Jobs: iPhone has 19.5% of US smartphone market
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In his Macworld 2008 keynote Tuesday, Apple CEO Steve Jobs told the audience that the company has sold 4 million iPhones in the 200 days since it went on sale.
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Even after being on the market for less than half a year, more iPhones sold in the fourth quarter than Windows Mobile phones in the U.S., according to research from Canalys.Canalys researchers estimate that&#160;the iPhone&#160;had 28 percent of the U.S. converged-device market in the fourth quarter of 2007. Research In Motion, with 41 percent, had the largest share of the market. Windows Mobile phones had 21 percent share of devices sold in the quarter, falling into third place behind Apple.Worldwide, the lineup is a bit different. Nokia, which typically dominates around the world but not in the U.S., sold 52.9 percent of smart phones worldwide in the fourth quarter. RIM grew its share of converged-device sales to 11.4 percent, up 121 percent over the same quarter in 2006. Despite its limited availability around the world, Apple took third place with 6.5 percent of the market, just barely squeaking ahead of&#160;struggling Motorola.Apple may have stirred renewed interest in smart phones in the U.S. Converged-device shipments, which include smart phones and wireless handhelds, grew 222 percent in the U.S. during the quarter, according to Canalys.The iPhone also did well in the Europe, Middle East, and Africa region, where it became available in three countries partway into the quarter. In the region, Apple came in fifth place behind Nokia, RIM, HTC, and Motorola, but beat out Sony Ericsson, Samsung and Palm, Canalys said.Apple&#39;s success as a new entrant is striking, but it will face challenges to keep its momentum going, said Canalys analyst Pete Cunningham in a statement. Historically, vendors with just one smart phone design, no matter how good, struggle, he said. That means Apple will have to create and refresh a portfolio of devices if it wants to increase its market share, he said.Beyond hardware, competition is continuing in the mobile operating system market. Worldwide Symbian, which credits most sales to Nokia, had 65 percent of the market, followed by Microsoft at 12 percent and RIM at 11 percent, for the fourth quarter, Canalys said.Despite all the buzz around mobile Linux, total Linux phone shipments in 2007 were essentially flat compared to 2006, Canalys found. In Asia Pacific, Motorola had a drop of 28 percent in its Linux smart phone shipments compared to 2006.Phone makers are trying to attract customers to smart phones, which carry a higher price tag than low-end feature phones. However, converged devices made up just 10 percent of the global phone market in 2007, the researchers found.
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Kids and oldies love it Love it or loathe it, there's no denying Apple's iPhone is popular. According to market watcher Strategy Analytics, the Apple handset has become AT&amp;T's top-selling phone, accounting for 13 per cent of the carrier's device sales.â¦
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Steve Jobs' strategic headache About 27 per cent of the iPhones sold in 2007 are being operated on unauthorized wireless networks, according to research released today. That works out at about one million handsets.â¦
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Apple Inc. has sold four million iPhones since the cellphone, which includes Internet access, videos and music, was launched in June, chief executive Steve Jobs said Tuesday.
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Apple Inc.'s popular iPhone will go on sale in the U.K. on Nov. 9 for $537 and will use O2 Ltd.'s service, along with WiFi from The Cloud.
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Apple's iPhone became the biggest selling smartphone in the U.S. in July, according to iSuppli.
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But latest iPhone firmware will be free Macworld Expo Apple has sold more than 4m iPhones since the handset was launched in June 2007, CEO Steve Jobs said today - an average of 20,000 a day, he said. That was a prelude to the announcement of the phone's latest firmware - and one for the iPod Touch that comes at a priceâ¦
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Steve Jobs on Wednesday unveiled the new iPod touch, essentially a phone-less version of the iPhone, at a press event in San Francisco. Jobs also announced a $200 price cut for the 8-GB version of the iPhone, which he said was the more popular version.
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(InfoWorld) - Apple Inc. will launch itsÂ iPhoneÂ in the U.S. on June 29, it said in TV commercials that began airing on Sunday. The much-talked-about iPhone combines the features of an iPod music and video player with those of a cellular telephone and will be available through AT&T Wireless Services Inc. AT&T, which acquired Cingular Wireless LLC, hasn't yet announced details of how it will sell the phones although long lines outside outlets are almost assured if the phone will be offered on a first-come, first-served basis. Two models will be available. One with 4G-bytes of memory will cost $499 and a version with double the memory will cost $599, the companies said previously. Announcement of the launch date ends a five-month guessing game that began on Jan. 10 when Apple CEO Steve Jobs unveiled the iPhone during his keynote speech at the MacWorld Expo in San Francisco. During the keynote Jobs touted the iPhone as "revolutionary" and demonstrated its features to an enthralled audience. Chief among them is Multi-Touch, a touchscreen display system that can differentiate and react to simultaneous touches from two fingers. Typically touchpanels cannot handle input at more than one point on the screen. In addition to the 3.5-inch display, the phone will feature a 2-megapixel camera, headset and audio jacks, and an iPod dock. The first iPhone model will be quad-band GSM (global system for mobile communications), meaning it should work in almost every major country in the world. Exceptions to this will be Japan and South Korea, where GSM is not used. Data transmission will be supported by Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and EDGE. Behind the iPhone's slick user interface is Apple's Mac OSX operating system. Apple had previously said that third-party developers wouldn't be able to write applications and load them onto the phone, but speaking last week Jobs said Apple is working on a way to allow developers access to the phone. Apple has also posted three of the TV commercials on its Web site. Â
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On the Seeking Alpha blog, Paul Carton (ChangeWave Alliance) waxes bullish about the forthcoming iPhone. âItâs not often that we say âit rocksâ when analyzing a consumer device trend. But the findings of our latest ChangeWave cell phone survey invite extremes to describe the startling impact the Apple iPhone is having on the cellular industry.â One reason for the excitement: in a recent member survey, ânearly one-in-10 respondents (9%) say they are likely to buy the new iPhone once it becomes available in June.â
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Only just... 02 has shifted 190,000 iPhones in its first two months of sales, just short of its target of 200,000.â¦
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A new study outlines exactly who the potential buyers are for the iPhone--it's a big audience.
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(InfoWorld) - Gartner, IDC, and 451 Group research analysts, this week warned IT administrators to keep iPhones away from their businesses. "We're telling IT executives to not support it because Apple has no intentions of supporting [iPhone use in] the enterprise," Gartner analyst Ken Dulaney said. "This is basically a cellular iPod with some other capabilities, and it's important that it be recognized as such." As if that will stop people from buying them anyway when they hit the market in the U.S. next week. The reality is that no matter how hard IT administrators try, the iPhone will be snapped up by their employees -- and not just the average Joes either. The device is a status symbol that will likely be snapped up by business leaders as the digital technorati. Try telling your CEO the iPhone doesn't play well with your IT systems. Dulaney and other researchers notwithstanding, this device can be good for the enterprise because of the business needs of smartphone users. It is an iPhone, after all, with an emphasis on phone. It offers e-mail -- currently the most popular means of business communications. There's an address/phone Book for quick access to contacts. It offers SMS, a quick way to contact other mobile phone users, and voicemail -- both useful to road warriors. There's a real Web browser -- by far the most underpowered and underappreciated part of a mobile phone. And it contains a slew of enterprise-worthy apps, including a calendar, access to maps, spreadsheets, and a document reader. All of these things are important -- and all can be done to a greater or lesser extent on most business-focused PDA phones. But in the business world, the mobile Web browser is the key to the future of business apps, and it is becoming a platform unto itself. One thing that Apple CEO Steve Jobs made abundantly clear at last week's Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) is that the iPhone would include a full browser. The Symbian and Linux platforms' best browser is Opera Mini -- which isn't that bad -- but it by no means constitutes a full browser. Windows Mobile's browser isn't bad either, but it also falls well short of Internet Explorer 7. Additionally, the iPhone browser has a lot of zooming and panning tricks that make it more usable on the relatively small screen. In that crucial area, advantage: iPhone. Why is the browser crucial? Because most new business applications are being built around it. AJAX and other browser technology innovations over the past few years have turned the browser into a veritable platform. Sure, a lot of legacy applications still require browserless, platform-specific client applications. But those days are numbered. It's not just the isolated applications that are moving to a browser. All of the stalwart office applications are also moving to the Web. With Google Office (which now works with Safari -- the iPhone browser), Soho Office, and even Web-centric versions of Microsoft Office applications, the browser is truly the new business platform. The iPhone is not without its business-use flaws. It doesn't natively sync up with Lotus Notes or Exchange - and Microsoft, at least, will most likely do everything in its power to try to keep it that way to protect its Windows Mobile business. It can, however, hook up to IMAP email, LDAP address books, and WebDav for calendaring; with a bit of tweaking, that will work well for Exchange-based companies. Microsoft SharePoint can also be browsed from the Web interface, but to what extent? Time -- and the work of apps developers -- will tell. A newly anointed relationship with Cisco on all things iPhone should also let the device into the VPN and might even let an iPhone play well with Cisco VoIP solutions. And of course, don't forget the arduous task of getting your conservative IT department to accept the idea of letting loose an Apple phone -- or even MacBook Pro -- into the office. Previews of the phone haven't yet touted an instant messaging client like Apple's iChat or AOL Instant Messenger. It is likely, however, that Apple will include something with instant-messaging functionality in the near future -- there are still four slots left in the iPhone's application window. It's also true that the first-generation iPhone isn't the raw specs winner by any stretch. That honor goes to the Symbian/Windows Mobile 6 Phones coming from Toshiba (the G900), Nokia (the N95), Samsung (the F700) and HTC (the Shift). AT&T's EDGE wireless network is slow by today's standards, and while Wifi connectivity will help, there are questions about why Apple has forsaken the HSDPA/UTMS component and when an update might occur. Given that battery life is a factor -- Apple this week released updated specs that go beyond what it touted in January -- EDGE makes sense because it's more energy efficient. Also, the 8GB max on storage is seems low. At a time when you can buy an 8GB SD card for less than $80, Apple likely looked to keep costs down with an eye on upping that storage when it's economically smart. Most users would likely be happy with a micro/mini/SD card slot now standard on most smartphones. There is, of course, the price. The iPhone's hefty $499 and $599 price tags, depending on which model you buy, is a definite disadvantage in business. With relatively comparable gear (from a corporate standpoint), such as the Motorola Q, which is almost free with a service plan, buying an iPhone requires serious justification. We're talking about spending the equivalent of a budget laptop. Of course, something that you spend half your day using should justify the premium that this delicious piece of hardware demands. And then there are at least two intangibles: Usability. Apple's legendary reputation for making painful tasks easy will totally transform the mobile phone industry. And remember, companies love productivity from their workers. Until now, the big players have been Microsoft Windows Mobile, Palm, Symbian, and Linux. They all had successes. But it's the last 10 percent of usability that Apple always manages to squeeze out its products will be the differentiator. Apple did the same in the computer industry until Microsoft caught up. Apple has learned from this and patented every minute detail of the iPhone, making it harder for copycats to appear anytime soon. The few seconds here there that the iPhone saves users will quickly add up. It's the little things that make for big savings across an entire enterprise. Business bling, baby. Everyone knows that this is the phone to have. Just look at the buzz ahead of the June 29 launch. Apple has spent the last few years building up its brand across all channels and is reaping the rewards like no other company in the industry. As much as the enterprise IT guys will want to recite better specs for rival Windows Mobile devices, nobody wants to hear that. I can imagine any number of CEOs saying, "I don't care! Just make the iPhone work on our systems!" And if it works for the CEO, you can bet the sales folk will want in on the action, too. Think they'll want to show up to a meeting with an important client and whip out last year's "hot" phone? They might as well wear parachute pants as well.
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The cellphone industry went to Barcelona to âshow off the latest and greatest phonesâ and, once again, hardware took center stage. But, Victoria Shannon (New York Times) points out, âsoftware is growing in importance as smartphones, capable of accessing the Web, become more popular.â So, Shannon continues, âit was no surprise that many of the phones were iPhone clones â with touch screens, sleek flat shapes and spare software interfaces. Apple was able to make a phone that paid equal attention to the software and the hardware. And the rest of the industry was following suit here.â
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Like more than a few iPhone users, Paul Forrester couldn&#8217;t believe his ears last Wednesday when Steve Jobs ended an Apple press event by announcing a $200 price cut to the iPhone. The price cut came a little more than two months after Forrester and other iPhone early adopters started plunking down as much as $599 for the newly released mobile device.
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(InfoWorld) - Consumers aren't willing to pay what AppleÂ may ask for theÂ iPhone, but if the price drops they'll switch their mobile service to AT&T in order to get it, according to results of a survey released Thursday. Online market research firm Compete Inc. surveyed 379 people in the U.S., most of whom had heard of the iPhone and have shopped for an iPod, to find out how interested they are in the device to produce the uncommissioned report. The iPhone is a combined music player and cell phone that Apple plans to start selling in the U.S. in June. Among the 26 percent of respondents who said they're likely to buy an iPhone, only 1 percent said they'd pay $500 for it. WhenÂ Apple introduced the iPhoneÂ in January, it said it would cost $500 on the low end. Forty-two percent of those who said they're likely to buy the phone said they'd pay $200 to $299. The iPhone will be available only to subscribers of Cingular Wireless, now part of AT&T. In a blow to the operator's competitors, 60 percent of those in the survey who said they were likely to buy the phone said they'd switch their mobile operator in order to get it. While the iPhone has been discussed as a competitor to other handsets like Research In Motion's BlackBerry, the two serve very different markets, said Andy Neff, an analyst at Bear Stearns who participated in a conference call to discuss the results of the study. "Even though there's talk about this as an alternative to RIM, it's not a corporate product," he said. Instead, the iPhone is an indication of a broad shift toward smartphones and the emergence of niches within the category, he said. The analysts were split on what price they think the device will ultimately retail for. Operators recently haven't been discounting phones in the similar price range as the iPhone, said Phil Cusick, an analyst at Bear Stearns. However, Apple has been known to announce a product with one price and ultimately sell it for less. Apple TV, for example, was expected to cost $399 but sells for $299, he said. The phone may start out around $500 because early adopters will pay that, said Neff. But pricing will likely drop by $100 to $200 to target the mass market, he said.