Written on Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Egham, UK, November 10, 2010 — Worldwide mobile phone sales to end users totaled 417 million units in the third quarter of 2010, a 35 percent increase from the third quarter of 2009, according to Gartner, Inc. Smartphone sales grew 96 percent from the third quarter last year, and smartphones accounted for 19.3 percent of overall mobile phone sales in the third quarter of 2010.
“This is the third consecutive double-digit increase in sales year-on-year, indicating that consumer demand is healthy,” said Carolina Milanesi, research vice president at Gartner. “This quarter saw Apple and Android drive record smartphone sales. Apple's share of the smartphone market surpassed Research In Motion (RIM) in North America to put it second behind Android while Android volumes also grew rapidly making it the No. 2 operating system worldwide.”
Although the top three worldwide mobile device manufacturers Nokia, Samsung and LG remained the same – albeit with reduced market share - the third quarter saw Apple rise into the top five manufacturers, surpassing RIM for fourth place (see Table 1).
In addition to strong growth of smartphone sales in mature markets, increasing sales of white-box products in some emerging regions drove sales of mobile phones upward once again. “In the third quarter, white-box manufacturers continued to expand their reach outside of China into markets such as India, Russia, Africa and Latin America,” said Ms. Milanesi. “We firmly believe this phenomenon will not be short-lived as we still see a continued need for non-3G devices. Although we have seen acceleration in sales this quarter, we expect an even bigger volume in the fourth quarter of 2010.”
The rise of white-box manufacturers from Asia has also helped the ‘Others’ section, as a proportion of overall sales, increasing its market share to 33.0 percent in the third quarter of 2010. “This is having a profound effect on the top five mobile handset manufacturers’ combined share that dropped from 83 percent in the third quarter of 2009 to 66.9 percent in the third quarter of 2010,” said Ms. Milanesi.
Table 1
Worldwide Mobile Terminal Sales to End Users in 3Q10 (Thousands of Units)
Company | 3Q10 Units | 3Q10 Market Share (%) | 3Q09 Units | 3Q09 Market Share (%) |
Nokia | 117,461.0 | 28.2 | 113,466.2 | 36.7 |
Samsung | 71,671.8 | 17.2 | 60,627.7 | 19.6 |
LG | 27,478.7 | 6.6 | 31,901.4 | 10.3 |
Apple | 13,484.4 | 3.2 | 7,040.4 | 2.3 |
Research In Motion | 11,908.3 | 2.9 | 8,522.7 | 2.8 |
Sony Ericsson | 10,346.5 | 2.5 | 13,409.5 | 4.3 |
Motorola | 8,961.4 | 2.1 | 13,912.8 | 4.5 |
HTC | 6,494.3 | 1.6 | 2,659.5 | 0.9 |
ZTE | 6,003.6 | 1.4 | 4,143.7 | 1.3 |
Huawei Technologies | 5,478.1 | 1.3 | 3,339.7 | 1.1 |
Others | 137,797.6 | 33.0 | 49,871.1 | 16.1 |
Total | 417,085.7 | 100.0 | 308,894.7 | 100.0 |
Source: Gartner (November 2010)
In the third quarter of 2010, Nokia sold 110.4 million units into the channel. Its volume sales were slightly lower than expected due to shortages of components, such as camera modules and displays, which restricted availability of lower cost devices. Demand for its lower end products was met through some destocking in inventory volume that helped Nokia in its sell through volume reach 117.5 million units. This resulted in a market share decline of 8.5 percentage points from the third quarter of 2009. But shortages of low-end devices also encouraged many consumers to buy a more expensive product. Combined with favorable currency exchange rates, this meant Nokia's financial results were better than expected.
Samsung had a strong third quarter, as mobile phone sales reached 71.7 million handsets in the third quarter of 2010, up 18.2 percent from the third quarter of 2009. However, its market share experienced a slight decline to 17.2 per cent in the third quarter of 2010. Samsung's smartphone market share reached 10 percent in the third quarter of 2010. Samsung sold close to 1 million bada devices in the third quarter of 2010, and 6.6 million Android phones, making Samsung the top Android seller.
LG sold 27.5 million mobile devices in the third quarter of 2010, as its global market share dropped to 6.6 percent. LG's strengths in stylish midtier devices are becoming less relevant in mature markets that are moving increasingly toward smartphones, and this is translating directly into market share. LG lacks a flagship smartphone; its devices tend to be affordable midtier devices that lack hardware or software innovation, priced at the low end of communication service provider (CSP) partners' ranges.
Apple delivered a stellar performance in the third quarter of 2010, selling 13.5 million units. It could have sold more but for its ongoing supply constraints and is now in fourth place worldwide. The iPhone is sold in 89 countries through 166 CSPs. Apple's sales in Europe, Asia and Japan, more than doubled from the third quarter of 2009 and sales in Western Europe delivered Apple the third spot in the regional ranking. While Apple remains focused on consumers, enterprise adoption of the iPhone and iPad has grown.
RIM sold 11.9 million devices to end users in the third quarter of 2010, and its global share of the smartphone market fell to 14.8 percent. RIM's share of the overall North American market declined to 11.2 percent in the third quarter of 2010, from 12.7 percent in the third quarter of 2009. RIM lost its leading smartphone market position to Apple. As well as the effect of the iPhone 4, new Android devices like the Motorola Droid X, Samsung Galaxy S and HTC Incredible and Evo also reduced RIM's market share. But new devices like the BlackBerry Torch helped to maintain RIM's unit sale momentum in the U.S. due to AT&T's promotional campaigns.
Smartphone Sales
The third quarter of 2010 produced record sales of more than 81 million communication devices based on open operating systems (smartphones). Android accounted for 25.5 percent of worldwide smartphone sales, making it the No. 2 operating system (OS). It was particularly dominant in North America.
Table 2
Worldwide Smartphone Sales to End Users by Operating System in 3Q10 (Thousands of Units)
Company | 3Q10 Units | 3Q10 Market Share (%) | 3Q09 Units | 3Q09 Market Share (%) |
Symbian | 29,480.1 | 36.6 | 18,314.8 | 44.6 |
Android | 20,500.0 | 25.5 | 1,424.5 | 3.5 |
iOS | 13,484.4 | 16.7 | 7,040.4 | 17.1 |
Research In Motion | 11,908.3 | 14.8 | 8,522.7 | 20.7 |
Microsoft Windows Mobile | 2,247.9 | 2.8 | 3,259.9 | 7.9 |
Linux | 1,697.1 | 2.1 | 1,918.5 | 4.7 |
Other OS | 1,214.8 | 1.5 | 612.5 | 1.5 |
Total | 80,532.6 | 100.0 | 41,093.3 | 100.0 |
Source: Gartner (November 2010)
Gartner estimates Android phones accounted for 75 percent to 80 percent of Verizon Wireless's smartphone trade in the third quarter of 2010. Manufacturers such as Samsung continued to launch high-end devices like the Galaxy S. But manufacturers also launched Android devices at lower prices to target different consumer segments. For example, ZTE launched a sub-£100 Android phone with Orange in the prepay U.K. market. For its part, Google is maintaining a fast pace of OS updates. Each version brings new features and polish to Android, and the level of innovation is a major differentiator.
Apple performed extremely well thanks to the iPhone 4. Relationships with multiple CSPs gave Apple wider channel reach internationally, and the strong ecosystem around iTunes and the App Store continued to help Apple dominate. Apple's share of the smartphone market surpassed RIM in North America to put it second behind Android. In Western Europe, iPhone sales doubled year-on-year, making Apple the third-largest vendor behind Nokia and Samsung in the overall devices market.
“Smartphone OS providers have entered a period of accelerated platform evolution, stimulated by more regular product releases, new platform entrants and new device types,” said Roberta Cozza, principal research analyst at Gartner. “Any platform that fails to innovate quickly — either through a vibrant multi-player ecosystem or clear vision of a single controlling entity — will lose developers, manufacturers, potential partners and ultimately users.”
What’s Ahead
For 2010, Gartner now expects overall devices sales to show over 30 percent year-on-year growth fueled by white-box manufacturers. The impact of media tablets on mobile device sales will be tested in 2011. Gartner forecasts that media tablets (such as the Apple iPad) will reach 54.8 million units in 2011.
“Apple's dramatic expansion of iOS with the iPad and the continuing success of the iPod Touch are important sales achievements in their own right. But more importantly they contribute to the strength of Apple's ecosystem and the iPhone in a way that smartphone-only manufacturers cannot compete with,” Ms. Milanesi said. “To a developer, the iPod Touch and iPhone (and to a lesser extent the iPad) are effectively the same device and a single market opportunity. While Android is increasingly available on media tablets and media players like the Galaxy Player, it lags far behind iOS's multi-device presence. Apple claims it is activating around 275,000 iOS devices per day on average — that's a compelling market for any developer. And developers' applications in turn attract users.”
Additional information is in the Gartner report "Competitive Landscape: Mobile Devices, Worldwide, 3Q10." The report is available on Gartner's website at
http://www.gartner.com/resId=1465830.
Posted in
mobile marketing,
press releases
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Written on Friday, November 19, 2010
Right about now you're thinking... "What? Interactive TV? What is he on about? Isn't that the box you sit idly in front of, just watching?"
Well, let's take a look at how an idea that breaks the conventional perceptions we have for mediums (and other things of course), revolutionizes our views.
In a classical example of 'thinking outside the box' the people who designed the ad -
Change Integrated, Warsaw - took the only interaction you have with the TV (that of the remote) and turned the medium into a truly interactive advertising channel, by purchasing ad airtime on 2 channels simultaneously, so that when you change the channel you see the ad-related result of your interaction.
The Skoda Superb Estate remote control boot was test driven by television viewers in Poland this year with a pair of television commercials designed for
Skoda Auto Poland. The majority of Polish TV viewers in Poland watch TVP1 on Channel 1 and TVP2 on Channel 2, a legacy from the days when only two channels were available. Two commercials were broadcast simultaneously on the two channels, one with the boot open, one with the boot closed. To open or close the boot, viewers just needed to use their television remote to change the channel. The campaign won a Bronze Direct Lion at Cannes and has just been awarded the Grand Prix for Film at the Golden Drum Awards.
Here's the campaign video as well.. Do take a look:
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Written on Tuesday, November 16, 2010
I have just come across this very interesting article which contains some very interesting insights into how mobile phone manufacturers' share of market and profit has changed from 2007 to 2010.
Well worth a look! From the
article:
I plotted the vendors on share of market and share of profit axes in two different points in time: Q2 2007 and Q2 2010. I further broke the chart into four quadrants as shown:
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Written on Friday, November 12, 2010
Justine Duc is a graduate student doing a Master Degree in Marketing, in the Toulouse Business School, and recently contacted me with an article she's written for Mobile Tourism and mobile marketing. It's worth a read, as it's got some pretty interesting views about how tourism is evolving and will evolve over the years to come. Here it is:
Technology drives the tourism industry evolution. Since the internet emergence, the sector has known few revolutions. From the e-tourism to tourism 2.0, the dematerialisation and disintermediation have revolutionized the distribution and commercialisation strategies of the sector. And, the tourist behaviour has changed in many aspects. From now on, he is active, independent, very informed and connected. He doesn’t want to wait for information, desiring to get it at the right moment and place. Now, he knows everything at anytime with his smart phone! Not only for calling, the mobile phone becomes, the tool we use to take pictures, make videos, send text message, and surf on internet.
In January 2010, 7.14 millions of French people got a smart phone that is to say an increase of 48% in comparison with January 2009. With a high penetration rate of 80% in developed countries, and a fast evolution, mobile phones are revolutionizing the marketing: Mobile marketing is born!
Mobile marketing is developing in many industries. However, depending on the industry nature, mobile marketing is more or less successful. For the tourism industry, mobile marketing seems to be the perfect way of responding to the demand of the new tourist. As we said before, he is active, hyper connected and informed and especially mobile. In other words, the tourist moves a lot, and needs information everywhere, at anytime. Mobile marketing is popular in tourism, and quite well accepted and integrated by tourists. Tourists are mobile marketing users at three phases: pre trip, during trip, and post trip. For each phase, their needs are quite different: From needs of information, to need of sharing. Their behaviours underline the fact that consumers and not only tourists are rejecting any constraints. That is to say, he doesn’t want to wait for getting internet access. When he wants information, he wants to have it directly. In other words, he is rejecting time and place constraints concerning internet access.
Mobile marketing is brand new, and it’s difficult to plan its evolution and its success on long term in Europe. Mobile marketing has been developed 8 years ago in Japan. “The Japanese population is estimated about 127 millions of persons. Among this population, 107.5 millions of persons got a mobile phone. The penetration rate of mobile phone is about 84.5%. Among all mobile phone subscribers, 95% of them use the 3G network.”
Analyses proved that Japanese surfers use more their mobile (79, 5%) than their computer (75, 6%) to surf on the net. The integration of the mobile phone in their daily life is impressive. They use it as phone, GPS, keys, metro pass, money, and ads support. The well acceptance and excellent integration of mobile marketing in the daily life of Japanese people let’s think that mobile marketing will continue to evolve in Europe to become the daily marketing tool of tomorrow. But, it’s essential to moderate the comparison. Because of cultural differences, the development won’t be the same in Europe. First, the way of life of Japanese people is quite different from European. From 7h00 am to 00h00 pm, they used to be far away from home, without access to their own computer, they spent many times in transport, and love mobile technology.
The future traveller will be more informed and demanding. His education and huge travel choices will increase his expectations. He will wait for more personalisation in products and services offer. He will expect more security, and comfort. The perspectives of technology information aims at evaluate through a more personalized and attractive model, which will be able to identify and respond in an intuitive way the individual consumer need. This technology socialisation will offer a real touristic experience. The travel will become an experience without constraint. Various analyses seem to demonstrate a correlation with the future demand and offer. On the first hand, consumers will expect more detailed information in the right moment and place. On the second hand, technology evolution will be more and more intelligent in order to adapt information in a personalized way to the customers thanks to a very performing geolocalisation service. Thus, the travel industry will have the ability to know exactly the customers’ needs, adapting the services offers in function of his localisation, his touristic nature and experience, his need and preoccupation. Thus, it seems that technology will facilitate all travellers’ lives.
Few current mobile marketing limits shows that today mobile marketing should stay a complementary tool to classic marketing. First, mobile tourism is still very costly for the tourism professional, and difficult to integrate into marketing strategies because of a lack of skilled employees. Currently, only big tourism group are able to invest and propose mobile marketing services. Secondly, the cost for customers is still high, especially in France. The subscription to get ilimited 3G internet access is the most expensive in Europe. The problem of the cost 3G access asks another question. When a tourist goes abroad, the connection of 3G network is out of the subscription price, and most of the time the connection is very expensive. Moreover, two other issues can slow down the evolution of mobile marketing and mobile tourism. In one hand, the equipment rate proves that more and more persons have a smart phone. But it’s currently not a generality among all customers. In addition, as we said before the connection pleasure and frequency depends strongly on the smart phone. And finally, mobile marketing is more used by young and urban people.
Mobile marketing is quite new in Europe. It’s still in evolution. Future phones will propose many other opportunities to respond to tourist needs, in an easy way. As all technology, we will see a democratisation of it. Thus, smart phones, and subscriptions will be much cheaper in the next months or years. We should be confident in technology!
With no hesitation, mobile marketing and mobile tourism is the fashion trend in the travel industry, especially from the iphone and blackberry arrivals on the market. But, we absolutely can’t say that mobile marketing is just a trend which will be over in the next years. It seems to be very clear that tourists have all reasons to definitely adopt it, to completely change their way of travelling.
Justine DUC
Toulouse Business School
Posted in
mobile entertainment,
mobile marketing,
mobile services
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Written on Tuesday, November 09, 2010
Ok, so most of you already reading this blog wouldn't really ask this question -- but don't close your browser tab / RSS reader just yet. Today's post is about a very interesting overview of our sector I have just come across, which contains a lot of condensed information, very well-presented, so that you can quickly get the 'big picture' of all the different things 'Mobile Marketing' as a term includes -- presented as a Mobile Marketing Map.
Credit goes to
FirstPartner who have released this
map, which, in their words:
This map provides a 360 degree view of the mobile marketing industry, covering all the essential UK facts, figures, players and trends.
The map is mainly based on UK data, but I'm sure most of the information in there applies to a lot of other markets worldwide. Of course, different markets each have different characteristics, meaning that depending on where you are in the world, or where you wish to setup your business, you should put different emphasis in each of these fields (for example, don't waste your time developing iPhone / Android apps if there aren't a lot of smartphones in your country).
Also, different markets might lack the necessary infrastructure to support some of these marketing scenarios. For example, there's no point setting up an interactive SMS business in a country where the network operators don't yet provide short codes.
There are plenty of factors you need to take into consideration when attempting to set up a mobile marketing business venture in a specific country, but the good thing about this map is that it gives a pretty extensive overview of the different things you can do, and as such is a pretty good source of ideas.
Posted in
mobile marketing
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Written on Thursday, November 04, 2010
With the upcoming
county elections this weekend and the next here in Greece, it's been a pretty busy couple of weeks at work. Everyone suddenly's realized the potential SMS has to offer them in reaching the masses they wish to turn into their voters.
Surprisingly, to me at least, there's still a lot of people amongst this year's candidates and a lot of them young people as well, who still hadn't realized this sort of service existed. And we're talking about Bulk SMS - not some fancy 'send an SMS to register your support and receive updates' (interactive/2-way SMS), nor mobile sites and I'm not even thinking of mentioning iPhone apps to any of them.
This year's elections have been a pretty good reminder of just how much potential there is in the Greek market for
mobile marketing products & services BUT... just not yet!
What I am seeing is still somewhat limited understanding from greek politicians and even professionals for what mobile marketing can do for their businesses / political campaigns.
But, really, there is just no substitute for what SMS offers as a message delivery medium!
Here are just some of the first examples that come to mind of things you can do with SMS alone during your political campaign:
You can:
- send out your political office contact details - so that your supporters have an immediate access point to you,
- send out invitations to your speeches or events - so that you can instantly communicate your message to large masses,
- boost your tech profile - so that you can approach the younger voters, who are traditionally hard to swing your way,
- send personalized messages - so that you build a personal relationship and each voter feels the SMS message is addressed specifically to them.
Inform your supporters for:
- news, public speeches, radio interviews or TV appearances - so they can understand your views,
- schedule of tours - so they know where to find you in order to meet you in person,
- future plans, if elected - so they know why to vote for you.
In general - just use your imagination and create the ideal message for your voters. SMS - and mobile in general - is the ideal medium to get personal, direct, instant and targeted messages across to large groups of people simultaneously, and is also the cheapest way to do so (apart from email of course).
Make your message worth your voters' attention and I'm sure you have a lot to gain from using mobile marketing in your political campaign.
Posted in
mobile marketing,
sms marketing
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