Monday, June 28, 2010

Mobile Growth Shifts to Content

Mobile revenue growth now is shifting to mobile broadband and data, as you would expect, with the saturation of basic voice connections.

The next wave of growth will come from commerce and content sales, PricewaterhouseCoopers now predicts.

More than 55 Million Smartphone Shipments in the First Quarter of 2010

More than 55 million smartphones shipped during the first quarter of 2010, according to ABI Research. That's about a million fewer than were sold in the fourth quarter of 2009, a seasonally strong period for phone sales.

Much of the fastest growth is being seen in markets previously little penetrated by expensive, cutting-edge smartphones, suggesting that less-expensive smartphones will represent a larger share of new sales.

U.S. Wireless Spectrum to Double?

The amount of wireless spectrum available in the United States would nearly double over the next 10 years as the federal government prepares to gradually auction 500 megahertz of federal and commercial spectrum.

In past decades, new spectrum auctions have been the foundation for potential assaults on industry structure, allowing new contestants to enter the market. Whether that will be the case in the forthcoming auctions remains to be seen.

Clearwire and Sprint have plenty of spectrum, while AT&T and Verizon Wireless are launching new Long Term Evolution networks that are far more spectrally efficient than the third generation networks they will supplement and then replace.

T-Mobile USA needs more 4G spectrum, but probably cannot afford to buy new licenses. The issue is whether any truly-new contestants are willing to take a chance on disrupting the business.

Samsung Galaxy S to Debut On All 4 Big Carriers

Samsung's flagship Google Android smartphone, Galaxy S, will be available on the AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobileand Verizon Wireless networks.

The Samsung Galaxy S will be called the Samsung Fascinate on Verizon, Samsung Captivate on AT&T, Samsung Vibrant on T-Mobile, and Samsung Epic 4G on Sprint.

Is Apple an Annuity Business?
































Is Apple in the annuity business? You might draw that conclusion from the results of a survey of Apple iPhone 4 buyers, given that 77 percent already were iPhone uses, and 84 percent already were on the AT&T network. The caveat is that anybody buying a new device on the first couple of days is a "fan," almost by definition.

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. 


Easy to Use Web Browser Impact

By now it is abundantly clear that smartphones with easy-to-use browsers encourage people to use the web when mobile.

To the extent that Symbian and Research in Motion devices have been harder to use, their web usage shows the impact of the barrier, while Apple and Android devices indicate what happens when the barrier is removed.

Some will say this poses a potential problem for mobile service providers. But there is one problem worse than dramatically increased data demand: insufficient demand.

The Roots of our Discontent

Political disagreements these days seem particularly intractable for all sorts of reasons, but among them are radically conflicting ideas ab...