Was 2009 the year of the smartphone? Or will it be 2010? Either way, a new Forrester report confirmed a surge in smartphone ownership last year and expects more growth and more competition this year.
Around 17 percent of mobile phone subscribers now own smartphones, up from 11 percent at the end of 2008 and 7 percent at the end of 2007. Those numbers are even more impressive than they sound, Forrester said Monday, because new technologies typically enjoy a growth spurt in their first year and then trail off in subsequent years. Smartphones are doing the reverse.
In 2009, Research In Motion's BlackBerry was still king of the smartphone castle, at least in terms of market share. Though the iPhone may get all the buzz, Forrester points out that RIM kept up its two-to-one advantage over Apple throughout the year. The sustained popularity of the BlackBerry may stem from its price, availability from a range of carriers, and its full QWERTY keyboard, Forrester said.
To clarify which devices Forrester is discussing here, the market researcher pegs a smartphone as a mobile phone or connected handheld device running a high-level operating system, such as iPhone OS, BlackBerry OS, Windows Mobile, PalmOS, WebOS, Symbian, or any Linux variant, including Android.
Forrester also looked at quick messaging devices such as the LG Xenon and Samsung Magnet. Sometimes lumped in with smartphones, quick messaging devices typically sport a keyboard, a touchscreen, or both, but they run proprietary software instead of a standard smartphone OS. Fifteen percent of adult subscribers owned one at the end of 2009, versus 9 percent in 2008.
Though acknowledging that 2009 was a banner year for smartphones--an opinion shared by CNET--Forrester believes 2010 will truly be the year for this device.
As more carriers hit the market with Google Android devices, both handset maker Nokia and mobile OS maker Microsoft will need to beef up their products to keep their customers happy. Of course, rumors also abound about the Apple iPhone jumping ship from AT&T to another provider, such as Verizon Wireless. Google is also set to unveil its own smartphone on Tuesday.
Research In Motion has pushed out new software to correct a problem that left some BlackBerry users high and dry Tuesday.
Blame BlackBerry Messenger for Tuesday's data service outage.
(Credit: RIM)A new version of BlackBerry Messenger is available that apparently fixes the problems experienced by BlackBerry customers, according to a report by BusinessWeek. For several hours on Tuesday, BlackBerry users were unable to use the data services on their phones, preventing e-mails from being received and applications from working correctly.
In a statement provided to CNET, RIM said the "root cause is currently under review, but based on preliminary analysis, it currently appears that the issue stemmed from a flaw in two recently released versions of BlackBerry Messenger (versions 5.0.0.55 and 5.0.0.56) that caused an unanticipated database issue within the BlackBerry infrastructure. RIM has taken corrective action to restore service."
BlackBerry Messenger version 5.0.0.57 is the one to install, if you're currently running either version described above, and that should be available through the phone's browser or in BlackBerry App World. Tuesday's outage follows another one last week shorter in duration.
New data on the top 10 mobile phones puts Apple on top due to the sheer number of iPhone owners. But both Research In Motion and LG actually control more market share because they sell multiple, popular models.
Nielsen's data on the top 10 phones in use in the U.S. from January through October shows Apple with 4 percent market share, RIM with 6.3 percent, and LG with 6.4 percent. But the trio lead a very fragmented market. In fact, the top 10 phones account for just over 20 percent of the total devices in use.
With an estimated 271 million U.S. mobile subscribers at the end of 2008, accounting for about 88 percent of the U.S. population, even 1 percent market share is significant.
RIM BlackBerry devices and LG handsets--voluminous in offering compared with the singular iPhone also have the benefit of longer time on the market and of promotion by the carriers that don't have the iPhone. LG is the No. 3 handset maker behind Nokia and Samsung. RIM and Apple have nowhere the number of models offered by the top three handset makers, yet they enjoy a stronger market share.
The Nielsen data shows both the opportunity and the challenge of creating the next big thing in mobile devices. Just a few years ago, Motorola's Razr was the belle of the ball, and RIM was firmly fixed as an enterprise device. However, the convergence of voice, e-mail, and browsing, as well as new 3G networks, brought the smartphone to the forefront and helped push both RIM and Apple to the top.
All hope is not lost for currently less popular handset makers, as the market can very quickly change dramatically.
Indeed, there is a big challenge under way from Android-based phones such as the Droid that could thrust laggards such as Motorola back into the spotlight, provided that Google doesn't stomp all over the developer community that has been building up around the new mobile operating system.
| Top 10 Mobile Phones in Use (U.S.) - January -October 2009 | ||
| RANK | Device | Embedded Base of All Subscribers |
| 1 | Apple 3G iPhone | 4.0% |
| 2 | RIM BlackBerry 8300 Series (Curve, 8310, 8320, 8330, 8350i) | 3.7% |
| 3 | Motorola Razr V3 series (V3, V3c, V3m, V3i, V3i DG, V3) | 2.3% |
| 4 | LG VX9100 (enV2) | 2.1% |
| 5 | LG Voyager | 1.7% |
| 6 | Samsung SPH-M540 (Rant) | 1.5% |
| 7 | RIM BlackBerry 9530 series (Storm) | 1.4% |
| 8 | LG VX9700 (Dare) | 1.3% |
| 9 | LG Vu series (CU915, CU920) | 1.3% |
| 10 | RIM BlackBerry 8100 series (Pearl, 8110, 8120, 8129) | 1.2% |
| Source: Nielsen | ||
And mobile phones are not just for those on the run. Nielsen's Convergence Audit (PDF), an annual survey on voice, video, and data products, "shows a rise in households who have 'cut the cord' by trading their traditional landlines for wireless cellular services and an increase in mobile media device usage among a diverse set of households."
In the second quarter, the report said, 21 percent of households were using wireless cellular service only--compared with 18 percent a year earlier. "This increase comes from...households who have dropped their landlines as well as from young adults that started new households with just a wireless phone service," the report said.
Odds are that these percentages will continue to climb as young mobile users reach adulthood and as adults look to their mobile devices to do more than just make calls.
Updated 3:01 p.m. PDT with information from the conference call.
On the day that Research In Motion suffered another nationwide mobile e-mail outage, it announced it beat analyst expectations in the fiscal third quarter of 2009 with strong sales of its BlackBerry smartphones.
BlackBerry Bold
(Credit: Research In Motion)The company's earnings were up 59 percent compared to the same quarter a year ago. For the period that ended November 30, the company reported earnings of $628.4 million, or $1.10 per share, compared to $396.3 million, or 69 cents a share, for the fiscal third quarter last year.
Analysts had expected the company to report earnings of $1.04 per share on revenue around $3.78 billion.
The company said it shipped 10.1 million smartphones during the quarter. And it added about 4.4 million new subscribers. Analysts were expecting shipments of 9.5 million with 4.1 million new subscribers.
Some industry watchers have wondered if the new Motorola Droid that uses Google's Android operating system would hurt BlackBerry sales. The Droid is one of two Android devices being sold for Verizon Wireless, and it is the closest competitor offered on Verizon's network to the Apple iPhone, which is sold exclusively in the U.S. for AT&T's wireless network.
Strong sales on RIM's part indicate that the Droid and other Android devices introduced during RIM's fiscal third quarter did not present a major threat to the smartphone maker.
Still, Verizon is spending more money marketing the Droid than it has on any other phone that it has sold on its network. But RIM's co-CEO Jim Balsillie said that Verizon continues to be an important strategic partner. And he said that the market is growing so fast that there is enough business to go around.
"The proportion of smartphones to the total market is crossing 50 percent," he said. "And we see that going to 100 percent. It's just a question of when. The overall market is growing for smartphones and we have a very important place to play in that."
But he admitted that RIM can't afford to rest on its laurels. The company's devices are favorites among corporate customers.
"At the end of the day, you can't force love," he said. "You have to earn it every day. There is no free ride in this. But we have a good sense of what we are doing in this quarter and we feel we create value everyday."
RIM's strong earnings report comes on the same day the company experienced a nationwide e-mail outage for consumers using its BlackBerry devices. Earlier Thursday before the company reported results, RIM confirmed that some BlackBerry customers were unable to get Web-based e-mail. Users getting e-mail through corporate servers were not affected, though, and phone service and text messaging were also not affected by the outage.
The problem seemed to affect customers across all major carrier networks, including Verizon Wireless, T-Mobile USA, and Sprint Nextel. AT&T would not comment and referred questions to RIM, but several AT&T customers in California and in other parts of the country said they had problems as well.
RIM said it has resolved the e-mail service problems, though e-mail may be slow to come back to some customers. The company is still looking into what caused the outage.
"RIM has isolated and resolved the issue that was impacting some BlackBerry customers earlier this morning," a company spokeswoman said in an e-mail. "Some customers may still experience delays as e-mail queues are processed. RIM is continuing to investigate the cause of the issue and apologizes for any inconvenience."
Talk about unfortunate timing. Research In Motion (RIMM) has confirmed reports that Blackberry users across North America have been experiencing e-mail problems this morning. Evidently, the outage is affecting all BlackBerry users who rely on RIM's Internet-based e-mail service instead of corporate servers, regardless of carrier.
This, just hours before the company is to release its third-quarter results.
In a statement, RIM said customers "may be currently experiencing delays receiving email" but phone services and PIN-to-PIN messaging are working just fine. If offered no explanation for the service interruption, but said it engineers are doing all they can to resolve it.
Story Copyright (c) 2010 AllThingsD. All rights reserved.
Additional stories from AllThingsD
As Research In Motion opens up the BlackBerry platform, it is providing new features and integration between third-party apps and core BlackBerry apps.
Alan Brenner, RIM
(Credit: RIM)ZDNet UK spoke to Alan Brenner, a RIM senior vice president and general manager for the platform. Brenner was asked how BlackBerry competes in the crowded smartphone app market, how the handset manufacturer expects to work with developers, and what the key challenges are for the company's mobile platform.
Q: Where do you think the new APIs and the integration into core BlackBerry apps put the BlackBerry as a platform, compared with other smartphones?
Brenner: The important point is that we're different; we have a different approach from what you're seeing elsewhere in the market. This notion of enabling deep integration is distinctive, and it speaks to our traditional strength as BlackBerry.
Read more of "BlackBerry goes with the flow for developers at ZDNet UK.
Windows Mobile lost 28 percent of its smartphone market share between last year's third quarter and this year's third quarter, according to market researcher Gartner.
Figures released Thursday by Gartner show that Microsoft's mobile OS had 11 percent of the global smartphone market in Q3 2008. A year later, it had 7.9 percent. Meanwhile, the iPhone's share rose from 12.9 percent to 17.1 percent, and Research In Motion's share jumped from 16 percent to 20.8 percent.
Symbian's share fell from 49.7 percent to 44.6 percent over the same period--a 10 percent drop.
Read more of "Windows Mobile loses nearly a third of market share" at ZDNet UK.
Consumer demand for smartphones seems to be unstoppable.
In the third quarter, vendors shipped a record 43.3 million devices, up 4.2 percent from last year's third quarter and up 3.2 percent from this year's second quarter, says a report released Thursday by market researcher IDC.
(Credit:
IDC)
Among smartphone vendors, Nokia still enjoys the greatest market share, according to IDC, with a 37.9 percent slice for the third quarter. ... Read More
As Apple and Research In Motion have won a greater share in the Wi-Fi handset market over the past year, Nokia has lost share.
Though Nokia is still the leading vendor for dual-mode smartphones (Wi-Fi and cellular), its market share dropped to 35 percent in the second quarter, compared with 50 percent in the same period a year ago, according to a report released Monday from In-Stat.
The report "Wi-Fi in Mobile Phones: Dual Mode Becomes the In Thing" tracked the major Wi-Fi phone vendors, including Nokia, Apple, Research In Motion, HTC, and Samsung. Among those, Apple has enjoyed the greatest growth in market share, from 3 percent in the second quarter of 2008 to 20 percent in this year's second quarter.
Market share for both RIM and Samsung has also weakened the past few quarters, though less so than Nokia's. RIM's 15.7 percent chunk of the market for the second quarter of the year was down from its first-quarter high of 17.6 percent. Samsung's share has been relatively flat but usually dips a bit from the first to the second quarter, notes In-Stat.
In sheer unit volume, Nokia has done well the past few quarters, with 9.3 million Wi-Fi handsets shipped in the second quarter of the year compared with Apple's 5.2 million shipments. However, Nokia's shipments have dropped since the first quarter of 2008 when it saw 12 million units fly out the door. Over the same period, Apple, RIM, and HTC have seen their shipments grow.
As the No. 2 Wi-Fi handset vendor, Apple has also outsold third-place RIM in dual-mode phone shipments, says In-Stat. Though RIM still has a larger market presence, not all of its Blackberry devices include Wi-Fi. HTC and Samsung rounded out In-Stat's list as the fourth and fifth top Wi-Fi handset vendors, respectively.
(Credit:
In-Stat)
The report also detailed the growth of the Wi-Fi smartphone market overall. The industry shipped 37 million handsets in 2007, and 103 million units in 2008. That rise is because of several factors, notes In-Stat, including greater functionality, lower prices, and carrier promotions. Initially targeted to the business market, smartphones are also now an entrenched hit with consumers, which In-Stat attributes to the success of the iPhone.
Wi-Fi handset shipments are expected to rise just 25 percent to 128.4 million units for 2009. That compares with a nearly 180 percent jump in 2008.
But In-Stat sees gains ahead. By 2010, the growth rate is likely to climb to 43 percent. Though that rate may not be sustainable, it should remain strong in the coming years. Wi-Fi will also become more prevalent in mobile phones. This year, 11.5 percent of handsets include Wi-Fi; by 2012, that figure will grow to 25 percent, predicts In-Stat.
To compile the report, In-Stat relied on its own data as well as interviews with Wi-Fi equipment vendors.
Apple's iPhone and Android-based smartphones have both seen solid growth throughout the world this year, says a report released Wednesday by AdMob.
The iPhone's worldwide market share jumped from 33 percent to 40 percent over February to August, according to AdMob's "August Mobile Metrics Report," which tracked smartphone usage for that six-month period. AdMob, which serves ads for mobile Web sites and apps, bases its numbers on data from ad requests, impressions, and clicks.
Phones running Google's Android OS picked up a 7 percent market share by August versus only 2 percent in February, thanks to rapid gains in North America and Western Europe, said AdMob. Since its debut this summer, T-Mobile's Android-powered MyTouch has been a top seller in both of those regions.
(Credit:
AdMob)
With the launch of the Pre, Palm's WebOS has also taken off, grabbing a 4 percent slice of the smartphone market in August.
On the downside, older smartphone systems have witnessed a drop in market share, according to AdMob.
The global share for Nokia's Symbian OS fell from 43 percent in February to 34 percent in August. However, Nokia smartphones remain hot sellers, accounting for 12 of the top 20 smartphones tracked by AdMob. Nokia's N97 and 5800 XpressMusic units were the fourth and fifth most popular smartphones in the U.K. for August.
Research In Motion's slice of the market dropped slightly from 10 percent in February to 8 percent in August. Still, RIM's Blackberry devices accounted for three of the top 20 smartphones around the world. The Palm OS, running on older units such as the Centro, declined in share from 3 percent in February to 1 percent in August.
Finally, Microsoft's Windows Mobile also lost share, falling from 7 percent in February to 4 percent in August, according to the report.
AdMob sells and tracks ads on mobile Web pages and applications to more than 7,000 publishers. The company compiled the data for this report based on its analysis of more than 10 billion monthly ad requests from over 160 different countries.
