Quick Thoughts on Miscellaneous Smartphone Developments Awaiting Q1 Results

I'm heavily travelling at this point in time so let me just do quick random thoughts about some brands in the smartphone space. Note, we are about to get into the Q1 financial results, so I will monitor those and report on the major brands as their numbers come in.

 

Talking about numbers. Huawei posted its annual report and admitted it only sold 32 million smartphones all of last year, far less than its target of 60 million, the number that the management had been promoting as recently as February of this year. I mentioned in my final 2012 numbers that there were a lot of discrepancies with Huawei numbers from various sources and I had adjusted my Huawei annual number downward due to this, but not enough. Still, its good to know now officially.

 

Samsung's Galaxy S4 was revealed, all signs point to another hit smartphone and big growth for the Sammy. They keep expanding the Galaxy series as was expected and the juggernaut should continue to roll on. I found it funny that the Galaxy Camera only now arrived to American shores, we've had it here in Asia since last year. Samsung's Q1 financial guidance said massive growth in smartphones, driving up their profits.. yeah, this 'surprised' some after the Christmas season, but not our readers, we know China's gift-giving season is in January for Q1 and as Samsung is China's top-selling smartphone nowadays (used to be Nokia) that means big good sales for the Samster...

 

Nokia, gosh, I don't really even want to go there. Elop says he thinks Nokia can be number 1 again (he would have to say that I guess) but listen to how Nokia CEO talks about its future and Windows Phone - Windows Phone should get 10% market share - as an ecosystem by all vendors - NOT BY NOKIA. What the fu....nky? Nokia had 34% market share when Elop started now he wants Windows Phone to achieve 10%? What company CEO is the poor bastard? Can't he bother to look at his business card and notice he now works for Nokia, its been more than two and a half years already..

 

Lenovo admits it is shopping around and thinking about maybe buying Blackberry. They were earlier rumored to also consider Nokia and have also been looking at NEC's phone business. I think these rumors have become so common now, its pretty clear Lenovo has a plan and budget and will buy someone, question now is who and when.

 

Blackberry meanwhile has just released the Q10 - that is probably the real 'soul of Blackberry' device for the BB10 OS, and I would guess Q10 will end up strongly outselling the pure touch-based Z10. And the Q10 really does look quite yummy for those craving a real QWERTY keyboard but modern full-function high spec smartphone. Only its 3.1 inch screen seems tiny in the modern context, why doesn't Blackberry do a slider, that would give both the full QWERTY and the full big-screen touch-screen (or haha, where is Nokia's QWERTY slider version of Windows Phone, come on, even Jo Harlow admits Nokia customers are begging for QWERTY variants in its smartphone portfolio, a traditional Nokia staple. What is wrong with Nokia when its customers beg for things, and it just says 'neener, neener, you ain't getting it!')

 

Panasonic is trying to unload its underwhelming smartphone unit. HTC is in the rumors to be a possible buyer. (Panasonic was once a top 5 handset maker back in the 1990s, recently only selling phones in Japan)

 

LG is getting also into the branded store game (and yeah, more Nokiamisery, Nokia just shut down its Shanghai flagship store..)

 

HTC reported - you know it - again diminshing profits. Its the same story every time, yes, they reported some profits, but its AGAIN less than last time. What gives?

 

Then my current fave black horse for the year, Sony.. As I've suggested, now there are lots of rumors that Sony is indeed aiming to use Cybershot and Walkman brands to bolster its Xperia smartphone sales (and if so, there gotsta be Playstation soon or PSP branding coming to an Xperia as well). But seriously, if Nokia shook the camera world with the 808 Pureview last year, and then throws that all away, this would be perfect time for Sony to step up to the plate with a magnificent Cybershot cameraphone to take the crown and give those among us who are shutterbugs something spectacular.

 

Microsoft has launched a pretty ironic accusation with the EU against Google (Microsoft with its partners Nokia, and others) that Google is trying to lock out competition in mobile. And nasty Google is doing this by giving away Android for free as a 'trojan horse' haha... I think the accusation would have more merit if the accuser wasn't guilty of severely anti-competitive practises time and again for the past three decades, but hey, I guess, if Microsoft is the master at it, it would recognize when someone else is doing it, haha... But yeah, kind of smells. And yeah, Nokia is ever more closely abandoning all its 'European' attitudes and principles of fair play and sharing, rather adopting the predatory US principles of sue and get sued, as so well pioneered by Microsoft

 

Facebook launched a smartphone (actually made by HTC) and ho-hum, won't set the world on fire. They also launched an 'skin' for Android that wants to take over your home screen. Some may like it, others who try it will soon hate it, I don't think it has longevity but we'll see.

 

Thats whats been bubbling in the smartphone space recently. I'll come back with more blogs when I get a bit more time to breathe... 

Comments

[JDawg]

It's a sad sight indeed to see the once proud Nokia, now being pimped by MSFT. This will only tarnish their image even further.

M$ made NOK their b*tch (possibly through under the table payouts to the board, I can honestly see no other way how a board with any traces of sanity will keep a fool like Elop as CEO for 2 and a half years) in the hopes they could devalue them enough to scoop them up for pennies and soak up NOK's patent portfolio as a bonus. Unfortunately for them, their own house is folding in on them like punctured weather balloon:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/adamhartung/2013/01/20/sell-microsoft-now-game-over-ballmer-loses/

Personally, I am glad M$'s evil monopoly is finally coming crashing down, but I am saddened to see them take down NOK with them.

[eduardo]

People say that when Nokia decided it couldn't continue with Symbian, it had no choice but Windows Mobile because with Android it would have been just one more Android OEM.

I don't think that is true. It would have had some huge advantages over all the other Android companies, including Samsung. Nokia was number one in brand, distribution (retail and telecom relations), and hardware design and manufacturing. If it had put full energy into Android and intelligently leveraged its strengths, it might now be number one. It almost certainly would be in much better shape than it is now with Windows Phone.

And even if the WP bet had lead to good sales, let us remember that its favorable treatment from Microsoft would have been only temporary. That is because Microsoft's interest is to make WP a widely-used mobile OS with many manufacturers, just like Windows is in desktops and Windows Mobile was for a while in cell phones. So once WP caught on with Nokia, Microsoft would have dropped its special treatment of Nokia and helped out all the other WP oem's.

It was very unlikely the Microsoft bet would have paid off over the long term, but an Android one might have.

[Kenny]

When a CEO talks about Windows Phone market share and not his company's market share you know that he is just a mole.

WP8 is not going to save Nokia. At the high end users in Europe and U.S. have lost interest in the Lumia 920 & 820 and at the low end WP8 is just not suitable for developing countries. They require constant online data to be useful and low end Lumia phones like the 720, 620 and 520 come with 512MB RAM which cripples the phones making them unable to run many apps including games like Temple Run.

There is basically no reason for any user to buy a low end Lumia when he can get a much better Android phone for the same price or cheaper. Better in terms of hardware, os, performance, functions, apps and anything else you can think of.

[new_guy]

I would like to read an article from Tomi as to WTF is up with the Nokia board.

[Dipankar]

The EU complaint filed by Microsoft/Nokia against Google Android is completely baseless. Google never mandates that Android should have the Google apps (Search, Youtube, Maps, Play store etc.). It is up to OEM's to include these or not. Of course, most handset manufacturers who want to leverage the app store & navigation would include these, but then again, see what Amazon has done with Kindle.

[Tester]

@Dipankar:

If I had read the complaint correctly, it's about forcing all Google apps in if you want to have the Play store, as it's an all or nothing option at the moment.

And knowing our European regulators they may see merit here and it wouldn't be beyond them to order Google to separate the apps. It wouldn't change much, though. Even if manufacturers have the choice, they'd probably install everything anyway, just for users' convenience.

Of course, if MS wins, they'd lose anyway because it'd be a precedent if they act the same, should WP, against all odds, flourish.

With doing nonsense like that they won't beat Google though. I doubt there's many people out there that think Microsoft is a more friendly company than Google.

[Winter]

@Timo
"That is what defines tomorrow's success, "

So you bought all these Lumias? :-)

But what a success WP has been. MS have spend more on selling WP than it earned from the sales itself. It looks as if it would have been cheaper to simply give away the Lumias and not do the marketing campaign at all.

[AtTheBottomOfTheHilton]

About the Lenovo and Blackberry merge rumor, I simply cannot find any reason for it other than just for the cause of a merge itself. Blackberry is profitable and this before the revenue of BB10 has kicked in so there is no financial reason that Blackberry needs Lenovo. I see a risk with a Lenovo and Blackberry merge and that is that large companies like Lenovo often have the inability to understand innovative and technological values (HP and WebOS as example). Blackberry in the hands of Lenovo will certainly put all the hard work and development done by Blackberry at risk. The BOD and CEO of Blackberry must therefore be resilient against any merge that obviously will not give them any advantage. During the 90s the merge fest started among company management as that was only thing they understood which has led to several known fiascos. What Blackberry needs to do is to find partners in the mobile service sector which in general doesn’t require any merge at all but will provide Blackberry the service palette that most customers need.

[zlutor]

@Timo: "We are way beyond those laggy Symbian phones" - have you tried an N9? :-)
That is a masterpiece...

Let's hope Nokia will do some more - whatever OS they use..

[JJ]

I would give my left nut to see contract between Nokia and Microsoft...
There's gotta be some X years exclusive deal with MS without right to cancel it.
I wouldn't give a Nobel prize in economic sciences for the genius who signed that kind of deal.

[Winter]

@JJ
On the condition that I do not have to take possession of your left nut:

http://www.zdnet.com/nokia-paying-microsoft-500m-for-using-windows-phone-7000012276/

http://www.wpcentral.com/nokia-get-more-than-gives-2013

[eduardo]

@winter

Good links. However, I bet there are some secret provisions in the contract that would make our jaws drop if we learned of them.

By the way, where are the pro-microsoft trolls today? I did a post on why Nokia should have chosen Android, and they have nothing to say to argue I am wrong.

[Tan Chin Huat]

Microsoft is a bully pure and simple. When a bully falls I will be happy to see him splat. The anti-trust complain reeks of desperation.

[Get Twitter User Data Back]

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