Rumors of Nokia’s fabled-Android device persist and with a new leak the rumor mill will continue to spark. Courtesy of WPDang, the Nokia Normandy looks to run a “forked” version of Android which likely means no direct access to the Play Store. Ultimately, that doesn’t surprise us given that the potential for a Google-approved Nokia device seems like a crap shoot in a post-Microsoft acquisition world.
Perhaps one of the greatest “what could have been” stories in recent (tech) times is definitively the question of what Nokia would be like today had they gone with Android over Windows Phone? There’s little question Nokia’s fortunes might have changed dramatically and as a result, the fortunes of every other Android OEM not named Samsung.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8nJKWJTsUg&w=600&h=400]
For a moment there I didn’t think I would find a creepier marketing spot than Nokia’s Lumia 2520 “mullet.” Well, Samsung has gone and taken “creepy marketing spot” to a whole new level with “Are You Geared Up?” The 2.5 minute features two guys, one with the Galaxy Note 3 and Galaxy Gear smartwatch, the other with just a run-of-the-mill smartphone and of course the bombshell blonde.
As I spent a good portion of the week considering the impressive move Motorola made by introducing a well-specced $179 smartphone, I realized they were doing something Nokia has been talking about doing for years. Never-mind for the moment whether Nokia should have gone all-in on Android before their risky and as-of-yet market share boosting bet on Windows Phone. In fact, I see that the thoughts I had in my head already being echoed by Stefan Constantinescu at Mobile Industry Review.
The Verge has a great behind-the-scenes look at Motorola’s Moto X factory in Texas that is currently pumping out around 100,000 units of the new flagship device per week. We reported this morning that Motorola is currently shipping a disappointing 100k units a week, so it’s not that surprising to learn that around 200,000 square feet of the factory is not being used.
To accomplish this, Motorola partnered with Flextronics to refab a factory in Texas formerly used by Nokia. In a mere six months, the factory was completely updated and transformed to Motorola’s specifications, which including the hiring of 2,500 workers to make it run. Motorola did not actually make a final call to do manufacturing in the US until late 2012, but the factory was operational by August 6th of this year. The factory currently puts out about 100,000 devices per week, but Motorola says that it’s possible to scale it to tens of millions of units. Given that more than half of the over 400,000 square foot factory floor sits unused right now, that’s not too hard to believe.
It also spoke with Motorola CEO Dennis Woodside about why bringing assembly to the US was crucial for the Moto X’s MotoMaker customizations features.
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According to a new report out of the Financial Times, Huawei is considering buying Finnish smartphone manufacturer Nokia. Richard Yu, Huawei’s consumer business group chairman explained at the company’s Ascend P6 launch event that Huawei is looking into the acquisition, but how far negotiations go would depend on the willingness of Nokia. “We are considering these sorts of acquisitions; maybe the combination has some synergies but depends on the willingness of Nokia. We are open-minded,” Yu stated.
Huawei is not a household name here in the United States when it comes to smartphones, most likely due to the company’s shaky relationship with the U.S. government, but Yu says the company is certainly looking to take on the likes of Samsung and Apple, and having Nokia behind it would definitely be helpful.
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According to a new report out of the Financial Times, Google is being investigated by European officials due to allegations that it has anti-competitive deals set up with select smartphone manufacturers. This isn’t the first time Google has run into trouble with the EU, as the company has been investigated for antitrust issues in the past.
Microsoft and Nokia made these allegations and claim that Google is forcing Android manufacturers to delay the launch of devices running their two operating systems. The European Union is also looking into claims that Google requires manufacturers to preload its services on their devices.
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Q4 2012 estimates from Strategy Analytics
While Samsung has conveniently left specific smartphone sales numbers out of its Q4 earnings release yesterday (as usual), today we get a look at the latest estimates for the quarter coming from research firms Strategy Analytics and IDC.
We know that Apple sold 47.8 million iPhones during the quarter, and today both research firms put Samsung just over 63 million units for Q4 2012. That means Samsung was able to capture 29 percent of the market last quarter (up from 36.2 million units and 22.5-percent of the market in the year ago quarter). Apple is of course a close second among the top five smartphone vendors with 21.8-percent—down slightly from the 23 percent it held in the same quarter last year. In Q4 2011, Apple and Samsung were neck and neck at about 23 percent of the market each.
The increasing market share for Apple, and especially Samsung, over the past year comes at the expense of Nokia. It experienced a drop from 16 percent to 5 percent of the market during the past year.
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A Nokia board chairperson admitted to a Finnish talk show recently that his company has a backup plan in case the Windows Phone 8 software continues to fail.
According to CNET (via Yle Uutiset), Risto Siilasmaa, who has only been with Nokia since May, hailed the 2011 transition from Symbian to Microsoft’s Windows Phone during Thursday’s interview on “Päivän Kasvo“. Despite the accolades, he said a “contingency plan” is in place should the current mobile operating system “fail to live up to expectations.”
Windows Phone 8 launched in June and barely grabbed 0.18-percent of the marketshare for the month, according to NetMarketShare findings. The prospects do not look good, but Siilasmaa expects the OS to hold its own. Meanwhile, the details of Nokia’s Plan B are unknown. 9to5Google thinks the mysterious backup plan certainly hints at Android.
Google’s mobile operating system could be Nokia’s only saving grace, but fierce competition from Samsung and HTC will make a much-needed recovery even harder for the fledging manufacturer.
(via <a href="http://phandroid.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Nokia-Event-Elop-Ballmer-10_web1-550x369.jpg" target="_blank">Phandroid</a>)
Google claimed in a formal complaint with the European Commission recently that Microsoft and Nokia conspired to use their patents against competitors.
“Nokia and Microsoft are colluding to raise the costs of mobile devices for consumers, creating patent trolls that side-step promises both companies have made,” said Google in a statement to The Wall Street Journal, while Microsoft deemed the search engine’s filing as a “desperate tactic.”
According to the filing, Microsoft and Nokia entered agreements that allow Mosaid Technologies Inc. to legally enforce patents and share the outcome’s revenue. Reuters further specified that the two collaborating companies moved 1,200 patents to Mosaid.
Google called Mosaid a “patent troll” for holding patents and litigating hawkishly, and then it described its filing as a “pre-emptive measure against a developing legal hazard for Android partners.” In a nutshell: Google’s “legal hazard” concerns if smartphone manufacturers begin to view Android as a legal danger, they may decide to do business with Microsoft and Nokia instead.
“Google is complaining about antitrust in the smartphone industry when it controls more than 95 percent of mobile search and advertising,” added Microsoft in an emailed statement to The Wall Street Journal.
This is a special guest post written by Steven Troughton-Smith. Follow him on Twitter or his blog.
When Google first showed off Android, the company showed it running on a device very similar to Blackberries or Nokia E-class devices of the time. This device was the Google Sooner—an OMAP850 device built by HTC with no touchscreen or Wi-Fi. This was the Android reference device…and the device Google originally built the OS on.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1FJHYqE0RDg]
Recently, I got access to a Google Sooner running a very early version of Android. With all the recent information coming out of the Oracle vs. Google trial, I thought it would be interesting to take you on a brief tour of the OS. The build of Android this is running was built on May 15, 2007, which is four months after the iPhone announced. The first M3 version of Android announced in November 2007, and Android 1.0 did not come until a year later….
Today, research firm IDC published its Q1 2012 report of top mobile phone and smartphone shipments worldwide. While Apple was able to post impressive growth with a high of 8.8-percent of the total mobile phone market (up from 4.6-percent a year ago) and 24.2-percent of the global smartphone market (up from 18.3-percent), Samsung was able overtake Apple for the top spot with a year-over-year change of 267 percent and 29.1-percent of the total smartphone market. Samsung also took the top spot of global mobile phone marketshare from Nokia for the first time since 2004.
Meanwhile, the worldwide smartphone market grew 42.5% year over year in 1Q12, as Samsung overtook Apple for the smartphone leadership position. Vendors shipped 144.9 million smartphones in 1Q12 compared to 101.7 million units in 1Q11. The 42.5% year-over-year growth was 1% higher than IDC’s forecast of 41.5% for the quarter, and lower than the 57.4% growth in the fourth quarter of 2011
In terms of shipments among smartphone vendors, Apple took the second spot behind Samsung up from 18.6 million units in Q1 2011 to 35.1 million in Q1 2012. Apple was only behind Samsung with 42.2 million units shipped, up from just 11.5 million a year ago.
The company does not publicly release shipments from Samsung, and IDC’s number of 42.2 million smartphones shipped during Q1 is significantly more than the 32 million estimated by IHS iSuppli just days ago. If IHS’s estimate were correct, it would put Samsung much closer to the 35.1 million devices Apple confirmed it shipped sold during the quarter.
With iOS gaining roughly 30 percent United States marketshare as of Q4 2011 at the expense of RIM, Nokia and Microsoft, new numbers from Nielsen’s latest study show just how much of a duopoly the U.S. market has become. While noting about 50 percent of mobile subscribers in the U.S. are now smartphone owners, Nielsen gave a breakdown of how the two leading platforms continue to dominate as of February 2012:
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Curious to see how Windows Phone feels, but don’t have a device around to do so? Us neither. But Microsoft has just released a new HTML 5 website that allows iPhone and Android users to get a taste of the Windows Phone 7 (Mango 7.5) operating system. The trial requires no downloads or registration, and you can try it out by just going to the webpage http://aka.ms/wpdemo on your Android device.
While it doesn’t use any of the data on your phone like your contacts, the demo does give you a pretty comprehensive look at all of Windows Phone’s features. Microsoft uses a blue dot to guide you around the operating system, and obviously some features like voice recognition just don’t work in the browser. Drat, that’s something we really wanted to try.
Will this draw users over to the Windows Phone platform? Probably not, but it’s always cool to see what the competition is up to.
Trevor Prideaux, pictured above, was born without his left arm, but that doesn’t stop him from enjoying his smartphone, perhaps more than most. Rather than despair, Mr. Prideaux, who works as catering manager, decided to think different. He arranged with his medical team to contact Nokia and float an interesting idea calling for a specially designed prosthetic arm with a phone-shaped cradle carved out. That way, Mr. Prideaux can use his Nokia C7 touchscreen phone comfortably rather than juggle with it.
He told The Telegraph:
I think this is the first time this has ever been done in the world – and it is brilliant.
We think it’s exciting that some companies out there are willing to go extra mile and adapt their tech in order to help disabled individuals get thins done. Kudos to Mr. Prideaux for having the guts and willingness to fight bureaucracy and push his idea. Here’s to the hoping that other vendors will pay notice and provide phone accessories that can be used comfortably with artificial limbs.
Also, maybe while they are in there, they could throw in extended life batteries and some dope speakers with a decent sub.
Noticed by the guys over at The Handheld Blog (via Android Community), Nokia has been rolling out some pretty significant updates to their HTML5 maps web app for Android (and iOS) accessible at m.maps.nokia.com. This brings the web app a lot closer to the quality maps experience exclusive to the N9 and other Nokia devices.
If you haven’t checked it out recently, you will now notice the ability to download maps over WiFi for offline use, allowing you to bypass the need for a data connection when on the go. The update also brings a few other goodies including public transit routes and directions (which adds to the driving and walking navigation introduced in past updates), local area guides, and new point of interest (POI) landmarks showing local retailers, gas stations, etc.
Apple’s embattled iPhone has had tough time competing against the legions of Android handsets that have flooded the market. That shouldn’t come as a surprise: Carriers are promoting inexpensive Android devices left and right and they are literally everywhere. But how satisfied Android and iPhone users are with their handsets? According to a study of 515 smartphone owners conducted by USB Research (via GigaOM), iPhone is “sticky” like no other phone, with an average retention rate of 89 percent.
It is falling rapidly for other vendors, though, and the next nearest hardware is HTC with a retention rate of 39 percent and 28 percent for Samsung. Android phones in general are at 55 percent. Nokia and Research in Motion are sinking really fast. The former saw its retention rate drop from 42 percent in March 2010 to just 24 percent and the latter dropped from 62 percent to 33 percent.
The survey may not be terribly accurate due to a small sample size, but it helps understand market trends. People are obviously happy with their iPhones and a large portion of users will happily stay within the Apple ecosystem. USB concludes:
Demand for iPhone, iPad and MacBook Pro remains robust, with a leading ecosystem that creates sticky demand.
Truth be told, Android’s low stickiness could be due to its users being more comfortable changing handset manufacturers. Another interesting nugget that bodes well for Apple: Nearly one-third (31 percent) of polled Android users have plans to switch to an iOS device in the future. Also important, more than half the smartphone switchers are in the market for an iPhone while only one in ten iPhone users plan on defecting to other platforms.
Cross-posted on 9to5Mac.com.
Android is the dominant smartphone platform pretty much everywhere, but nowhere is Google’s lead more evident than in Taiwan, the country traditionally on the bleeding edge of technology. According to the Asian trade publication DigiTimes which cited the latest data from IDC, the 990,00 smartphones accounted for half the 1.97 million cell phones shipped in Taiwan during the second quarter of this year.
Taiwan will probably become the first country where all phones will eventually become smartphones as shipments of feature phones dropped 17 percent sequentially and 32 percent annually: As for Android:
Android-based smartphones accounted for over 70% of all smartphones sold in Taiwan in the second quarter, followed by iOS and Symbian models, the data showed.
Mind you, this isn’t the Android-iOS monopoly any more, this is a Windows-type monopoly and it’s unfolding in Taiwan before our very eyes. Makes you wonder if that’s a sign of things to come elsewhere in the world. The gap between Android and iOS in Taiwan is unheard-of. And with just 30 percent of smartphones divided between iOS and Symbian, Apple’s platform is likely far behind Android in Taiwan. Of course…
The smoke has cleared on Google’s $12.5B purchase of Chicago-based Motorola and now that almost everyone has had a chance to speak, I think we’re starting to understand what went down.
Google purchased Motorola (MMI) for $12.5B, a 63% premium over its weekend closing price. Motorola, however, has around $3B in cash and securities, which makes the real purchase a slightly more reasonable $9.5B for Google. For instance, if Google wanted to slice and dice Motorola, they’d take the cash and patents and sell off the cable box and device divisions for a couple billion dollars each and come away with about what they would have paid for Nortel – and get double to triple the patents. On sheer numbers of patents alone, it seems like a good buy. Obviously some patents are worth more than others.
If the deal doesn’t go through, Google owes Motorola $2.5B for the trouble, so Google is dead serious about this play.
But back to what Motorola does: They have IP, they make smartphones, they make tablets and they make cable top boxes. It seems like almost too good a setup for Andy Rubin’s Android to just want to sell off piecemeal.
But did Google want to pick up a hardware company? I reported earlier this year that the Android Hardware division that Andy Rubin had started up with former Danger Co-founders had intentions to build physical devices, not just Operating Systems.
That scale is what attracted and the former Danger founders to get the band back together, with their goal being to build the hardware and features they want to see show up in new Android devices. It’s not enough for Google to just provide Android software to carrier — now they hope to influence what handset makers build, too.
If you haven’t heard by now, Google has shocked many this week with their acquisition of Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion, which still may have to pass regulatory review for GOOG to avoid an unusually high $2.5b reverse termination fee. However, while there might be a few hoping the deal falls through, Microsoft is taking this time to convince smartphone makers the Windows Phone platform is the only “truly open mobile ecosystem”.
President of Windows Phone division, Andy Lees, provided the following statement (via WinSuperSite) following the Google/Motorola acquisition announcement:
“Investing in a broad and truly open mobile ecosystem is important for the industry and consumers alike, and Windows Phone is now the only platform that does so with equal opportunity for all partners..”
This comes after Microsoft announced a deal with Nokia in February that would see Windows Phone 7 become Nokia’s primary OS for smartphones (a deal that appears to give Nokia an unfair advantage over other partners). As a result, Nokia will be working closely with Microsoft and integrating a ton of their own content into the OS including their content and application store, and the Nokia Maps app. The handsets will also receive the Xbox Live, Zune music store, and Bing search treatment from Microsoft.
While the deal isn’t exclusive (allowing Microsoft to partner with other manufacturers and Nokia to make devices powered by another OS), it certainly gives the two companies an unfair advantage over other OEMs considering the Windows Phone platform… and seems to contradict Lees’ statement of the OS being an “equal opportunity for all partners”. Google’s acquisition of Motorola may have a bigger impact down the line depending on their plans for the company… but for the time being the Google/Motorola partnership doesn’t provide any less incentive for new Android partners than the Microsoft/Nokia deal does for potential Windows Phone manufacturers.
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IMS Research put out a study estimating that some 420 million smartphones will be sold worldwide in the 2011 calendar year, or 28 percent of all handsets sold. The survey portrays Apple as making huge gains in the space, buoyed on the sales of 18.65 million and 20.34 million iPhones in their last two quarters – enough to garner a 19 percent share of the global smartphone market. Combined with Nokia’s slumping sales, Apple emerged as the world’s leading smartphone maker.
It remains to be seen whether Samsung, which is due to report its earnings Friday, will beat Apple’s smartphone sales (some say it will). IMS noted the fact that the company grew their share of global smartphone market from three percent in the first quarter of 2010 to 13 percent in the first quarter of this year. Samsung, as you know, sells phones powered by Google’s and Microsoft’s software in addition to their own operating system for feature phones, Bada. IMS’s Analyst Josh Builta says this of LG:
LG, despite being the third largest OEM in the world, has offered a fairly limited smartphone portfolio in recent years, a factor that resulted in the company reaching less than a three percent share of the total smartphone market in 2010.
However, Nokia’s fall surprised even the most seasoned watchers and is unheard of in this industry. Nokia, the Finnish phone giant, lost 16 percentage points of its smartphone market share, going from a 40 percent share last year to 24 percent in the first quarter of 2010. They shipped 16.74 million smartphones in the June quarter – a 34 percent annual decline – versus Apple’s 20.34 million units – a 134 percent annual increase. Nokia also killed Symbian and is only shipping the well-received but short-lived MeeGo-powered N9 to select markets. Here’s how the analyst described Nokia’s problem:
Clearly one of the key dynamics of the mobile handset competitive environment in recent years has been the inability of many traditional market leaders to recognize and adjust to the growing smartphone tier. The reasons for these failures vary and include everything from poorly designed and manufactured devices, unsatisfactory user interfaces, and portfolios that don’t offer products with a differentiating feature. These lapses have created opportunities for newer entrants to the market, which they have aggressively pursued.
Research In Motion fell from 20 percent to 15 percent in the same period, mind you. IMS sees one billion smartphones by 2016 as average selling prices drop and vendors release more inexpensive handsets. Smartphones then will account for one of every two mobile handsets sold, the research firm concludes.
Cross-posted on 9to5Mac.com
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Due to their wide variety of popular Android devices, Samsung “may have” surpassed Apple in smartphone sales according to Boston-based Strategy Analytics. In Q2 2011 Samsung is estimated to have sold between 18 – 21 million smartphones, while Apple sold 20.3 million iPhones, and Nokia sold 16.7 million. Certainly, they are at least #2.
Much of Samsung’s success is credited to sales of the Galaxy S II which has been booming overseas.
It’s far from official that Samsung has surpassed Apple, but at any rate they’re becoming a close competitor. We can’t wait to look at these numbers again when the Galaxy S II hits U.S. shores, but then again, the iPhone 5 is reportedly on its way too.
What if Microsoft didn’t decide to dump a boatload of cash on top of Nokia to take their OS and Nokia went Android? It appears that there might have been a skunkworks project in place to get the Android OS on Nokia’s devices if the images from Engadget and Weibo are any indication.
Either that, or some cheeky Nokia employee decided to put Android on their N9. Whichever reality you believe, it wold have been nice to have an N9 Android device, even if it looks like an oversized iPod nano.
A closeup below:
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With an IDC-estimated 10.8 million units shipped during the first quarter of this year, Samsung files as the world’s fourth-largest smartphone vendor, behind Nokia, Apple and BlackBerry maker Research In Motion. However, the rising popularity of Samsung’s feature phones and dumb handsets powered by their own operating system called Bada has helped the Korean phone maker capture the #2 slot in terms of all handset units shipped globally.
Samsung was outdone only by Nokia in the first quarter. According to IDC’s Worldwide Mobile Phone Tracker, Samsung shipped 70 million handset units during the first quarter of this year versus the 108.5 million Nokia phones. With 18.7 million iPhones Apple came in fourth, behind LG Electronics which shipped 24.5 million handsets. That was last quarter…
The global handset landscape is going to alter rapidly by the June quarter’s end, predicts Japanese research firm Nomura. Their analyst was quoted as saying that “Nokia looks set to relinquish its smartphone crown (in unit terms) to Samsung and Apple”. This means, their analyst argues, that Nokia will be #3, with Samsung and Apple taking the #1 and #2 slots, respectively. Mind you, Nokia has been the world’s top handset maker since 1996…
