sales

Nokia Lumia 900 takes 5th position in Netcom Norway’s April sale charts

May 24, 2012 | By Surur

Top ten most sold smartphones through NetCom for April 2012

Phone	Apr 12	Mar 12	Feb 12	Platform
Apple iPhone 4s	1	2	1	iOS
Samsung Galaxy S II	2	1	2	Android
Apple iPhone 4	3	3	3	iOS
HTC One X	4	-	-	Android
Nokia Lumia 800	5	4	4	WP7
Sony Xperia S	6	-	-	Android
Samsung Galaxy Xcover	7	6	8	Android
Samsung Galaxy Note	8	8	-	Android
Huawei Honor	9	-	-	Android
Sony Ericsson Xperia Active	10	-	10	Android
Samsung Galaxy 5	-	5	6	Android
Sony Ericsson ARC S	-	7	5	Android
Samsung Galaxy Y	-	9	-	Android
HTC Sensation	-	10	-	Android
SE Experia Mini Pro	-	-	7	Android
ZTE Blade	-	-	9	Android

Netcom has finally released their smartphone sales charts for April 2012. Netcom is Norway’s second biggest carrier, and last month revealed Windows Phone has 7% market share in March 2012.

This month the Nokia Lumia 800 slipped to the 5th spot, after the arrival of the HTC One X in the 4th position. Windows Phone dropped from 7 to 6%, but we suspect the arrival of two new handsets, mostly unfortunately in June, should reverse this trend.

Latest Gartner numbers for Q1 2012 reveals few surprises

May 16, 2012 | By Surur

Worldwide Smartphone Sales to End Users by Operating System in 1Q12 (Thousands of Units)

Operating System	1Q12 Units	1Q12 Market Share (%)	1Q11 Units	1Q11 Market Share (%)
Android	81,067.4	56.1	36,350.1	36.4
iOS	33,120.5	22.9	16,883.2	16.9
Symbian	12,466.9	8.6	27,598.5	27.7
Research In Motion	9,939.3	6.9	13,004.0	13.0
Bada	3,842.2	2.7	1,862.2	1.9
Microsoft	2,712.5	1.9	2,582.1	2.6
Others	1,242.9	0.9	1,495.0	1.5
Total	144,391.7	100.0	99,775.0	100.0

Source: Gartner (May 2012)

Gartner has released their smartphone market share estimates for Q1 2012, and now, 5 months into the new year, they do not reveal much new.

Total Windows Phone and smartphone sales have remained flat from Q4 2011 to Q1 2012, with 2.7590 million handsets sold in the holiday season, and 2.7125 million handsets sold in Q1 2012. Market share numbers remained static at 1.9%.

Of particular interest is that Nokia shipped around 2 million Windows Phones in Q1 2012, and with only 2.7 million Windows Phones sold that quarter, it suggests Nokia now holds around 66% share of the Windows Phone OEM market.

The numbers also show that Android has now become the operating system to beat, which is rather good news for Windows Phone, given that the quality of the Android ecosystem is rather poor to start with, making it not too difficult to create a compelling alternative.

Of note to regular readers is that Gartner’s numbers agree pretty well with our own projections based on Facebook Monthly Active Users, which at present predicts that sales will remain rather flat into Q2 also, but also that with around 12 million handsets in circulation Windows Phone is building a a sustainable market which should help reward developers who support it, and set a reasonable foundation for Windows Phone 8 in the near future.

Source: Gartner numbers via Telecomlead.com

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Full Kantar numbers confirm Windows Phone outselling Blackberry in US, Germany, Australia

May 16, 2012 | By Surur

The full Kantar WorldPanel market share numbers for the 12 weeks until April 15th have now become available, and they confirm what we suspected yesterday; that Windows Phone 7 is rapidly overtaking Blackberry sales in major markets, including USA.

The numbers show in US Windows Phone held 3.6% market share in the 3 months leading to mid-April beating the 3.2% of RIM sales. Windows Phone is of course on the way up, near doubling from 1.9% a year ago to 3.6%, and that was before the full Nokia Lumia 900 push.

Germany saw a slower fade by RIM, dropping from 2.4 to 2.1% year on year, while Windows Phone share did double, from 2.9% to 6.2% year on year.

Lastly, even in Windows Phone’s less successful markets, Australia, where market share only increased from 1.4 to 1.6%, and it seems Windows Mobile handsets (likely for enterprise) still outsell Windows phones, Windows Phones still held a higher market share than RIM, which only achieved 1%.

Also of note from the numbers is that for those who have joked that Windows phone is not even outselling Bada, that OS seems to be fading rapidly all over the world also, leaving Windows Phone, with iOS and Android, as the only growing ecosystems, making it once again a pretty safe bet to say the 3rd ecosystem has arrived after all.

See the full Kantar numbers after the break.

Continue reading →

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Now 1.9 million Windows Phone Facebook users, around 12 million devices in the wild

May 15, 2012 | By Surur

The number of monthly active users of the native Windows Phone Facebook integration has taken another tick up, crossing 1.9 million users today.

It took 20 days since 1.8 million, slightly faster than the 21 day average but slower than the 15 days it took from 1.7-1.8 million, which was likely due to the Nokia Lumia 900 launch.

Using our usual ratio, we now estimate that there are around 12.3 million Windows Phones in use in the wild. This number exclude Chinese Tango phones, which lack Facebook integration.

At current rates it appears around 3.2 million Windows Phones will have been sold in Q2, but of course once again this excludes Chinese Tango phones and does not take into account bumps due to the launch of the Nokia Lumia 610 and potentially Samsung’s new lower-end Windows Phones, which may raise this number to slightly above 4 million, for a likely 3% market share.

The vast majority of these 4 million Windows Phones will likely be Nokia Lumia handsets, and it is of note that since the release of the Nokia Lumia 800 in October 2011 the total number of Windows Phones sold have doubled in less than 7 months, after taking a year to reach around 6 million before this.

Hopefully this growth can continue, with a target of between 5-10% market share at the end of the year.

Thanks jp for the tip.

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Kantar: Windows Phone climbs to 3-4% market share in major markets, may have overtaken Blackberry in USA

May 15, 2012 | By Surur

Market research company Kantar WorldPanel has revealed in the last 12 weeks to mid-April Windows Phone has shown strong growth in the 7 major markets they monitor on the strength of Nokia’s offerings.

In 5 of the 7 markets (Germany, Britain, Italy, France and United States) Windows Phone market share is now in the 3-4% range, up from less than 2% in January 2012. In Germany Windows Phone market share more than doubled year on year to 6%.

In contrast RIM saw its US market share collapse to just 3% from 9% a year earlier, suggesting Windows Phone may have matched or even passed RIM’s market share in USA.

Kantar has predicted in January Windows Phone market share may hit 10% in Europe in the second half of 2012, and it seems to me with more Windows Phones being announced all the time that this may very well be achievable.

Via Reuters.com

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Chinese Nokia Lumia 800c "sales have been brisk in all possible channels"

May 14, 2012 | By Surur

The Nokia Lumia 800c launched in early April on China Telecom to long queues and reports of good sales.

A bit late, we have a comment from Nokia regarding the performance of the handset.

According to China Daily, Wang Jingqiu, the company’s Beijing-based spokesperson, said "sales have been brisk in all possible channels".

There is some other evidence that the Lumia range is selling well, with Statcounter showing the market share of the handset rapidly rising from a low of 0.16% at the beginning of the year to 0.4% now, ahead of Blackberry, which never really took of in China.

Nokia recently reinforced their range with the Chinese launch of the low-end Nokia Lumia 610, which should help the company reach for that low end high volume price point which has always been their forte.

Thanks Manuel for the tip.

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Windows Phone inching up, Blackberry crashing down; when will the two meet

May 11, 2012 | By Surur

If there is one way to add a shine to Windows Phone 7’s slow progress looking at Blackberry’s steep plunge is always very reliable.

While Windows Phone has continued to make slow progress in the US market, with around 2% market share in March and 1.7% of all subscribers, its rate of progress is not exciting anyone.

On the other hand, at least it is going up. According to Statcounter’s data over the last 5 months, Blackberry users are getting rid of their handsets as fast as possible, dropping about 1% market share every two months.

The question which arises if when these two lines, one ascending and one descending, will meet. Using a simple linear regression the cross over date is in about 160 days, or October 2012.

The irony of the date of course is that both Microsoft and RIM are expected to unveil devices running new versions of their OS that month, in RIM’s care to turn things around, while in Microsoft’s case the aim would be to accelerate their growth.

Clearly whoever executes best will end up taking the bronze medal.

See the Statcounter data here.

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Are the Nokia Lumia 610 and 800 underperforming?

May 11, 2012 | By Surur

Digitimes reports that Compal, a major Nokia ODM for the Nokia Lumia 800 and 610, expects to ship around 2 million smartphones in Q2 2012, noting that orders for the Nokia Lumia 800 has been scaled back. While this number is up 30% from Q1 2012, regular readers will notice that it does represent a significant decrease from previous numbers.

In March 2012 the Chinese Economic Daily News expected Compal to ship 4 million smartphones in Q2 2012, with “Nokia’s Lumia 610 accounting for the bulk of the shipments”, and in April 2012 this number was pruned back to 2.5-3 million.

It now seems much more likely that Nokia will ship around 3 million Windows Phones in Q2 2012, which will likely disappoint already wary investors looking for Nokia to double their Lumia shipments every quarter rather than linear growth.

Nokia has reported that it has seen a mixed response to their Lumia handsets in many parts of the world. Fortunately for Nokia any disappointment with the Nokia Lumia 800 may be buttressed by better than expected sales of the Lumia 900 in USA. Hopefully as the devices start trickling into the main stream and creating some buzz uptake will improve in the future.

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Analyst: Channel checks find Nokia Lumia 900 outselling the HTC One X

May 9, 2012 | By Surur

Channel checks by Raymond James analyst Tavis McCourt from 15 AT&T stores found the Nokia Lumia 900 is continuing to sell “reasonably well”.

In fact he found according to most stores it was the second-best seller after the iPhone. This of course agreed with Canaccord Genuity similar findings.

He also looked at the HTC One X, and found it was also selling “reasonably well”, but logically worse than the Lumia 900.

He writes:

Our conversations with store reps indicated no signs of Lumia demand “falling off a cliff” following the reasonably strong launch week. Clearly, at $99 and with very noticeable retail store support from AT&T reps, the Lumia launch in the US was built for volume. We are still skeptical that demand can remain strong as the HTC One X ramp continues, the Galaxy S III launch occurs, and the iPhone 5 hits later this year, but we continue to be we continue to be impressed with sell through trends in the meantime. Notably the hold music for all AT&T stores across the country invites listeners to behold the “beautifully different” Nokia Lumia 900, and store reps are clearly pushing the product heavily,” writes McCourt.

If Nokia can withstand the onslaught of what will likely be the most anticipated Android handset until the Samsung Galaxy 3 they will have done a very good job indeed.

Via Barrons.com

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Kantar WorldPanel: Windows Phone now holds 6% market share in Germany

May 8, 2012 | By Surur

Market analysts company Kantar WorldPanel have teased their May 15th results, and have revealed that Windows Phone’s market share in Germany has risen to 6% in Germany. The last result from March 20th was only 3.1%, indicating a doubling in market share in only a few weeks.

In terms of ownership half a million Germans now own Windows Phones, likely around 2.5% of the smartphone using population.

Hopefully Windows phone can rise to a more commercially relevant 10% market share, which will hopefully put an end to the “6 people owning Windows Phone” jokes.

See the tweet here.

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NPD find Windows Phone has 2% US market share in Q1 2012, up from 1.4% in Q4 2011

May 7, 2012 | By Surur

image[7] More reason to celebrate for Windows Phone fans. We have already seen Nielsen claim strong growth in the number of US smartphone owners with Windows Phones, growing from 1.3% in Q4 2011 to 1.7% in Q1 2012.

Now NPD has confirmed that the Q1 2012 market share of Windows Phones have also grown to 2%, up from 1.4% (according to Nielsen) in Q4 2011.

	Q4 2011 (Nielsen)	Q1 2012 (NPD)
Android	51%	61%
iOS	37%	29%
RIM	6%	5%
Windows Phone 7	1.4%	2%

One can only speculate at which point Windows Phone will overtake Blackberry’s market share, but with the recent news that current Blackberry phones will not be upgradable to Blackberry 10, and that Blackberry 10 will not run Blackberry 7 apps, we would not be surprised to see their market share collapse over the next 2 quarters.

Thanks Arun for the tip.

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Nokia Lumia 800 still topping the charts in Finland

May 4, 2012 | By Surur

The Finnish carriers and retailers have released their monthly sales ranks, and they show the Nokia Lumia 800 is continuing to perform well.

Elisa, the country’s biggest carrier, list the Lumia 800 as top both in business and personal use in the month of April.

On Sonera the iPhone 4S has dethroned the Lumia 800, taking the first spot, with the Nokia Lumia 800 taking the second spot, and the Nokia Lumia 710 the 4th. They note however with the Nokia Lumia 900 on the way this is not surprising, and that they will be recommending that handset on its release due to its speedy 42 Mb/s dual channel HSDPA feature.

On DNA the iPhone 4S is also ahead of the Nokia Lumia 800, but the retailer is also commenting that a full range of Lumia handsets hitting all price point should make things interesting again very soon.

The Windows Phone OS is growing steadily in Finland, and is in line to hit the 10% market share position around June, according to statcounter, and the Lumia handsets are apparently becoming a common sight in Finland.

Elisa	Sonera	DNA
1 Nokia Snow 800 2 Apple iPhone 4S 3 Nokia Snow 710 4 Nokia C2-01 5 Samsung Galaxy S II, 6 Samsung Galaxy GIO 7 Nokia N9-00 8 Nokia 500 9 Samsung Galaxy Xcover 10 The Nokia 300 , 11 Apple iPhone 4 12 Nokia C5-00 5MP 13 LG Optimus 2X 14 Nokia 7230 on 15 The Nokia 700	1. (2) Apple iPhone 4S 2 (1) Nokia 800 Snow 3 (4) Nokia C5-00 4 (3) Nokia 710 Snow 5 (6) Samsung Galaxy Xcover 6 (8) Nokia C2-01 7 (5) Nokia 500 8 (9) Nokia E7-00 9 (7) Samsung Galaxy Gio 10 (-) Samsung Galaxy SII	1. iPhone 4S 2 Nokia Snow 800 3 Samsung Galaxy Mini 4 Samsung E1080 5 Samsung Galaxy Xcover 6 Nokia C1-01 * 7 Samsung Galaxy S II 8 Nokia C2-01 * 9 Samsung Galaxy S Plus 10 Nokia N9

Thanks Wyn for the tip.

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Canaccord Genuity analysts find Nokia Lumia 900 the second best selling smartphone on AT&T in April

May 4, 2012 | By Surur

Demonstrating that those Amazon rankings we have been watching so closely in April were not disconnected from reality, Canaccord Genuity has confirmed the Nokia Lumia 900 was the best selling smartphone on AT&T after the iPhone, which has of course been taking around 70% of AT&T’s smartphone market.

The handset beat out the Samsung Galaxy S2, which of course has been one of AT&T’s best sellers next to the iPhone so far and now took 3rd position.

The news is pretty big, and has been the first sign of a Windows Phone handset actually getting traction in the US market. Now the only question which remains is whether the handset can withstand the onslaught of the HTC One X, to be released soon, but early signs are at least encouraging.

Thanks Arun for the tip.

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