Android, Windows Phone Shipments Grow Based on Price

In the third quarter of 2013, smart phone price mattered.

With a total base of 211.6 million smartphone units shipped during the quarter, Android accounted for 81 percent of all smart phone shipments.

Microsoft's Windows Phone grew 156 percent year over year from a small base of 3.7 million units in the third quarter of 2012, reaching overall market share less than five percent, according to IDC.

"Android and Windows Phone continued to make significant strides in the third quarter. Despite their differences in market share, they both have one important factor behind their success: price," said Ramon Llamas, IDC research manager.

"Both platforms have a selection of devices available at prices low enough to be affordable to the mass market, and it is the mass market that is driving the entire market forward," said Llamas.

Smart phone average selling prices were lower by 12.5 percent in the third quarter of 2013, to an average price of $317.

Top Four Operating Systems, Shipments, and Market Share, Q3 2013 (Units in Millions)

Operating System	3Q13 Shipment Volumes	3Q13 Market Share	3Q12 Shipment Volumes	3Q12 Market Share	Year-Over-Year Change
Android	211.6	81.0%	139.9	74.9%	51.3%
iOS	33.8	12.9%	26.9	14.4%	25.6%
Windows Phone	9.5	3.6%	3.7	2.0%	156.0%
BlackBerry	4.5	1.7%	7.7	4.1%	-41.6%
Others	1.7	0.6%	8.4	4.5%	-80.1%
Total	261.1	100.0%	186.7	100.0%	39.9%

Twitter More Popular than Facebook Among Users 15 to 24?

Though one might expect Twitter underwriters to make the case for investing in Twitter, JP Morgan, which was one of Twitter’s underwriters, does tout the fact that Twitter has higher rates of usage by users 15 to 24, on either desktop PCs or mobile devices.

That has implications for the viability and attractiveness of revenue streams that potentially can be generated by advertising-related or transaction-related revenue streams.

Twitter’s U.S.-based Web audience skews young, JP Morgan suggests.

Another study suggests a dip in teen use of Facebook. In the fall of 2013, a survey by financial firm Piper Jaffray found 23 percent of some 8,650 teens interviewed preferred Facebook.

In contrast, Twitter was the favored social network of some 26 percent of teens. .

 

Meanwhile, Instagram is presently tied with Facebook at 23 percent, but has been rising from 12 percent in Fall 2012 and 17 percent in Spring 2013.

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24% of Thanksgiving, Black Friday Shopping Volume was Mobile Originated

On Nov. 28 and 29, 2013, 24 percent of online retail sales were initiated on mobile devices, some118 percent above the 2012 level.  

The Apple iPad was used to generate $417 million in sales, followed by the iPhone and Android phones at $126 million and $106 million, respectively.

What is M2M Internet of Things Impact on Mobile Networks?

The eventual creation of many large sensor networks will have some impact on network traffic, but the precise nature of the new traffic load is a reasonable question.

One reasonable assumption most might make is that large networks of sensors will increase demand for mobile network connections, which might be the easiest way to activate and use large networks of sensors, many of which are related to logistics, automobiles and health care.

That will place a premium on mobile or untethered access, though not necessarily huge amounts of bandwidth from any single sensor.

Some networks, though, might combine collection and transmission of sensor data including some video and audio feeds, with obvious implications for the amount of new bandwidth load.

Security networks are one obvious example, although auto cameras or digestible cameras for health care provide other use cases.

Still, any predictions about the eventual volume of new data, or its impact on networks, are conditional. Nobody knows yet precisely how the volume, velocity or variety of data will shape networks.

Clearly there is a volume impact, but unless the traffic is video, it will be the multiplication of devices that is key, and the locations where those devices are used, not the actual bandwidth load that is crucial.

It will matter whether most transmitted data consists of web logs, RFID sensor readings,

unstructured social networking data, streamed video or audio.

Sampling frequency (how often the data is generated) will affect transmission load as well.  Real-time data need to be processed real-time, with implications for total traffic demand.

But signaling network activity might have the more notable impact. The sheer number of additional devices, requiring relatively little bandwidth but transmitting at discontinuous times, will likely stress the signaling network more than the bearer traffic network.

Big Telecom Merger Wave Coming, Between 2014 and 2016, CSS Insights Predicts

By one estimate, there have been 161 merger or acquisition deals announced or completed in Europe, so far in 2013. And Deutsche Telekom CEO Rene Obermann says it is necessary for European telecom companies to get bigger, to compete globally.

A major wave of industry restructuring will happen between 2014 and 2016, CSS Insight predicts, with a merger of Orange (France Telecom) and Deutsche Telekom among the deals predicted to happen in 2015.

A precursor would be the sale of T-Mobile US to Dish Network, CSS Insight predicts.

Telecom mergers tend to happen in waves, so it is not to hard to predict that many mergers and acquisitions will happen over the next couple of years, completing a merger wave that was stalled, temporarily it now seems, by the global Great Recession of 2008.

As with past waves of mergers, industry shocks will provide the impetus for the merger wave. Typically, those shocks are economic, regulatory or technological. The issue, some might argue, is whether sufficient capital liquidity will be available to underpin the mergers, as such liquidity is necessary, even when there are industry shocks.

Since the late 1990s, when there was a major wave of mergers, a second wave built in the few years leading up to 2007, after which the Great Recession seemed to slow down dealmaking.

But the U.S. mobile business has seen a big uptick in 2013, and many believe it is a sign of more coming activity globally.

In most telecom markets, at least in developed markets, a “rule of three” will hold, as that offer enough revenue and profit to support a stable cast of providers. But at the recent International Telecommunications Union “Telecom World,” even executives from Southeast Asian countries agreed that was about the number that is sustainable in many markets in that region.

Telecom Malaysia Revenue Grows, Fixed Broadband Helps

It is commonplace these days to note that Internet access revenues are driving growth in developed market telecom markets, especially in the mobile realm, but also in the fixed network segment.

As it turns out, that sometimes also is the case in “developing” markets as well, especially those with high penetration of mobile voice.

Telekom Malaysia pre-tax profit increased 11.1 percent to RM264.9 million in the third quarter of 2013, up from RM238.5 million in the third quarter of 2012.

Revenue grew 9.9 percent year-on-year growth to RM2.6 billion from RM2.4 billion previously, on the back of higher revenue contribution from Internet and data services, with net profit at RM240.9 million in the current quarter.

Significantly, a sizable portion of the revenue increase came from fixed network high-speed Internet access services.

Group Chief Executive Officer Tan Sri Zamzamzairani Mohd Isa said Telecom Malaysia has reached fixed network broadband coverage to 1.462 million premises, covering 103 exchanges nationwide, as of end-September 2013.

"We closed the quarter with more than 607,000 UniFi customers, that translates to a take-up rate of about 42 percent,” Isa said.

Total broadband customers increased 7.7 percent to 2.18 million.

Total Internet access and multimedia services revenue growth was 14.1 percent higher, year over year, while data services recorded a 17 percent increase to RM635.0 million.

U.K. Looks for 650 MHz More Wi-Fi and Mobile Spectrum

U.K. communications regulator Ofcom is investigating ways to free up up more mobile broadband and Wi-Fi spectrum over the next decade or two. Some think the effort could add up to 650 MHz of new Internet access spectrum.

Real Wireless thinks the spectrum effort could free up 300MHz of additional cellular spectrum, and 350 MHz for Wi-Fi. Some of that spectrum should be commercially available by 2020.

If so, Ofcom will make available perhaps seven times as much spectrum as was awarded as part of the recent Long Term Evolution 4G auctions, with initial thinking that all of the additional spectrum could be made available over about a 20 year period.

Ofcom estimates that this new spectrum could boost mobile data capacity by more than 25 times between now and 2030, when used in conjunction with more advanced mobile networks,

Among the candidates for redeployment are the 2.3 and 3.4 GHz bands. Currently licensed for use by the Ministry of Defense, Ofcom is working to make that spectrum available for auction between  2015 and 2016.

That shift of spectrum from public sector to private use is important since public entities use just over half of all U.K. spectrum.

Also being evaluated are some portions of  the 700 MHz band, used for digital TV broadcasting. Ofcom believes at least some of that spectrum could be released for mobile broadband use sometime after 2018.

The TV white spaces spectrum also is under investigation.

In addition, the 2.7 GHz radar band potentially could represent up to 100 MHz of spectrum.

Additional spectrum could be found in the 3.6 GHz band, which is currently used for satellite links. Mobile services might be able to share the band with existing satellite users.

There are any number of implications beyond the immediate matter of creating more potential mobile broadband spectrum. Making some of that new spectrum available necessarily will involve new ways of sharing spectrum.

And U.K. precedents should have implications for other regulatory authorities as well.