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Author: Horace Dediu

Google Nexus S

Google Nexus S is real, gets leaked by Best Buy [U] | Electronista.

Can you imagine Microsoft launching a Microsoft branded phone to compete with its Windows Phone licensees? When Microsoft launched the Zune, their licensing model (PlaysForSure) was quietly folded up.

A Google phone makes little sense, but then again Google does not seem to care much about its ecosystem or relationships with Android device vendors. They even claim that they have no idea how many phones are being built using Android and, except for activations, have no way of measuring the number sold.

From their point of view, if Motorola feels it’s unfair to have to compete with a Google branded Samsung (or HTC) designed phone then too bad. There’s lots of white label vendors lined up to make these with or without anyone’s blessing.

In fact, the biggest opportunity for Android growth seems to be the large unlicensed (and illegal) grey market which seems to be rapidly expanding.

20% vs 33% for "Others": Why are Gartner and IDC so far apart on mobile phone market estimates

The latest mobile phone estimates from Gartner made a startling claim that “Others” vendors increased share from 16% a year ago to 33%. Doubling share in a year is possible if you’re at 1% share but to double from a base of 16% is sounding improbable. They allege that the “Others” now sell more phones than Nokia. And Others don’t even include ZTE and Huawei, the prototypical low end challengers.

They emphasize this point in their discussion and state that the incumbent vendors are being pressured by these low end entrants. They go on to explain that the same set of vendors will probably use Android to enter the smartphone space.

To illustrate, the growth of individual companies is shown here (all phones). Continue reading “20% vs 33% for "Others": Why are Gartner and IDC so far apart on mobile phone market estimates”

Visualizing smartphone platform growth

None of this should come as major surprises, but Gartner’s data allows for a bit more granular detail in the overall view of the market. Here are new points derived from Gartner’s sell-through data:

The largest Android vendors

Gartner released sell-through data for the handset market. In the release appears an estimate of total Android 3Q Smartphone sales (20.5 million). Combining this with what some of the vendors have reported in terms of units sold, we can estimate the share of Android by vendors.

Note that this is a rough estimate. We don’t have data on Sony Ericsson’s smartphone units sold and we don’t know the mix of HTC’s Windows Mobile vs. Android.  I’m also assuming LG as part of Others. The data from Gartner is claimed to be sell-through whereas vendors report sell-in so there is more roughness about each vendor.

Regardless of these potential sources of error, it’s a very safe bet that Samsung and HTC are the largest Android vendors by a fairly large margin.

It’s perhaps noteworthy that both are also committed Windows Phone vendors. According to pdadb.net here is the count of Windows Phone SKUs by vendor:

  • HTC 12
  • LG 5
  • Samsung 2
  • Dell 2
  • Toshiba 1

Motorola is keeping its Windows Phone options open, leaving “Others” as the only likely exclusive Android vendors.

Were Nokia and Symbian always inter-dependent?

Several readers pointed out that in my discussion on the market share of modular vs. inter-dependent market shares for smartphones, Nokia was incorrectly classified as having an inter-dependent software architecture since the Symbian platform is/was a modular component.

The problem is that the relationship between Symbian and Nokia is not that of independent modules. Nominally, the two are independent and mutually exclusive, but, in practice, Symbian has always been so heavily dependent and influenced by Nokia that it’s never been possible to declare its governance fully independent. Continue reading “Were Nokia and Symbian always inter-dependent?”

Android remains the only mobile OS still patterned after Microsoft's 2002 vision of the mobile value chain

Belfiore wasn’t shy about criticizing Google’s Android OS. Even though Google currently dominates the mobile OS market, its strategy of licensing the Android OS to manufacturers is similar to Microsoft’s previous approach with Windows Mobile: It’s open-ended, and there are few restrictions on how manufacturers can use or modify the OS.

As a result, Android is suffering from some of the same issues as Windows Mobile did: Android works better on some phones than others, manufacturers are shipping different versions of the OS on different phones, some Android phones are shipping with bloatware made by carriers, and some app developers complain that it’s difficult to make software because of the hardware and OS fragmentation.

via How Microsoft Hit CTRL+ALT+DEL on Windows Phone | Gadget Lab | Wired.com.

Continue reading “Android remains the only mobile OS still patterned after Microsoft's 2002 vision of the mobile value chain”

HTC to re-bone Android?

Peter Chou, chief executive of HTC, had previously said he saw “little value” in HTC running its own application store. But he has also said that it was no longer enough for HTC to simply customise the standard Android user interface with its own “skin”: “It is not enough to be skin-deep. We need to go bone-deep.”

via FT.com / Technology – HTC to target online app store.

HTC was the world’s biggest Windows Mobile vendor, at one time claiming to have sold over 80% of all WinMo phones ever made.

Continue reading “HTC to re-bone Android?”

Citizen Publisher

In March this year Richard Stengel, managing editor of Time magazine, was speaking about the iPad.

For a while many movies were more like filmed plays, until directors really learned to take advantage of the opportunities of the medium. For the iPad “The medium is waiting for its Orson Welles.”

The idea that a new medium needs a new media is not novel. The implication that the new media needs a new genius to define it also follows naturally. However, the implications of new media for the creative industries that are built around them are more difficult to perceive. How are the structures of these industries shaped by disruptive innovations?
Continue reading “Citizen Publisher”

In London for Apps World

As London seems to have a particularly high concentration of readers, I thought I’d mention that I’ll be in London for the Apps World Exhibition 30th November and 1st December 2010. I’ll be attending as an official blogger and will cover the event.

If you are interested in meeting at or near the event let me know by email.

If there is enough interest, I will consider having a modest gathering at a venue nearby.

Samsung's smartphones make up 10% of total sold. Nokia is at 30% and Motorola is over 40%.

Today’s chart: the percent of smartphones as part of the total phones sold for three vendors vendors that have traditionally sold a large portion of voice-oriented phones.

As these vendors switch to a higher mix of smartphones, their distribution network will ensure a continuing surge in overall smartphone penetration.

Most of Samsung’s increase has come in the last two quarters. Note also the rate of growth in Nokia’s mix. Motorola and Samsung owe it all to Android.