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Posts Tagged ‘sales’

iPhone sales may be nearly doubled Christmas 2008 to 2009, but the smartphone is facing increasing competition, and has suffered a significant loss of market share in Q4 2009.

Apple sold 8.7 million iPhones in Q4 2009, which was below analyst expectations.  According to ABI Research this represents a drop in market share form 18% in Q3 to 16.6 % in Q4.

The stumble can be attributed to increasing competition from high end handsets like the Motorola Droid and devices such as the HTC HD2 and a rather stale device line-up.

Michael Morgan, an analyst at ABI Research, says Apple could be running into a case of “Razr burn”, referring to the meteoric rise and as precipitous fall of the iconic handset which remained essentially unchanged for two years.

Analyst Rob Endele noted "Even in the pain, Apple is realizing a much higher level of profit than any of the other handset vendors. Clearly, Apple is favouring profit over market share,"  "That is consistent with Apple’s strategy. The company may very well continue to drop market share, but you will see them hold viciously on the profits."

With Apple insisting on a high profit margin and carriers increasingly having alternatives to spur consumer data usage demand, it is likely the iPhone will dwindle into a niche market just like Apple computers

Read more at Newsfactor here.

We posted last month on the exceptional rise in browser usage as measured my Hitlinks recently.  At the time it may have been a fluke, but it seems the feat was repeated again in January.

In December Windows Mobile browser usage increased from 0.04% of all browsers (including desktops) to 0.06%.  In January it increased further to 0.07%, 75% higher than the pretty stable 0.04% Windows Mobile occupied most of the year.

Windows Mobile currently occupies the 3rd spot in smartphone browser usage, behind the iPhone and Symbian, but ahead of Android, which at 0.6% also increased by 0.01 point in the last month, and well ahead of other platforms such as RIM’s Blackberry with 0.03% and Palm with 0.01%.

That Windows Mobile remains a growing platform should be borne in mind by developers, both on the web and in apps, who often chose not to serve an increasing and increasingly active user base and serve a more congested market.

The message – Windows Mobile is not just not dead, but actually thriving.

Are you using your smartphone browser more?  Let us know below.

See the stats at Hitlinks here.

We have touched on this earlier, but with IDC estimating 18.3 Windows Mobile phones were sold last year, and HTC only selling 11.7 smartphones, that HTC no longer owns more than 50% of the Windows Mobile market.

Now Digitimes Research estimates HTC sold more Android phones phones than Windows Mobile phones, estimating they sold 6 million Android devices.  That would leave 5.7 million Windows Mobile phones, meaning at 31% of the Windows Mobile market HTC is now pretty small potatoes.

Now of course the other 69% could be equally shared between the other 15 OEMs, but a much higher likelihood is that another company ran away with the lion share of the market.

The  best candidate for the crown is Samsung, who impressed with their Omnia range, and IDC notes that the Omnia 2 did particularly well for them.

Of course its sad to see HTC lose dominance of a market they pioneered so long ago, but Samsung has in fact always been more open than HTC when it comes to the internals of their devices, offering SDK’s and developer support quite freely, very much unlike HTC.

What are our reader’s feelings on the matter?  Let us know below.

In a survey of 218 US businesses, Boston-based Aberdeen group has found more than twice as many businesses intended to implement Windows Mobile solutions than Blackberry-based solutions in 2010.

While RIM’s Blackberry was more widely implemented in 2009, with 74% of businesses using the devices vs 63% using Windows Mobile, only 3% of the companies surveyed intended to introduce the platform to their business, vs 7% new wins for Windows Mobile.

That would bring Windows Mobile adoption up to 70% of US businesses, compared to 77% for Blackberry.

The Aberdeen group notes that this could be a warning sign to RIM that their enterprise momentum has slowed considerably, likely due to their new focus on consumer rather than enterprise features.

Both iPhone and Android are also growing strongly in business, but with a single mobile incident being able to cost up to $2.1 million in Sarbanes Oxley penalties businesses should be thinking twice about supporting these unproven platforms.

With only 4% of businesses planning to adopt WebOS, Palm has yet to convince the market that WebOS has a future.

Read more at MobileEnterpriseMag here.

IDC has predicted that Windows Mobile will grow strongly between 2009 and 2013.  Noting that 18.3 million Windows Mobile handsets were shipped last year (7% down on 2008), IDC predicted Windows Mobile will boost its "consumer appeal" by being easier to use and supporting more multimedia applications and games. They forecast 51.7 million Windows Mobile handsets will be shipped in 3 years time.

While they project Android to grow explosively, that still places Windows Mobile as the OS with the second fastest growth over the period at 183%. The market itself is expected to grow by 20.1% each year.

Of note is that, according to the forecast, Windows Mobile is set to overtake the iPhone again in total yearly shipments.

The study found that Linux and webOS shipments will struggle throughout the forecast period. Palm’s HTML based operating system, despite growing steadily, will capture limited market share due to limited deployment and availability of devices across multiple carriers.

IDC expects Windows Mobile to grow its market share by 3%, from 10% in 2009 to 13% in 2013, while both RIM and the iPhone will see a drop, RIM by 2% and the iPhone by 1%.

Another interesting factoid is that HTC only shipped 11.7 million smartphones in 2009, some of these of course being Android devices.  This is another indication that HTC is no longer the majority of the Windows Mobile market, and more attention should be paid to other players such as LG and certainly Samsung, who has always been a strong Windows Mobile partner.

Read more here.

HTC has announced that it expects revenue to grow by up to 7 percent in the first quarter to around $1 billion, but margins are expected to fall from 32% last quarter to 30% this quarter as it plans to introduce lower-priced models to developing markets such as China.

HTC is quoted to have said:

"We retain our long-term bullish tone on China smart phone growth potential and likely a big revenue contributor to our growth in the next couple years,"

Arthur Hsieh, an analyst at UBS however felt  "The margin they’re forecasting is a little worse than I’d expected, but that’s something they’ll have to accept, because prices will come down if HTC wants to target the mass market."

HTC expressed confidence in leveraging their involvement with the Google Nexus One to enhance their brand awareness.  HTC will however be acting as the ODM rather then OEM for the handset, which almost certainly means lower margins and less publicity.

It is of note that the Google Nexus One sells for only $529, much cheaper than the similarly specified HTC HD2, which sells for $640, even after a price drop.

HTC’s shares dropped 1.91 percent on the announcement, and have fallen  around 15% since July 2009.

Read more at Reuters here.

Now of course we do not know how many HTC HD2’s were sold, but we can be very certain HTC’s whole first shipment did in fact sell-out, with shortages all over the place.

The same can not be set of HTC’s Android ‘superphone’ , which is estimated to have sold only 20 000 units, despite the full force of Google’s all powerful advertising network being behind it.  In fact its likely if you look to the left you will see an add for the Nexus, as Google has been pushing its ad onto many Windows Mobile sites using Google ads, and of course most companies would kill to get a front-page add on the Google search home page.

Claims of 6 million Nexus One sales in 2010 now seem a tad optimistic – 20 000 x 50 is only equal to one million.

Read more about the Google Nexus phone sales disappointment at Venturebeat here.