Tablets are Not PCs, Google Finds

One of Google’s studies of tablet use over a two-week period, which had users recording every occasion that they used their tablet, shows that tablets really are not PCs, any more than smart phones are used in the same way that PCs are used.

Most consumers use their tablets for fun, entertainment and relaxation while they use their desktop computer or laptop for work, Google User Experience Researchers Jenny Gove and John Webb say. About 91 percent of the time that people spend on their tablet devices is for personal rather than work related activities.

And, as it turns out, when a consumer gets a tablet,  they quickly migrate many of their entertainment activities from laptops and smart phones to this new device.

The most frequent tablet activities are checking email, playing games and social networking. The study also found that people are doing more activities in shorter bursts on weekdays (social networking, email) while engaging in longer usage sessions on weekends (watching videos/TV/movies).

Tablets are multi-tasking devices with at least 42 percent of activities occurring while doing another task or engaging with another entertainment medium.

Also, tablets are more accurately described as “untethered” devices than “mobile” devices, to the extent that tablets primarily are used at home. Unlike smart phones that go everywhere and laptops that travel between work and home, few consumers take their tablets with them when they leave the house.

However, consumers do take their tablets on vacation or work trips where they use them as a laptop replacement and a small number take them on their commute. The  research also found that tablets are for the most part a one-person device, although there are consumers who share their tablet with other family or household members.

Tablets are used on the couch, from the bed and in the kitchen.


The activities and locations shown in the above chart were self-reported by respondents.

For many people, websites and apps designed for smart phones just don’t cut it on tablets. Instead consumers are taking advantage of the bigger screen and prefer using fully featured apps and the full desktop sites on their tablet. Users also seem to do things on tablets that are exclusive to the tablets.

That could indicate that people shift app use to the tablet from their smart phones and PCs, or only undertake use of some apps on the tablet, when they might do so on a PC or smart phone.



Google on tablet use

Smart phones Now the "Lead Offer"

Lead offers vary by segment, in the U.S. or any other communications market. For competitive local exchange carriers, the lead offer long has been a bundle of business broadband access and business voice.


Consumer fixed-line providers have been leading with the triple play of consumer video, voice and broadband access. 


Wireless providers might arguably be leading with a device, not so much services. Basically, the "smart phone" now is the lead offer for a wireless provider, with data access, voice and texting becoming features. 


More than one-half (55 percent) of US consumers who purchased a new handset in the three-month period ended May 2011 bought a smartphone instead of a feature phone, up from the 34 percent who did so during the same period one year earlier, according to a survey from Nielsen.


Overall, 38 percent of U.S. consumers owned a smartphone as of May 2011, and 62% owned a feature phone. Smart phones as lead offer

Device Usage Profiles: "Tethering" is a Big Deal

If you want to know why “tethering” of mobile devices is such a big issue for mobile service providers, consider that mobile PCs, including those which might be tethered to a Mi-Fi device or use a smart phone’s Wi-Fi hotspot feature, can use between 1 GByte and 7 Gbytes worth of data each month, according to new data provided by Ericsson.



A smart phone, by way of contrast, might use about 500 Mbytes a month. So demand-sensitive mobile networks might well be leery of encouraging use of the network by devices that create an order of magnitude greater demand than a typical smart phone.



At some level, even though mobile service providers might like to have the additional revenue and accounts mobile PC connections represent, it is inherently more difficult to maintain a user experience free of cap overage fees, which irritate users.



You might argue that service providers can simply offer bigger buckets of usage, but some might argue that will confuse many users.



Mobile PCs have the highest average monthly traffic volume per subscription over 3G networks (global average at 1 Gbyte to 2 GBytes), followed by tablets at 250 Mbytes to 800 MBytes. Smart phones typically use only 80 Mbytes to  600 MBytes.



The point is that a 4-Gbyte or 5-Gbyte data plan so outstrips typical usage of smart phone and tablet users that there is little chance most people would ever be faced with an unpleasant overage charge. That clearly is not the case for PCs connected to mobile networks, which rather easily can consume all of a 4-Gbyte or 5-Gbyte data plan.



Average monthly data traffic varies significantly between different types of devices, according to a new Ericsson report on mobile bandwidth and trends.



Another observation might be that “overage” and “breakage” are significant contributors to mobile broadband service profit margins. Ericsson reports that “breakage” (paid for, but unused megabytes in a data plan) ranges from a low of about 15 percent for users of 1-gigabyte plans up to about 60 percent for data plans of 15 Gbytes to 20 Gbytes.



Also, “overage” (use of more data than a user has paid for as part of the device data plan) ranges from about 30 percent for users of 1-Gbyte plans to about 12 percent for users of the the 15-Gbyte to 20-Gbyte plans.

Android Was The Only OS That Grew Share In Last Quarter

Android is the only platform that has grown over the last year in all the key markets surveyed by Kantar Worldpanel ComTech. All the rest of mobile operating systems saw their market shares either stay flat or decline in at least one geography.


The figures, which compile smartphone sales for the last 12 weeks ended October 2, paint a pretty stark picture showing which platform is benefiting most from the growth in smartphone usage by consumers.

Taking the markets of Australia, Brazil, Germany, Great Britain, France, Italy, Spain and the U.S., the Android platform grew its share of smartphone sales anywhere between 19.3 percent and 50.4 percent).

Spain took the crown for the biggest amount of Android growth at 50.4 percent. Android Was The Only OS That Grew

Just under half of the U.K. population now owns a smartphone, and Google's mobile operating system Android is powering half of those those being sold,  followed by RIM's BlackBerry models with 22.5% and Apple's iPhone at 18.5 percent, for example.  Android grows share

Are Smartphone Sales Cooling Off?

Are U.S. smart phone sales growing or not? It's a bit of a rhetorical question, as the issue is not whether smart phone sales are growing, but rather whether sales rates are declining, flat or growing. 


Third quarter results might not be a completely-reliable indicator, though. Are Smartphone Sales Cooling Off?

Apple’s third quarter sales, for example, were most likely less than expected due to the coming iPhone 4S, which will have the likely impact of pushing third quarter sales into the fourth quarter.


New product introductions often cause consumers to see what’s coming before they decide to make a purchase.

In the market for Android-based phones, the situation is a little fuzzier. Most data shows healthy Android device growth. Android sales As with the iPhone, consumers wait to for the latest product, so a rapid pace of introductions can confuse consumers and slow sales, temporarily.

One suspects that tablet interest is also partly at work. Right now, tablets are "the" hot consumer product category, and that has to be shifting discretionary income away from smart phones, toward tablets, to some extent.  

Smartphones and Tablets Drive Nearly 7 Percent of Total U.S. Digital Traffic - comScore, Inc

Wi-Fi Offload podcast

Mobile phones and tablets now represent 6.8 percent of U.S. traffic in August 2011, with approximately two thirds of that traffic coming from mobile phones.

And users are shifting 37 percent of their mobile device access to fixed connections, using Wi-Fi. The percentage of usage grew nearly three percentage points in just three months.

In August 2011, nearly 10 percent of traffic from tablets used a mobile network connection, a fact of some importance for mobile service providers, since that means additional revenue.

Today, half of the total U.S. mobile population uses mobile media. The mobile media user population (those who browse the mobile web, access applications, or download content) grew 19 percent in the past year to more than 116 million people at the end of August 2011.

Smartphones, Tablets Drive 7% of U.S. Traffic

Smart Phones Change Shopping Behavior

Marketing and commerce are changing because of growing adoption of smart phones and the ways people actually use smart phones when shopping.

About 63 percent of smart phone users have visited a retailer’s website from their mobile device, up from 53 percent in 2010, and 41 percent have done so while in the retail store, according to a study by Hipcricket. That has clear content implications.

While mobile retail sites have historically served as “brochures,” lightweight versions of retailers’ full websites that provide limited information such as store locations, directions and hours, today’s mobile-specific retail sites are now providing more significant benefits to consumers as they move along their path-to-purchase.

Fully 50 percent have checked a competitor’s mobile website while in another store.
The survey found that smart phone owners are visiting mobile retail sites to:

Research prices (46 percent);
Search for coupons and offers (36 percent);
Research products (28 percent); and
Purchase products (13 percent)

Some nine percent report that any of their favorite brands market to them using the mobile phone. At the same time, consumers continue to indicate a willingness to join mobile customer relationship management or loyalty programs for their favorite brands. Some 33 percent would be interested in joining such a program, but only 12 percent currently participate in one.
Mobile sites now a factor in retail shopping

Some 79 percent of U.S. smart phone owners relying on their phones to help with shopping, according to Google.

About 70 percent use their phones while shopping in-store and 74 percent of smartphone shoppers made a purchase as a result of using their smartphone.

Some 67 percent said they research on their smartphone and then buy in the store. Fully 95 percent of smart phone users have looked for local information, and as you might expect, such searches often are an immediate precursor to purchasing.  After looking for local information, 77 percent contacted a business, and 44 percent made a purchase. Reaching Today’s Mobile Shoppers

All of that suggests mobile websites will change. First, mobile websites will likely emphasize new types of content, especially local content related to products in stores close to where a users is "right now." Since comparison shopping also is more frequent, retailers will have to adjust by making sure content addresses product variety, "other products like this" and other issues aside from price and availability.

In many cases, such content will aim not only to engage prospects but move them along the sales funnel.

In August 2011, HiveFire surveyed nearly 400 marketing professionals about business-to- business  marketing, with a particular emphasis on content marketing. The top two objectives of content marketing programs are to engage customers and prospects (82 percent) and drive sales (55 percent), respondents indicated.

The survey also found that content marketing has an essential role in B2B strategies but half (50 percent) of content marketers dedicate less than 30 percent of their budgets to it. You might take that as an indication content marketing is affordable, that marketers are devoting a significant amount of resources to content marketing or that there is room for content marketing to become more important.

One caveat is that firms have different ways of accounting for items in a marketing budget. In some cases, personnel might also be “in the budget,” where in other cases only campaign or event costs are tabulated. In a budget containing trade show and conference expenses, advertising and promotion activities, 30 percent is not a “low” number, many would say.

Content marketing is changing the way B2B marketers work. In fact, it is now the most-used marketing strategy, Hivefire says. Report here.

BlackBerry Enterprise Share Will Drop from 52% to 36% in 2012

BlackBerry Market Share Dropping Fast

The BlackBerry may not be dead, but it's dying, some now say. New research from Enterprise Management Associates likewise indicates that 30 percent of BlackBerry users in companies with more than 10,000 users will move to a different mobile platform in 2012.

That would move Research in Motion's standing in large enterprise accounts into that of a minority operating system. Today, 52 percent of users in such organizations "actively" use a BlackBerry for work purposes, EMA reports; a 30 percent reduction would bring that total to 36 percent.

"We expected to see some market share loss by RIM, but these results were far more dramatic than we could have anticipated," reports Steve Brasen, EMA's managing research director. They come on the heels of a larger defection: Users of all stripes are moving away from BlackBerry, as its continually declining market share shows.

Even the BlackBerry faithful are abandoning RIM

The iPad Is Cannibalizing Macs, PCs, Smart Phones

Apple CEO Tim Cook says Apple is seeing iPad sales cannibalize Mac sales to some degree. Of course, he also argues tablets are cannibalizing PC sales, which most people intuitively might guess is happening. To the extent that consumers have to choose between spending money on a new smart phone or a tablet, one would guess there is some shift of spending towards tablets as well.

It isn't that the tablet displaces a smart phone in terms of function, but only that tablets are the new "hot" consumer gadget, compared to smart phones.

“Yes, we’re seeing cannibalization," Cook says. "Some people are electing to buy an iPad rather than a Mac."

"However, I think a larger percentage are choosing iPad over a Windows-based PC," he says.

iPad Is Eating Mac Sales

Bearish View of The Smart Phone Business

Here's a bearish view about the smart phone business. Microsoft and Apple are extracting royalty payments from Google Android suppliers, squeezing their margins.

Apple missed targets for iPhone sales and sales of Research In Motion’s BlackBerry have "collapsed," not to mention the recent multi-day global outage.

Analysts may argue that the rise of products like powerful tablets have hurt smart phone sales. Some of us think that is partly true. Tablet sales have grown much faster than did sales of Apple iPhones or iPods.

So attention now has been diverted to tablets, to some extent. But Mary Meeker, Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers partner doesn't appear to share the pessimism.

But lower-cost smart phones now are about to pour onto the market, and the high penetration of mobiles means there still is a huge replacement market.

The Smartphone Business Loses Its Luster

22% of U.S. Smart Phones Sold were 4G Capable

About 22 percent of smart phones purchased by U.S. consumers in the second quarter of 2011 were capable of running at 4G speeds. 


A year ago, just three percent of U.S. smart phones sold could run on a 4G network, according to the NPD Group. 

The top four smart phone 4G manufacturers, based on consumer sales in Q2 2011:
1.HTC: 62%
2.Samsung: 22%
3.Motorola: 11%
4.LG: 4%


What the study did not look at, but seems correct, is that "4G" is not yet a distinct "service." It is faster than 3G, which is good, but not yet in any way a truly different "service" than 3G. So far, 4G is a "better pipe," but just that: a better pipe, as a 10 Mbps connection is better than a 5 Mbps connection. 


For 4G is anything more than "table stakes" for mobile service providers, the end use experience will have to change. So far, that hasn't happened. 

20% of Smart phones Sold in Q2 2011 Were 4G-Capable

In U.S., New Smart Phone Buyers Increasingly Choose Android

Some 43 percent of all U.S. smart phone owners have an Android device. But if you ask only those who got a new smartphone in the past three months what kind of phone they chose, more than half (56 percent) told Nielsen they picked an Android device.

The preferences of these so-called “recent acquirers” are important as they are often a leading indicator of where the market is going.

Apple iOS remains popular in second place with 28 percent of all smartphone users, and the same percentage among those who recently got a new device.

In U.S. Market, New Smartphone Buyers Choose Android

Metaswitch "Perimeta" is a Classic Business Case Study

The entry by Metaswitch Networks into the session border control business has been described by some as a move “into a crowded market.” "Crowded" market

Metaswitch would describe it as a move into a rapidly-growing market where customers are asking for choices. According to Infonetics Research, service providers are spending $350 million a year buying SBCs. By 2015 (just four years) they will be buying $1 billion a year worth of SBCs.



Acme Packet furthermore reports gross margins of about 82 percent. Huge gross margins

“Candidly, service providers are asking for alternatives,” says Patrick Fitzgerald, Metaswitch Networks VP.



Acme Packet has for years pointed to its dominant market share. Infonetics estimated that Acme Packet had 52 percent of the SBC market in 2009,  almost four times that of any competitor. Dominant market share Dell’Oro Group in 2010 estimated hat Acme Packet had 55 percent of the SBC market.



Metaswitch says Acme Packet has 65 percent to 70 percent share of the service provider and enterprise markets for SBCs.



Some 38 Metaswitch customers already have placed orders for “Perimeta” devices, says Fitzgerald. Perimeta



In many ways, the move into the SBC market illustrates some enduring issues in business strategy. In recent days, as intellectual property lawsuits have escalated in the mobile handset business, we have gotten a reminder of the potential importance of patents and intellectual property ownership. Patent lawsuits proliferate


In fact, some believe the older pattern, where many device manufacturers simply licensed operating systems, might be changing. Some believe it is possible that the dominant pattern will be “essentially proprietary” strategies where each major platform consists of bundled OS and device, on the Apple model.



Keep in mind that Metaswitch Networks has, for many years, been a supplier of the underlying original equipment manufacturer software at the heart of an SBC. In other words, as Microsoft powers many PCs, and Android powers many smart phones, Metaswitch already powers many SBCs.



That isn’t to say the smart phone or PC OS model will develop in the SBC market, but only to suggest that intellectual property ownership confers strategic advantages that are not always immediately obvious in the earlier stages of some markets, but can emerge as strategic advantages later.



Some might note that the move into SBCs illustrates another enduring business issue, namely “channel conflict.” There are many instances in the telecommunications business where a supplier has to make difficult choices. Where a supplier operates in both the wholesale and retail parts of a business, there always is some potential for conflict between a firm’s wholesale partners and the supplier’s own retail efforts. Channel conflict


The analogy is the growing suggestion that device manufacturers ranging from HTC to Samsung might have to develop or acquire their own operating systems as other significant portions of the market evolve.



Android now has a “special” relationship with Motorola Mobility. Microsoft has a favored relationship with Nokia. Apple is Apple. Research in Motion always has used its own proprietary OS.



Some would note that Metaswitch now faces channel conflict in a way it has not, in the past. But that’s part of the enduring business strategy discussion. What should any firm do when it is an OEM supplier, and end users start asking it to develop its own retail products based on the underlying intellectual property?



It is easy to say a firm should avoid channel conflict. But there often are cases where end users (the market) asks or demands that an OEM supplier also supply retail products. There might be other cases where an OEM simply sees strategic value of such scope that some amount of channel conflict is the price to be paid for some important strategic step.



In fact, Microsoft and Google both face some degree of risk in developing favored relationships with a particular contestant in the smart phone market, even as the advantages also are clear. The point is that Metaswitch faces classic business issues of the case study sort.



The analogy is that Metaswitch supplies an operating system the way that Google or Microsoft do. Both those firms have important business models built on supplying “open” software to many partners. But both those firms also have significant relationships with a single retail brand in the end user market. Metaswitch now will have that same sort of relationship in its OEM business and as a supplier of the “Perimeta” line of SBCs.



No firm would casually risk such channel conflict were the potential rewards not large enough to offset the risk. In this case, Metaswitch is making strategic moves on a number of fronts to reposition its business. Virtually all of those moves carry some degree of risk.



But it is hard to ignore 82 percent profit margins in a retail business where the firm already supplies the intellectual property, nor a business where Metaswitch routinely has sold and installed SBCs on behalf of its retail customers for quite some time, giving it a view of the real world deployment issues and perspectives of its retail customers, in the SBC space.



It is hard to ignore a product whose value is such that sales volumes could triple in four years. And it is hard to ignore getting into a business when a firm’s customers say they want the firm to do so. Channel conflict is one sort of issue. Ignoring the clear requests of a firm’s customers is another sort of danger.



It’s a classic business case study.

RIM Share, Earnings Fall in 2nd Quarter

So there has to be concern now that RIM, a star in the mobile handset space, might suffer a similar fate, as hard as that is to imagine, though it once might have seemed unthinkable.

Canadians, more than other people, are going to worry about what is happening at Research in Motion, for reasons of national pride and influence in the broader telecom business. Nortel once was the biggest company in Canada, by valuation, as I recall, and no longer exists.

For the first time in over a decade, shipments of BlackBerry smart phones have declined, year-over-year, RIM second quarter results show. RIM also said it shipped fewer than half of its PlayBook tablets than it did in the previous quarter. Revenue declines

Revenue was down 15 percent to $4.2 billion from last quarter’s $4.9 billion, which, to be fair, is what it predicted it would make. But it’s on the lower end of the scale. Last quarter, RIM estimated that its second quarter revenue would be between $4.2 and $4.8 billion.

Revenue was down 10 percent from the $4.6 billion RIM made in the same quarter last year. RIM smart phone, tablet shipments decline (Wall Street Journal subscription required)

Although BlackBerrys have dominated the corporate smartphone market, their popularity in the consumer market has been short-lived. U.S. consumers have moved on to phones with big touchscreens like Apple's iPhone and various models that run Google Inc.'s Android operating system.

"They are just not selling. They are not competitive," said Peter Misek, an analyst at Jefferies & Co. "They are getting really hit hard by Android phones."

Device Usage Has Shifted from "Work" to "Play"

When digital devices first appeared, in the form of the personal computer, the initial applications were heavily work related.

Over the last few decades, as new digital appliances have emerged, most of them have been mostly for "play" or "personal" use.

Though notebooks, tablets and mobile phones can be used either for work or personal pursuits, the trend is towards use of devices for entertainment, personal communication, learning and expression, and less and less for "work."

A recent survey of European users by Forrester Research illustrates the trend. Asked what sorts of applications and activities they used their various devices for, it is pretty clear that the multi-purpose devices get used more often for play, personal reasons and entertainment, rather than "work."

The corollary probably is that application development has shifted overwhelmingly to personal, entertainment  and leisure time activities as well.

Smart Phones Not Optional for Today's Workers

Some 91 percent of mobile workers report they checked their smart phones during their otherwise unoccupied moments of the day. The latest iPass survey found that some 38 percent of mobile workers use their mobile devices to check their email the first thing in the morning, before their commute, 25 percent worked during their commute, and 22 percent worked again on the way home, each and every day.

In fact, for many, work is a never-ending cycle. About 37 percent report they work each evening. Some 33 percent work again when they arrived home, 26 percent after dinner, and 19 percent said they work again after they put their children to bed at night.

About 49 percent said they would work in the middle of the night when they were unable to sleep, at least on an occasional basis. The largest percentage recorded was in the category “work before my commute to the office,” with 62 percent responding that they did so at least one to two  times per week.

Some 37 percent of survey respondents also report they worked during lunch every day, 66 percent at least once or twice per week. Not surprisingly, workers in North America were the most likely to work through their lunch hours.

Some 45 percent of mobile workers in North America connected to technology during lunch every day. This trend was slightly lower in other geographies. Just a third (33 percent) in Europe worked during lunch every day and 31 percent of those in Asia Pacific.

Mobile workers are not only shifting their work periods to different times of day, they are also working from a variety of different locations. The most common place outside the office is the homes, with 47 percent working from home daily and 99 percent at least occasionally.

But these mobile workers do get out from time to time. 88 percent worked from the road; 84 percent from a coffee shop, restaurant or bar; and 77 percent worked outside using a city-mesh Wi-Fi at least on an occasional basis.

Some 72 percent of the 3,100 respondents said that they used a mobile device on a daily basis within the office, as well.

Some 75 percent of respondents worked more hours because of the increased flexibility in when and where they could work. More than half (55 percent) were working at least 10 or more additional hours each week.

But some were working significantly longer. About 12 percent were working 20 or more additional hours each week as a result of the freedom to choose when and where to work.

In addition to working more hours, these mobile workers also felt more productive when their schedules were flexible. Some 54 percent said that their productivity was substantially improved and an additional 24 percent stated they were marginally more productive. Only three percent felt that the additional flexibility in work times and locations decreased their productivity.

Smart phones have reached close to 100 percent penetration among mobile workers. Across the generations, 96 percent of mobile workers under the age of 45 have a smartphone and 91 percent of those over the age of 55. Relatively new on the market, tablets continue to be the big story of 2011. Currently, 41 percent of mobile workers have a tablet and an additional 34 percent of mobile workers intend to purchase a tablet in the next six months. Taken together, we expect to see 75 percent of mobile workers with a tablet this fall.

Among tablet-owning mobile workers, iPads dominate with 72 percent of the current marketshare in this study. It looks like this will remain the case this year with 63 percent of mobile employees indicating that they plan to purchase or receive an iPad 2 in the next six months, bringing the potential future market share for iPads to 71 percent of tablet-carrying mobile workers.

Apple Has 50% of Smartphone Market Profits

According to an analysis by Canaccord Genuity’s T. Michael Walkley, Apple now captures 50 percent of first quarter 2011 smart phone operating profits among the top 8 OEMs, despite having only 4.9 percent of global handset unit market share.

Apple Has 50% of Smartphone Market Profit Share

PCs Getting Less Use at Small Businesses

A survey of 2,223 owners and managers at companies with less than 500 employees, most of them with between five and 499 workers, suggests that "PC" use is declining, while other digital devices, including tablets and smartphones are taking up the slack.

Beyond the finding that nine percent of business owners were using iPads (as of November 2010), the study found that 79 percent of small- and midsize-business owners used a desktop computer, down from 83 percent in 2010.

Some 16 percent used a netbook or notebook, down from 21 percent earlier in 2010.  About 60 percent used a laptop, down from 65 percent.

Note the trend: tablets up, desktop PCs, netbooks down, notebooks down.

About 37 percent used a smartphone or other personal digital assistant, up from 27 percent the prior year.

Fully 31 percent were using mobile applications, a category that wasn’t even measured the previous year, on smartphones, cell phones, or tablet computers.

What all of that might mean is that many business and work tasks really do not require much in the way of content creation, beyond replying to emails or social media messages.

read more here

Consumers Feel Smart Phone Obsolescence

When asked, 62 percent of respondents to a Retrevo survey said they currently feel their smart phone already is "out of date," or will be before their service contracts expire. That speaks both to the rapid pace of smart device innovation and the upside for providers of the latest smart phone models.

The solution, some would argue, are shorter contracts, or no contracts. One is reminded of the surveys taken to assess consumer receptivity to advertising. Those surveys virtually always find that people don't really like ads. But they like the idea of paying more for their desired content even less.

That's essentially what the Retrevo survey found as well.

When asked if they would be willing to pay extra for a shorter contract, most responded as you would guess, with a "no." But some would pay as much as $100 extra to get a one-year contract rather than a two-year contract.

Those sorts of questions and answers are instructive, but also hinge on consumer desire, at least in the U.S. market, for high subsidies on their devices. Few consumers really want to pay $400 to $500 for their devices, to get a contract-free service plan. Most put up with contracts so they can buy those devices for $200 to $250.

You can argue all you want about the wisdom of those preferences. Most of the money a consumer spends over the length of the relationship is service fees. The device cost is a relatively small matter in comparison. But consumers have voted with their wallets, and service providers, though not enamored of the operating expense the subsidies represent, do not seem likely to abandon the model, simply because it works.

One also might argue that the subsidies, which encourage users to swap out their devices more frequently, are one reason the U.S. market now is the world leader in terms of application innovation. A user that has invested $500 to $600 in a mobile device is likely to feel obligated to use that device as long as possible.

A user that has invested only $200 to $250 is less likely to be wedded to any particular device, and is likely to feel that investing in another, updated device makes sense.

http://www.retrevo.com/content/blog/2011/04/are-you-prisoner-your-phone-carrier

Google Releases Smartphone Data