Worldwide Mobile and Smart Phone Sales: Q1,2009 Industry update

Source: Gartner
Reference/ 2008 Market share archives:
http://technologyandtelecom.blogspot.com/2009/03/mobile-operating-systems-by-market.html
http://technologyandtelecom.blogspot.com/2009/03/smartphone-market-share-update.html
http://technologyandtelecom.blogspot.com/2009/01/how-nokia-blinked-in-america-classic.html
http://technologyandtelecom.blogspot.com/2009/03/smartphone-market-share-update.html

1.Worldwide mobile phone sales totalled 269.1 million units in the first quarter of 2009, a 8.6 per cent decrease from the first quarter of 2008.
2.Smartphone sales surpassed 36.4 million units, a 12.7 per cent increase from the same period last year
3.Overall sales in the first quarter of 2009 registered the biggest quarter-on-quarter contraction since 2001.
4.Since 2001, this was also the first time the market contracted year over year during the first quarter, a period traditionally helped by strong seasonality in the Asia/Pacific market. The channel intensified its efforts in the first quarter of 2009 to reduce the levels of stock it holds. Stock reduction is intended to minimize capital investment in response to low consumer confidence.
5.Sales into the channel were just short of 244 million units in the first quarter of 2009, while sales to users were just over 269 million units — a difference of 25 million units, compared with 17 million units in the fourth quarter of 2008, the biggest difference ever recorded
6.Channel inventory reductions will continue into the second quarter of 2009, albeit with lower volumes
7.Smartphone sales represented 13.5 per cent of all mobile device sales in the first quarter of 2009, compared with 11 per cent in the first quarter of 2008.
8.With inventory-reduction efforts expected to continue in the second quarter of 2009, although to a lesser extent than what we have seen so far, and better-than-expected figures for the first quarter of 2009, overall sales to users for 2009 will remain considerably higher than the sell-in that many vendors are expecting
9.Device vendors will focus increasingly on smartphones, improved user interfaces and services to differentiate themselves and fuel consumer demand.

Is Bing the sound of search? (Part I)

Microsoft's search solution has meandered a long course with no definitive direction. From MSN search to Live Search, Microsoft's efforts have preliminarily been non starters of sorts. With Bing a.k.a Kumo (in its developmental days), Microsoft is trying its best to arrive at its best Search Solution till date. Launched formally on June 3rd, 2009, Bing is Microsoft's latest attempt to step into the search domain where they have been minnows for a while now. Google rules the search kingdom with a 64.2% market share followed by Yahoo at 20.4% and Microsoft owns a miniscule 8.2% market share. Google's search dominance translates in $4.7 billion revenue where as Microsoft's attempts have seen it incurring losses in the online ad business. To mount a credible challenge to Google, Microsoft tried taking over Yahoo last year. But after Yahoo rebuffed its $47.5 billion offer, Microsoft turned its attention to improving its own Live Search.

Bing helps people make decisions through guided search and a focus on task completion. In a time when a new Website is created every 4.5 seconds, information overload is becoming a real problem. People are getting hundreds of thousands of links but not getting what they want. Bing tries to alleviate problem by offering up different experiences depending on the search. It also acts more like a destination site for certain searches. Bing pulls in data from other Web services when it can so that you often don’t have to leave to get the information you want.


Bing's search result page is customized according to what type of search you do (health, travel, shopping, news, sports). The algorithms determine not only the order of results on the page, but the layout of the page itself, concluding what sections appear. Microsoft is positioning it to be “more of a decision engine”.

WiMAX: Why will it stick?

Doomsayers and analysts have in the recent past rubished future prospects of WiMAX in the face of a greater acceptance (by major operator/Telecom consortiums) of its competition standard LTE. Nokia has gone to the level of stating that it was withdrawing its investments in WiMAX since it believed that WiMAX was the analogical equivalent of Betamax in the war of standards. Read the reference story and an earlier post on this subject.

A recent market survey by Maravedis, "WiMAX and Broadband Wireless Access Equipment Market Analysis, Trends and Forecasts, 2009-2014," has come up with a few interesting and noteworthy points on the viability of WiMAX as a technology standard.

1. Inspite of a tough year 2008, and a growing buzz about the 3GPP backed LTE being the telecom standard, the WiMAX ecosystem experienced a healthy growth in 2008 and mobile WiMAX has made significant inroads (although short of targets)

2. Over 1.2 million WiMAX complaint CPEs and embedded chipsets supporting mobility were shipped in 2008. MIMO mobile WiMAX devices being a new entrant into the market the previous year, new deployments in various regions worldwide created a substantial market for MIMO mobile WiMAX terminals and infrastructure equipment. Expansion of existing WiMAX networks and conversion of some existing networks from fixed to mobile WiMAX has also contributed to these numbers.

3. Contrary to belief, WiMAX equipment demand didnot taper and operators continued rolling out infrastructure, sourcing terminals and adding new users using 802.16d - 2004 technology. CPE shipments reached 880000 in 2008.

4. US $145 was the ASP of a mobile WiMAX device during 2008 and by the year end USB dongles were selling at prices between $60-70 for high volumes.

5. Mobile WiMAX devices shipped in 2008 were mainly indoor units.

6. 40% of mobile WiMAX devices had embedded VoIP capabilities and about 7% had other advanced functunalities such as WiFi. USB dongles accounted for 34% of total shipments and were operating almonst all in the 2.3GHz and 2.5GHz spectrums.

7. Korean vendors (Muyngmin, Modacom, Samsung) accounted for 36% of all mobile WiMAX terminal shipments. Taiwanese vendors (Zyxel, Asus, Gemtek, AWB) accounted for 25% of terminals shipped.

8. WiMAX market infrastructure: Alcatel-Lucent, Samsung, Alvarion and Motorola were the key suppliers of WiMAX equipments and 151,000 sectors were shipped at an ASP of $11,500 generating $1bn in revenues.

9. In the Chipsets makers, the market was dominated by Beceem, GCT and Sequans. Intel and Runcom had a stake in the Wave 1 devices capable of MIMO operations and with very limited support of mobility. Samsung's own chipset solution gained 7% of the market share.

10. In light of recent technical and commercial wins by LTE, WiMAX is not certainly an all conquering solution, but Maravedis predicts that there will be an accumulated 75 million WiMAX subscribers by the end of 2014. Service revenues generated by BWA will reach US$15 billion in 2014 and WiMAX equipment market will reach an annual US$4 Billion in 2014, from over US $2 billion at the end of 2008.

What the report seems to be poiting at it that, though LTE has the backing and auspices of a majority, it is unlikely that LTE would deploy sooner than 2012. That gives WiMAX a 3 years headstart and it could greatly benefit WiMAX since, Proprietary and fixed WiMAX equipment markets will continue to grow organically to meet the needs of WISPs and vertical segments. These 3 years and the market traction would become a strong foothold for WiMAX in the face of competition from LTE as the 4G Tech Standard. WiMAX may not be the winner ultimately, but given its earlier time to market, it will not be the looser as well. The eco-system will thus have both tech standards and rightly so, because there are nuances in WiMAX that LTE cant better and vice versa. In effect, there are parallel markets that could thrive under both these technologies. After all, one technology standard may not be the healthiest thing in the market.

So much so for the analysts, doom-sayers and nay-speakers for WiMAX.

http://eetimes.eu/wireless/217702210;jsessionid=45LJQIUTXXLIYQSNDLPCKH0CJUNN2JVN