Android Market Eclipses Apple App Store for Free Apps

The Google Android Market eclipsed the Apple App Store for iPhone in terms of free applications and now has 134,342 free applications, while the Apple App Store iPhone has 121,845 free applications, Distimo reports.

If all application stores maintain their current growth pace, approximately five months from now Google Android Market will be the largest store in terms of number of applications followed by the Apple App Store for iPhone and iPad, Windows Phone 7 Marketplace, BlackBerry App World and Nokia Ovi Store.

The rise of Windows Phone 7 and the relative decline of BlackBerry and Nokia as leaders in the smartphone category might have something to do with the state of the respective app stores. Some observers would say that the Microsoft deal with Nokia, which has Nokia essentially abandoning Symbian for Windows Phone 7, will vault Microsoft into position number three in the smart phone OS market, eclipsing RIM.

Looking at history, one would be hard pressed to imagine why RIM would remain a force, or perhaps even viable, in a market so dominated by the iPhone and Android, with Microsoft claiming the third spot, in terms of share. There is not much precedent for a viable "number four or five" provider in the mobile OS ecosystem. So as shocking as the assertion might be, it appears RIM's best days, even its existence as an independent company, are at grave risk.

The Windows Phone 7 Marketplace will also be larger than the Nokia Ovi Store and BlackBerry App World prior to the Windows Phone 7 Marketplace being available for even a full year, Distimo says.
One year after launching the iPad, Apple will be confronted with its first serious competition as both BlackBerry and Google enter the emerging tablet market.

Apple has already seized momentum and grown the App Store for iPad in the first year to 75,755 applications developed by 21,975 publishers. Daily downloads in the "Top 100 Overall" paid and free applications for iPad combined exceed 500,000, while the daily revenue in the Top 100 paid is approximately $400,000 excluding in-app purchases.

http://www.distimo.com/publications/

Nokia Will Get "Billions" From Microsoft Deal

Nokia's decision to support the Microsoft Phone operating system will mean Microsoft pays "billions" to Nokia, the companies say.

Nokia will deliver mapping, navigation, and certain location-based services to the Windows Phone ecosystem. Nokia will build innovation on top of the Windows Phone platform in areas such as imaging, while contributing expertise on hardware design and language support, and helping to drive the development of the Windows Phone platform.

Microsoft will provide Bing search services across the Nokia device portfolio as well as contributing assets and expertise in productivity, advertising, gaming and social media. The combination of navigation with advertising and search will enable better monetization of Nokia’s navigation assets and completely new forms of advertising revenue, the companies believe.

iPhone Passes Blackberry in Global Market Share

Apple has passed Research In Motion in global phone sales. During this year's third quarter, 15.4 million iPhones were shipped globally compared to only 12.4 million Blackberries, the researchers at Strategy Analytics says.

With the shipments, Apple grabbed a 15.4 percent share of the market during the period, while RIM finished well behind with a 12.3 percent share. Nokia still leads with 26.5 percent of the worldwide market.

A major factor contributing to RIM's slipping numbers is its 'limited presence in the high-growth touchscreen segment,' according to Strategy Analytics.

iPhone Passes Blackberry in Global Shipments - PCWorld

Apple Makes More Profit Than All the Rest of the Handset Industry

Since getting into the mobile handset business with its iPhone, Apple has blown away the whole rest of the handset industry in earnings (before interest and taxes), according to a new  analysis by Goldman Sachs analysts.

The other angle is that the rest of the suppliers have lost earnings momentum  precisely as Apple has grown.

At the moment, Apple likely accounts for about 58 percent of the mobile handset industry's annual earnings.

That's shocking, and a measure of Apple's new stature.

Should Nokia Abandon 90% of its Market?

One way you might read this is that Nokia needs to get "more social with its fans." The other way is that 90 percent of younger users are not fans. There are hazards either way. "Abandon" might be too strong a way of putting matters, but it is the obvious inverse of a strategy focused on the 10 percent of fans. 

Android Music versus iTunes: Table Stakes

There's lots of activity in the mobile music space at the moment. Spotify is preparing to launch in the United States and Nokia is rolling out multiple new "Comes With Music territories. But Google is lijely the most significant of the new entrants.

Not that music stores per se are that big a deal on the revenue front. Of course the music download store has never been the end game. The margins are so small that the a la carte download store only has any value as a means to an end, a way to add a sticky application and increase device value, for example, as well as to provide an e-commerce platform, to a lesser extent.

Android Music versus iTunes: When Open Isn’t Quite As Open As It Might Appear | Forrester Blogs:

Nokia to Introduce N8, Using New Version of Symbian

The Nokia N8, Nokia's latest smartphone, using the new Symbian 3 operating system, is designed to challenge the iPhone and BlackBerry at the high end of the market, where Nokia arguably has been struggling.

The Nokia N8 will be available in selected markets from the third quarter of 2010 and comes with an estimated price tag of €370 (about $493) before taxes and subsidies.

The Nokia N8 introduces a 12 megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss optics, Xenon flash and a large sensor that rivals those found in compact digital cameras. Additionally, the Nokia N8 offers the ability to make HD-quality videos and edit them with an intuitive built-in editing suite.

Doubling as a portable entertainment center, people can enjoy HD-quality video with Dolby Digital Plus surround sound by plugging into their home theatre system. The Nokia N8 enables access to Web TV services that deliver programs, news and entertainment from channels like CNN, E! Entertainment, Paramount and National Geographic. Additional local Web TV content is also available from the Ovi Store.

Social networking also is featured. People can update their status, share location and photos, and view live feeds from Facebook and Twitter in a single app directly on the home screen. Calendar events from social networks can also be transferred to the device calendar.

The Nokia N8 comes with free global Ovi Maps walk and drive navigation, guiding people to places and points of interest in more than 70 countries worldwide.

Nokia has upgraded its Symbian software to make it more user friendly, a criticism of earlier versions of Symbian.

The Symbian 3 operating system supports features touchscreen commands such as multi-touch, flick scrolling and pinch-zoom, as well as faster multi-tasking, Nokia says.

Smartphones Have Outsize Impact on Mobility Business

Despite the fact that smartphones have only about 19 percent share of the U.S. handset market, they have outsize importance simply because smartphone use is growing so fast, implies growth of mobile broadband revenue and is key to the hopes new suppliers have for cracking the handset market.

Browsers were used by 29.4 percent of U.S. mobile subscribers (up 2.4 percentage points), while subscribers who used downloaded applications made up 27.5 percent (up 1.8 percentage points).

Some 18 percent used social networking sites or blogs, up 2.9 percentage points to 18 percent of mobile subscribers. About 13 percent report they listened to music on a mobile device. About 22 percent say they played games on their mobiles., up about half a percentage point.

Some 234 million Americans age 13 and older were mobile subscribers, while 45.4 million people owned smartphones in an average month during the December to February period, up 21 percent from the three months ending November 2009.

In an average month during the December through February 2010 time period, 64 percent of U.S. mobile subscribers used text messaging on their mobile device, up 1.9 percentage points from November 2009 levels, says comScore.

Those differences also are reflected in market share of feature and smartphones. In the broader feature phone market, Motorola has 22 percent share, LG 22 percent, Samsung 21 percent, Nokia nine percent and Research in Motion eight percent.

In the smartphone market RIM has 42 percent share, Apple 25 percent, Microsoft 15 percent, Google nine percent and Palm five percent. Google grew the most over the quarter ending in February, gaining five share points. Apple's share was flat and Microsoft lost five points.

Apple iPad Ignites War Over Market That Might Not Exist

With rumors that Google, Nokia, Hewlett-Packard, HTC, Acer, Dell, Lenovo all are working on tablet devices in the same class as the Apple iPad, I suppose it has to be said that those companies do not want to take a chance on Apple having discovered a new mobile device category, and not moving early enough to participate in the segment's growth.

It's just that nobody has yet proven what the market is, or how big it might be. But nobody seems to want to take a chance that a market exists, and that Apple will stake out leadership before anybody else can mount a challenge.

That is not to discount Microsoft's historic interest in the tablet segment of the market, but simply to point out that, up to this point, the segment has not gotten much traction, perhaps because "different interfaces to the same functions" has not resonated. Microsoft's approach has been to envision a PC with a tablet design.

Apple's approach is more similar to that of the Kindle and iPad "touch," though, more a media reader and entertainment-driven Web appliance than a 'notebook with a different interface.'

The range of rumored interface, operating system and featured applications illustrates what happens when suppliers try to position a new device mid-way between smartphones and netbooks and notebooks.

Hewlett-Packard is said to be debutting a slate computer that it will offer by midyear. H.P.'s slate will have a camera and ports for add-on devices, like a mouse.  Apple's iPad appears to dispense with those options.

Under the hood, the iPad is powered by what might be called a "smartphone" processor, while others likely will try to use "netbook" processors.

Google might try to power its slate using Android software, which was originally designed for mobile phones.  Those hardware and software choices show some of the issues involved when trying to create a new class of devices mid-way between netbooks and smartphones.

Then there is the matter of "niche" to pursue. Apparently the first the idea was to create a device for designers and architects, but lately the company is thinking of a broader market of consumers and so would include e-books, magazines and other media content on the device.

Nokia is said to be designing an e-reader. The point is that there is so far no clear consensus about what the category is, how people will use the devices, or whether there is only one large, or multiple more specialized categories, to be satisfied. That accounts for the diverse choices about featured applications, processors and operating systems, among other choices.

All for a market that nobody knows exists, for sure.

Apple and RIM Are Winners in Handset Market, Profit-Wise

The Apple iPhone might not be the only reason the mobile handset market has changed over the past several years, but it is a major influence, according to a new analysis by analysts at Deutsche Bank.

In 2006, before the iPhone was available, Nokia had nearly half--47 percent--of industry profits. By the end of 2010, it will have 25 percent.

In 2006, Sony Ericsson had 11 percent share. By the end of 2010 it will have a negative one percent operating profit.

Motorola had 18 percent share in 2006 and will have declined to about a negative one percent by the end of 2010.

By the end of 2010 Apple will have an estimated 37 percent share, while Research in Motion, which had four percent share in 2006, will have grown to 16 percent.

Most of the other suppliers will have remained about where they were in 2006, except for Lucky Goldstar, which will have grown from one percent to six percent.

Keep in mind, these figures reflect profits, not handset share.

fring Upgraded for Android and Symbian Mobile Devices

Mobile VoIP provider fring has just released two new versions for Symbian and Android mobile device users, adding user-requested features.

The Symbian version, for Nokia users, lets users notify their friends know if they are online, offline, busy, or just stay invisible if they don’t want to be disturbed; all in the click of a button.

DTMF dialing now is supported as well. Now dialing “#” (“pound”) and “*” sign (“star”) is possible to use within a call through the new fring dialer.

Android users will find increased app stability as well as the ability to hide or show offline buddy presence, hide or show the address book, and manage privacy settings for IM signatures and "mood" messages.

The company also fixed some audio issues formerly experienced on Motorola Droid or Milestone devices and added better support for Google’s Nexus One device.

Improved battery consumption also is new.

The new apps can be downloaded at http://www.fring.com/default.asp.

Is Mobile Handset Market Heating Up?

Handset shipments suffered another annual decline in the third quarter but are forecast to rebound in the key final quarter of the year, according to Strategy Analytics and IDC. Virtually all observers attribute the slowdown to slower handset replacement caused by consumer caution in the face of the recession.

Strategy Analytics estimates that global handset shipments reached 291 million units in the third quarter, down four percent from 304 million units year over year.

IDC estimates third quarter 2009 shipments totalled 287.1 million units worldwide, down six percent from a year earlier, but up 5.6 percent from the second quarter.

"The mobile phone market is showing the first signs of improvement since the onset of the economic crisis," says Ramon Llamas, senior research analyst at IDC. "During the third quarter, we saw a number of channels promoting older devices at significantly lower prices. For many, this was enough to spur demand and push volumes higher."

Strategy Analytics forecasts that 300 million handsets will be shipped in the key fourth quarter, an increase of three percent increase on the 294 million units shipped in the last quarter of 2008.

"We believe this will be the first time the industry has returned to positive growth since the third quarter of 2008, signalling an end to the handset recession after four quarters of decline," Strategy Analytics says.

Of course, industry-wide averages sometimes obscure market share changes. Nokia sales dipped eight percent, year over year, while Samsung grew 16 percent. LG grew 37 percent. Both Sony Ericsson and Motorola reported declines.

Nokia Unveils N96

As its name implies, the N96 is the successor to the N95, Nokia's former high-end device. The dual slider device comes with 16 gigabytes of internal storage, plus a microSD slot, something the N95 8GB lacks. Like the N95, the N96 retains the
5-megapixel autofocus camera with Carl Zeiss Tessar lens.

But "flash" support is improved by the use of two LEDs to provide lighting. There is an integrated DVB-H mobile TV tuner. As audio support on the N95 was robust, we would expect the same from the N96.

On such a device one would expect Wi-Fi support and global positioning satellite capabilities, and both are included. The N96 is supposed to launch in Europe in the third quarter this year.

Nokia Launches Mobile Ad Network

Nokia today announced the launch of the Nokia Media Network, a premium advertising network including over 70 properties including AccuWeather, Discovery, Hearst, Reuters, and Sprint.

Nokia touts the venture as the first global mobile ad network of top tier publishers. There is no doubt a story here: First, that advertising is becoming part of the revenue model for the mobile business. Second, that handset providers are carving out new space for themselves in the value chain. Third, that mobile handset manufacturers and service providers now are in the media business.

Google isn't going to have this market to itself.

Nokia Gets Cross Platform Support

Nokia has acquired Trolltech, a development platform for applications that can run on the Internet, accessed from a PC or a mobile phone. That might mean support for applications that run across operating systems, for example. The acquisition illustrates a couple of trends.

Mobiles need to acquire the ability to run Web applications, and need to do so in ways that are similar to the use of those apps on a PC, so users don't have to relearn a behavior. Cross-platform support also means Nokia can benefit from the huge numbers of developers working in the C, Flash, Java and other environments, for example.

OS Shift?

Amazon's top-10 "Most Wished For in Computers & PC Hardware" list includes, in order or popularity:
1. Asus Eee PC 8G
2. Asus Eee 4G
3. Asus EEE 4G
4. HP Pavilion DV6662SE
5. Nokia N810 Portable Internet Tablet
6. Nokia N800 Internet Tablet PC
7. Apple MacBook
8. Apple MacBook Pro
9. HP Pavilion DV6626US
10. Apple MacBook MB062LL

A couple of things strike one about this list. First, the prevalence of Linux-powered machines at the top three spots. Second, the prevalence of smaller form factor, highly portable devices among the top 10. Third, the prevalence of operating systems other than Windows in the top 10. Fourth, the prevalence of devices optimized for Web and Internet use.

On Amazon's "Bestsellers in Computers & PC Hardware" list, five of the top 10 devices use operating systems other than Windows. On Amazon's "Most Gifted" list, six of the top 10 devices use operating systems other than Windows.

Here's the other angle: some people carry smart phones with them when traveling, and leave their PCs behind. Top management and sales personnel are more likely to do so than people who have greater needs for text entry and Web app access. The point is that at least for shorter trips, the smart phone goes, the PC stays.

Almost everybody who owns a smartphone takes it, not a PC, when traveling locally, because email and text communications that otherwise would require a PC still are available.

To the extent that this trend continues, and more-mobile PC style devices also get traction, as the Amazon data tends to indicate, what does it mean? Web. Remote computing and storage. Need for better interfaces.

Small devices almost have to lean more heavily on applications in the cloud rather than local processing and storage. And several of the new devices plow new ground in the form factor/power/price equation, banking on Web apps to reduce price footprint, for example.

Navigation on a small device also is more problematic, so devices get an even-bigger push for new input options. Speech and touch, for example. Finally, taking all notebook PCs and smart phones together, and looking at them as a single market, not separate markets, one can observer that there already is more diversity in operating systems than has been the case in the desktop PC market.

Will Femtocells Change Behavior?

According to iLocus, Nokia has found in its most-recent smart phone survey that 35 percent of packet data was consumed on the move, at-home use was 44 percent and in-office use was 21 percent of total.

Overall usage also increased from 6 megabytes a month to 14 megabytes a month.

What will be interesting is to see what happens when appreciable numbers of mobile users have access to femtocells--local transmitters that allow them to use a standard handset with better signal coverage in an indoors setting.

Aside from greater usage because signal quality is better, one wonders if the exposure to high-quality data bandwidth indoors might somehow lead to sustained and permanent changes in use of packet data outside the femtocell or indoors setting.

The other issue is whether users start to rely on mobile handset access in a setting where PCs also have broadband access. What applications or use modes start to become more attractive, even when there is the possibility of using a PC to conduct the same operations?

Of course, the same sort of questions can be asked of dual-mode devices able to switch to Wi-Fi access indoors.

Has Apple Sold 5 Million iPhones?

Cleve Nettles at Mac9to5 thinks so. Nettles expects Apple to say so in January, at Macworld. The issue is how those sales relate to the announced goal of selling 10 million iPhones. Some people recollect Steve Jobs, Apple CEO, promising sales of 10 million phones in calendar year 2008 alone. Others seem to think he meant 10 million by the end of 2008, in total.

Rivals at Nokia and Research in Motion probably aren't excessively worried either way, given the installed base of devices each of those firms has, and the number of new devices they ship every month. Of course, Apple has a distinct advantage. It gets recurring revenue from the sales of each of its phones.

RIM and Nokia do not. So one iPhone sale is worth a lot more revenue than the sale of a new BlackBerry or Nokia handset.

New Truphone Supprted Devices

Truphone's mobile VoIP service now is supported on five new handsets: the Wi-Fi-equipped Nokia N95 8G, Nokia N81, Nokia N81 8G, Nokia N82 and Nokia E51 models. Truphone also is freezing its rates until the end of February, so Truphone calls will be free to landlines in 40 countries, and to mobiles in the U.S., Canada and elsewhere, until March.

Nokia N96: N95 in a New Shell?

This image, from Mobile-Review.com, strike some people as looking like an N81, but larger. To others it resembles an N95. No specs available yet, it seems.