Categories

Search term: modular

Entries 45 Total

The fate of mobile phone brands

Aug 8, ’11 4:23 PM

The violence with which new platforms have displaced incumbent mobile vendor fortunes continues to surprise.

  • Nokia’s Symbian platform has gone from 47% share to 16% in three years
  • Microsoft’s phone platforms have gone from 12% to 1%
  • Other platforms have gone from 21% to zero
  • Although far less dramatic, RIM’s decline from 17% to 12%  is causing acute pain and anxiety

This while entrants have grown share in spectacular fashion:

  • Android from zero to 48% (A two year period)
  • iOS from 2% to 19%
  • Bada from zero to 4% (two quarters only)

 

The picture of platform share over time looks like this:

Continue Reading… Comments (139)

The Android and iOS pincer movement

Aug 4, ’11 1:00 PM

Nearly all the data on smartphone shipments is now available for the second quarter 2011. Some fragments are still not public, including ZTE and Huawei (and any others) shipments. We also have estimates for the various platforms including an estimate for Windows Phone and Bada (though not for WebOS).

This allows the following chart:

Using the traditional color scheme which separates “integrated” from “modular” vendors, the chart shows overall volume growth and how the volumes are split among vendors.

The market grew at about 73% y/y and 50% compounded over three years and 9% sequentially. The y/y growth rates for individual vendors were:

Continue Reading… Comments (48)

Is the tablet computer a new PC or post-PC?

Jul 14, ’11 10:24 AM

Steve Ballmer stated and Andy Lees confirmed that Microsoft views iPad and other tablets as “just PCs”. From a market measurement point of view Canalys agrees. IDC and Gartner don’t, calling the new devices “media tablets.”

Before deciding whether tablets belong with PCs in market metrics, it would be interesting to look at what the data shows. When seen as a combined market, the focus should be on platforms. The following chart shows the four main PC+tablet platform volumes since late 2008 [1].

The second chart shows the same data as share of total market:

Continue Reading… Comments (64)

“Other” vendors sell 10% of Smartphones but 30% of voice-oriented phones

May 22, ’11 4:41 PM

In the last post, I highlighted the difference between smartphones and non-smart device sales last quarter. The trajectory of share growth for smart devices would appear to have accelerated due to Android.

The following charts show the evolution of smartphone vendors and platforms over the last few years.

Like in the past, I used color clustering to show the separation between “integrated” (in green) and “modular” (in brown) platforms and their users.

Unlike the non-smart market where “other” make up 30% of the market, smartphones are still a big brand business. “Other” make up only 11% of units. and that number has been trending down. It would seem that the age of unbranded Android phones is still not upon us.

Comparing three years “before and after” here is Q1 2008 vs. Q1 2011 by vendors share:

Continue Reading… Comments (12)

Mobile device OS upgrades: How hard can it be?

Apr 13, ’11 8:13 PM

Until the iPhone’s arrival in 2007, upgrading the software on a mobile phone was a rare experience for users. So rare that effectively it was not done. Few people were bothered though since they did not see the product they used as a software product.

This was even true for Windows Mobile and Symbian which were licensed platforms. Microsoft tried several times to offer upgrade paths, but more often than not the device vendors did not push out updates or the process required to perform an upgrade made it the reserve of either those who were paid to do it or those who enjoyed the challenge.

In the era of the modern smartphone, upgrades are more common. Certainly with the iPhone the process is easy enough that opting out of an upgrade is more challenging than opting in. But it’s still not as common with other platforms. Even with all the resources and experience behind them, Microsoft is still stumbling with Windows Phone upgrading.

UPDATE 1-Microsoft explains phone software update delay | Reuters

But is it really a matter of blundering or is there evidence of nominal partners working at cross-purposes?

Continue Reading… Comments (45)