Mobile/Insights/2011 Week24
Competitor news: Dolphin HD was updated to v5.1 and Opera Mini will come preloaded on the Onda N235 in Brazil
Nokia is facing losses in marketshare, sales and profits as it transitions to Windows Phone 7. Some predict Samsung's Bada OS might become 3rd major smartphone platform, after iOS and Android.
Asian handset microvendors have captured nearly 13% of the global mobile handset market share shipping 48 million units globally in Q1 2011
Voice recognition potential in mobile gaining more attention as Chrome adds it to desktop
The mobile Web the 5th in terms of developer revenue per-app after iOS, Java ME, Blackberry and Android
Dolphin HD submitted v5.1 to the Android Market following a set of almost daily beta updates triggered by the the existence of some bugs in the previous version. Besides bug fixed, Dolphin HD 5.1 includes 3 features:
- added action to clear phone cache when users choose to "Cache to SD"
- when launching Dolphin by opening an external link, pressing the "Back" button returns to the original app instead of the new tab page inside the browser
- menu adjustments
Opera announced that Opera Mini will come preloaded on a newly-released device from handset manufacturer Onda in Brazil. Read more
Nokia is expected to lose its place as the top smartphone vendor as soon as this quarter. Its place might be taken by Samsung or Apple. Nokia has been facing a set of problems as it transitions from Symbian to Windows Phone 7. Together with profit warnings, its stock prices have gone down, its platforms marketshare is expected to go down and there are news of handset sellers boycotting Windows Phone 7 handset sales. Following these developments, some analysts suggest that Windows Phone 7 might not fulfill its intended purpose of being the 3rd major platform along with iOS and Apple, but that Samsung's operating system, Bada, will take this place. Samsung is expected to announce soon that it has sold 10 million Bada handsets.Read more]
Asian handset microvendors, such as Micromax, Spice Mobile and Yulong Coolpad, captured nearly 13% of the global mobile handset market share shipping 48 million units globally in Q1 2011. They are targeting emerging markets in Asia and Africa, where they are helping grow the share of low-end Android-based smartphones. The lower prices gives them an edge in these countries over the established smartphone vendors and it is interesting to follow their evolution as they might develop into tier-2 vendors for these high growth countries. Read more
Voice recognition is becoming an even bigger emerging topic in the mobile landscape as Google added voice search to Chrome on the desktop. Voice recognition is also a key area that is being developed in most major mobile platforms and it is expected to play a big role in the industry's evolution. Read more
Improving access to mobile communications can bring about an "incremental" impact in the economic and social growth in developing markets in terms of gross domestic product and human development index, a Bell Labs study has revealed. The report said that there was a correlation between mobile penetration and the prosperity of emerging countries and that every 10% increase in mobile penetration leads to 1% increased in GDP. The report also pointed out that adoption of mobile services is hampered by a lack of applications --while there are apps that appealed to niche segments of underserved populations, there are few apps that can be bundled as a suite in order to add value to users. Adoption rate accelerates only when mobile apps are relevant and appeal to a large portion of the rural base, it added. Read more
The mobile Web is the 5th in terms of per-application revenues after iOS, Java ME, Blackberry and Android, a report by Vision Mobile states. In terms of how developers' expectations are fulfilled by the platforms, the mobile Web is on the 3rd place, behind iOS and Java ME. Android is on 5th place. Read more
