TamsBada - the Samsung Bada blog

Tomi Ahonen data dump – Q1 2012

May 172012

Tomi Ahonen is a tragic figure of the mobile market – he is a total genius, but his blog posts are so long that they are all but impossible to read “quickly”. Nevertheless, his stat dumps contain a huge amount of valuable data – let’s get to it.

Biggest smartphone makers, by # sold
TEN BIGGEST SMARTPHONE MANUFACTURERS BY UNIT SALES IN Q1 2012

Rank . Maker . . . . . . Units . . . Market Share . . . . Was in Q4 of 2011
1 . . . . Samsung . . . 44.5 M . . 30.6 % . . . . . . . . ( 22.8 %)
2 . . . . Apple . . . . . . 35.1 M . . 24.2 % . . . . . . . . ( 23.9 %)
3 . . . . Nokia . . . . . . 11.9 M . . . 8.2 % . . . . . . . . ( 12.6 %)
4 . . . . RIM . . . . . . . 11.1 M . . . 7.6 % . . . . . . . . ( 9.1 %)
5 . . . . HTC . . . . . . . . 7.9 M . . . 5.4 % . . . . . . . . ( 6.1 %)
6 . . . . Sony . . . . . . . 7.3 M . . . 5.0 % . . . . . . . . ( 5.8 %)
7 . . . . Huawei . . . . . 7.0 M . . . 4.8 % . . . . . . . . ( 4.8 %)
8 . . . . LG . . . . . . . . . 5.5 M . . . 3.8 % . . . . . . . . ( 4.5 %)
9 . . . . Motorola . . . . . 5.1 M . . . 3.5 % . . . . . . . . ( 3.4 %)
10 . . . ZTE . . . . . . . . 5.0 M . . . 3.4 % . . . . . . . . ( 3.5 %)
Others . . . . . . . . . . . 4.8 M . . . 3.3 % . . . . . . . . ( 3.5 %)
TOTAL . . . . . . . . . 145.2 M

Biggest smartphone OS, by # sold
Rank . OS Platform . . . . . . Units . . . . . Market share . . Was in Q4 of 2011
1 . . . . Android . . . . . . . . . 80.8 M . . . . 55.6 % . . . . . . . ( 49.0 %)
2 . . . . iOS . . . . . . . . . . . . 35.1 M . . . . 24.2 % . . . . . . . ( 23.9 %)
3 . . . . Blackberry . . . . . . . 11.1 M . . . . . 7.6 % . . . . . . . ( 9.1 %)
4 . . . . Symbian . . . . . . . . . 7.9 M . . . . . 5.4 % . . . . . . . ( 11.5 %)
5 . . . . bada . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.8 M . . . . . 2.6 % . . . . . . . ( 2.3 %)
6 . . . . Windows Phone . . . . 2.3 M . . . . . 1.6 % . . . . . . . ( 1.2 %)
7 . . . . MeeGo . . . . . . . . . . 2.2 M . . . . . 1.5 % . . . . . . . ( 1.2 %)
8 . . . . Windows Mobile . . . . 0.4 M . . . . . 0.3 % . . . . . . . ( 0.4 %)
others . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.6 M . . . . . 1.1 % . . . . . . . ( 1.6 %)
TOTAL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145.2 M

Installed base
Rank . OS Platform . . . . . . Units . . . . . Market share . . Was in Q4 of 2011
1 . . . . Android . . . . . . . . . 328 M . . . . . 32 % . . . . . . . . ( 27 %)
2 . . . . Symbian . . . . . . . . 299 M . . . . . 30 % . . . . . . . . ( 35 %)
3 . . . . iOS . . . . . . . . . . . 178 M . . . . . 18 % . . . . . . . . ( 16 %)
4 . . . . Blackberry . . . . . . 111 M . . . . . 11 % . . . . . . . . ( 12 %)
5 . . . . bada . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 M . . . . . 2 % . . . . . . . . ( 1 %)
6 . . . . Windows Mobile . . . . 16 M . . . . 2 % . . . . . . . . ( 2 %)
7 . . . . Windows Phone . . . . 9 M . . . . . 1 % . . . . . . . . ( 1 %)
Others . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 M . . . . . 5 % . . . . . . . . ( 6 %)
TOTAL Installed Base . . . 1,013 M smartphones in use at end of Q1 2012

Break-down of Android
ANDROID MAKERS IN Q1

Samsung . . . . . . 50%

HTC . . . . . . . . . . 10%

Sony . . . . . . . . . . 9%

Huawei . . . . . . . . 9%

LG . . . . . . . . . . . . 7%

Motorola . . . . . . . . 6%

ZTE . . . . . . . . . . . 6%

Others . . . . . . . . . 3%

Total Android . . . . 80.8 Million

Break-down of WP7
WINDOWS PHONE MAKERS IN Q1

Nokia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87%

Samsung . . . . . . . . . . . . 9%

HTC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4%

Total Windows Phone . . 2.3 Million

(Note above does not include 400,000 Windows Mobile smartphones sold in Q1)

Break-down of Samsung shipments
SAMSUNG SPLIT BY OS IN Q1
Android . . . . . . . . . 91%
bada . . . . . . . . . . . . 9%
Windows Phone . . . . 1%
Total Samsung . . . . 44.5 M

Break-down of Nokia shipments
NOKIA SMARTPHONE SPLIT BY OS IN Q1
– 65% of Nokia branded smartphones still are sold running Symbian.
– 18% are running MeeGo and
– 17% are running Windows Phone.

Of course, his commentary should be read – if you have a can of Red Bull at hand, adjust seat recline and click the link below:
http://communities-dominate.blogs.com/brands/2012/05/smartphone-market-shares-after-q1-its-the-digital-jamboree-year-of-smartphone-bloodbath.html

Updated documentation for bada in-app ads

Development No Responses »

May 172012

For quite some time, the folks from Samsung’s have had their advertising service called AdHub – in the last few weeks, it has been under maintenance for quite some time.

Fortunately, it looks like the worst is behind us – an updated tutorial for the bada integration has just been released. The documentation starts out as following:

Samsung AdHub, the digital advertising service from Samsung Electronics, unveils its enhanced services to our publishers and advertisers. In addition to the original mobile app and mobile web advertising solutions for bada and Android developers, the new revision of AdHub will be offering improved service quality.

Find out more via the URL below:
http://developer.bada.com/library/How-to-use-Samsung-AdHub

Bridgestone to give up on e-paper production

News No Responses »

May 172012

2a Bridgestone to give up on e paper production The (usually monochrome) e-paper technology is used commonly in all kinds of e-readers due to the ultra-low power usage.

Bridgestone, one of the largest makers of these screens, now gives up on them:

Tokyo (May, 15 2012) — Bridgestone Corporation today announced plans to withdraw from electronic paper business.

The company has made this decision after careful consideration of its options and in accordance with its management principal of “selection and concentration” which Bridgestone is implementing to put an increased focus on its core businesses to provide maximum value to its customers and shareholders. Due to increasing competition and rapidly declining prices in the liquid crystal panel business, the company decided that the best course of action for its overall business is to exit the electronic paper market.

Exact timing for the withdrawal is still being determined but the company expects to conclude its production of electronic paper by the end of October 2012.

Even though thus sounds quite a bit strange at first glance, it does make sense – according to optometricists, the backlit OLED screens are more comfortable (read: more ergonomically) to read when looking at textual information. In addition to that, e-paper is unusable when it comes to creating smart tablets which are to run operating systems like Android – let’s see what this will lead us to…

Tizen to run bada apps

News No Responses »

May 162012

This one is just a short heads-up to all bada developers who are uninterested in Tizen: the future platform from Samsung will be able to run bada apps (alongside emulated Android apps).

From a design perspective, this makes sense – after all, bada was intended to be able to run on a variety of underlying OSses.

Given the difficulty involved in getting a new operating system off the ground, reuse makes sense…

IDC: HTML5 “planned” by almost 80% of developers

Metrics Maid No Responses »

May 162012

When it comes to mobile development, religious wars can be fought about the question of web 2.0 vs native.

Mobile Business Briefing now brings us the following nugget:

Research house IDC said that 79 percent of surveyed mobile app developers plan to integrate HTML5 into products they launch this year.

The company said that by 2015, more than 80 percent of all mobile apps will be either wholly or in-part based on the web technology.

…

Even though I still believe that native apps are the way to go, this sounds interesting – stay tuned for updates as we get them!

Telefonica: 2 € = 25MB, EU-wide

News No Responses »

May 152012

Roaming in the EU is quite a topic – given that Hutchison has used the communality across its network for great advantage, I have frequently predicted that it would be but a question of time when other carriers react.

According to Mobile Business Briefing, Telefonica has just done so:

Telefonica has launched a pan-European data roaming tariff offering smartphone subscribers to its European networks 25MB of data usage for EUR2 a day.

…

The Pan-European tariff launched in Germany in May and will be available this summer to Telefonica’s O2 and Movistar customers in Spain, UK, Ireland, Czech Republic and Slovakia. It will be applicable for roaming across all 27 EU member states.

Let’s see how this one plays out…

EU reduces roaming fees further

News No Responses »

May 132012

450px La2 euro EU reduces roaming fees further The EU intends to be a “super state” – in a super state, however, citizens can expect to pay no roaming fees when traveling from one substate to another (similar to the USA).

Sadly, the EU currently has not yet achieved this state. However, it remains work in progress. The Independent now repors the following:

Mobile phone roaming charges will fall again from July following a European Parliament vote today.

…

The cuts involve reducing the cost of making a mobile call from another EU country from about 30p a minute to 24p, while the cost of sending a text drops to just 7p. Overall, roaming costs have fallen by up to 75% since the campaign began in 2007, said the commission.

Stay tuned for further info as we get it!

Image: Wikimedia Commons / Lars Aronsson

Big in Japan: Apple beats Samsung

News No Responses »

May 122012

ntt docomo us mvno Big in Japan: Apple beats Samsung The Japanese cell phone market has always been completely different from the US/European one: handsets which perform well in Japan are extremely unlikely to do well anywhere else and vice versa. Of course, this kind of effect does not apply to Apple.

MacWorld now reports that Apple – usually less “large than” Samsung due to the latter’s wider product portfolio – has taken the lead in Japan:

Nearly one in three smartphones sold in Japan last fiscal year was an iPhone, pushing Apple’s sales far ahead of main rival Samsung in the country, according to data published by a local research firm.

In the fiscal year ending March 31, smartphone vendors shipped 24.2 million devices in Japan, of which 30 percent were iPhones, making Apple the clear leader in the category, according to data vendor MM Research Institute. Samsung captured an 8.3 percent share, trailing Apple as well as domestic makers Sharp, Fujitsu and Sony.

Not much to add here…

Image: Wikimedia Commons / Marus

Krusell: top-sellers for April 2012

Metrics Maid No Responses »

May 112012

When it comes to data, Krusell’s once-monthly sales report are the staple food of our Metrics Maid section. In fact, we even have some explanation on our coverage as to why we are not breaking data down at OS levels anymore.

Krusell has now sent us the latest update:

1. (1) Apple iPhone 4/4S
2. (8) Sony Xperia S
3. (2) Samsung I9100 Galaxy S II
4. (-) Sony Xperia U
5. (7) Samsung Galaxy Note
6. (4) Sony Ericsson XPERIA Arc/Arc S
7. (3) Samsung Galaxy Nexus
8. (-) Nokia E52
9. (10) HTC Sensation
10. (9) HTC Sensation XL
() = Last month’s position.

In April Sony’s new models Xperia S and U has made a significant race on the Top seller list from Krusell. It’s been a while since we had three phones from Sony, or previous Sony Ericsson, on our list, says Ulf Sandberg CEO at Krusell. In April it’s only Samsung who matches Sony in number of devices on the list, even if iPhone is still number one.

The Swedish manufacturer of carrying cases for portable electronics, Krusell, releases its “Top 10″-list for April 2012. The list is based on the number of pieces of custom made mobile- and smartphone cases ordered from Krusell during April 2012. Krusell’s list is unique due to the fact that it reflects the sales of phones on six continents and in more than 70 countries around the globe.

Not much to add here…

Samsung updates AdHub

Development No Responses »

May 112012

For bada developers, AdHub is the only monetization solution available – on Android and smart TV platforms, it also is pretty popular.

Either way, the boys have just updated their terms and conditions as following:

We are announcing upcoming changes to Samsung AdHub service to

become effective after May 15,2012.

What’s new in Samsung AdHub

1. The addition of richer ads types

– Support for more ad types including expandable, interstitial, carousel and TV-in-app ads.

2. RTB

– Publishers can now enjoy all the advantages that come with RTB.

3.. Ad creatives directly from advertisers and agencies

– We are thrilled to announce that with the update, advertisers and agencies

can directly publish their ads through Samsung AdHub.

Revised Terms & Conditions and Additional Account Information

To take full advantage of the new features, you will need to provide us with additional details

of your Samsung AdHub account and agree to our new Terms & Conditions from April 19. 2012.

Please carefully review our revised Terms & Conditions to ensure your complete understanding.

To take advantage of the full range of services offered by the new revamped version of Samsung AdHub

please review our revised Terms & Conditions. You will see the new terms in a pop-up when you login to

Samsung AdHub website (from April 19, 2012)

After agreeing to the revised Terms & Conditions, you will be asked to provide additional details

about your existing Samsung AdHub account.

In addition to this, a Bank book copy has to be provided – this can be an account statement with balances, etc greyed out!

So, good fun!

Review–Overboard Waterproof case for Medium sized devices

Review No Responses »

May 012012

Before beginning this review, we must clarify that the definition for the small, medium and large phones has changed since the launch of the Galaxy Note. Those that were considered large are now medium.

We received an Overboard Waterproof case, courtesy of MobileFun iPad Accessories. Let us begin.

The case comes nicely packed and looks nice and shiny in the first go. Though Overboard has mentioned the case to be for small phones, We deem a device like the N8 not to fit the category. Rather, we term it as a medium sized device.