Huberty, Morgan Stanley 6.0
  • Shaw Wu, Kauffman Bros. 5.0
  • Mike Abramsky, RBC Capital Markets 5.0
  • Gene Munster, Piper Jaffray 3.5
  • Ben Reitzes, Barclays Capital 2.9
  • Keith Bachman, BMO Capital 2.5
  • Jeff Fidacaro, Susquehanna 2.1
  • Chris Whitmore, Deutsche Bank 2.0
  • Scott Craig, Merrill Lynch 1.2
  • Peter Misek, Canaccord Adams 1.2
  • Doug Reid, Thomas Weisel 1.1
  • Yair Reiner, Oppenheimer 1.1

Looks like at least half two thirds of these guys have already blown it.

For the record, in January I forecast 6 million units for calendar 2010 (and 10 million in first year).  It looks like I’ll be facing the iPad dunce corner as well.

See: Analysts predict iPad sales

IDC: I Dream of Claim Chowder

A few eyebrows were raised when Microsoft presented a slide at a French event where they made the claim that 30 Million Windows Phone devices would be sold by the end of 2011.  Given that the first Windows Phone won’t ship until October 2010 at the earliest, or, according to Mr. Ballmer, “by Christmas,” count me among the skeptics.

However, the claim was later retracted by Microsoft stating that they mis-quoted IDC, the original source for the forecast.  The correction was perhaps meant to put an end to the credibility crisis.

However, the actual forecast from IDC was even more preposterous. Continue reading “IDC: I Dream of Claim Chowder”

At 135 devices, the Android army marches on but what happened to the Windows Mobile legions?

The number of Android devices is rising steadily; it’s already up to 135.  Android devotees should rightly rejoice.  However, Android is not the first mobile platform with an open licensing strategy. A quick visit to pdadb.net lets us count the number of devices that shipped for every mobile platform in history.  We can also see the current market shares as listed by Gartner for these platforms.

The numbers of SKUs (stock keeping units) that have shipped historically vs. the market shares of the mobile phones running those platforms are (see Footnote below for some caveats):

The same data in a scatter plot: Continue reading “At 135 devices, the Android army marches on but what happened to the Windows Mobile legions?”

The black ships from Cupertino

Softbank stopped accepting reservations for the iPad after only three days.

In one Twitter exchange, Mitsuru Yoshii sent a message to Softbank Chief Executive Masayoshi Son saying that the iPad was the “21st century’s black ships.”

In response to the historical reference to the U.S. Naval fleet that opened up Japan to the West in 1853, Mr. Son wrote back: “Indeed!”

via Japan’s iPad Frenzy Signals a Sea Change – WSJ.com.

In Japan the term “Black Ships” has come to symbolise a threat imposed by Western technology but also the opening of Japan to the West and the awakening of imperial ambitions that lasted for a century.

Instant messaging: AFK

In 2007, 14% of Britons’ online time was spent on IM, according to the UK Online Measurement company – but that has fallen to just 5%, the firm says, basing its findings on the habits of a panel of 40,000 computer users.

The study was released shortly after AOL sold its ICQ instant messaging service $187.5m (£124m) – less than half what the company paid for it in 1998.

And in September 2009, a survey of internet use by the New York-based Online Publishers Association found that the amount of time spent by surfers on traditional communications tools, including IM and e-mail, had declined by 8% since 2003.

via BBC News – Instant messaging: This conversation is terminated.

In other news today Yahoo and Nokia announced a worldwide partnership. Yahoo will provide e-mail and chat services on Nokia phones. The services will be co-branded.

OMG LOL.

Does iPhone really have 72% of Japanese smartphone market?

MM Research does not count Symbian as a smartphone platform. This makes them inconsistent with any other analyst for counting smartphones.  So shouldn’t Symbian be included?

In a comment to iPhone has 72% of Japanese smartphone market | Asymco it’s been pointed out that 12 million Symbian sold in the same time frame as Apple sold 1.7 million phones in Japan.

It would seem then that the correct market share for iPhone would be 12%, with Symbian having 83% and “others” having less than 5%.

However…

Symbian in Japan is not the same thing as Symbian elsewhere.  Symbian in Japan is used as a low level OS by Fujitsu, Sony Ericsson Japan, Mitsubishi, Sharp and others to provide devices running the MOAP(Symbian) software platform.  MOAP (Mobile Oriented Applications Platform) is the software platform for NTT DoCoMo’s FOMA (Freedom of Mobile Multimedia Access) service.

Unlike Series 60 and UIQ MOAP(Symbian) is not a open development platform.

MOAP is also supported by Linux with Panasonic and NEC using it in something called MOAP(Linux).

MOAP(Linux) is also not an open development platform.

So the “72% share for iPhone” in Japan must be stated with this important caveat: that Symbian and Linux are not included because, due to not having exposed APIs, they are classified as feature phone platforms.