2009 world handset sales ranked, iPhone OS eats WinMo

23 February, 2010
GSM Arena

Technology researchers from Gartner have come up with their annual report on mobile phone sales, 2009 edition. And it's an interesting read.

In short, 2009 phones sales have remained flat despite the economic imbalances but there are some pretty interesting market share shifts.

Unless you've lived in a cave for the past twelve months, you won't be surprised to learn that Motorola and Sony Ericsson took the biggest hits this year, while Apple, Samsung, LG and RIM had one hell of a year.

Table 1
Worldwide Mobile Handset Sales to End Users in 2009 (thousands of units)

Company	2009 Sales	2009 Market Share (%)	2008 Sales	2008 Market share (%)
Nokia	440,881.6	36.4	472,314.9	38.6
Samsung	235,772.0	19.5	199,324.3	16.3
LG	122,055.3	10.1	102,789.1	8.4
Motorola	58,475.2	4.8	106,522.4	8.7
Sony Ericsson	54,873.4	4.5	93,106.1	7.6
Others	299,179.2	24.7	248,196.1	20.3
Total	1,211,236.6	100.0	1,222,252.9	100.0

Source: Gartner (February 2010)

Nokia also took a dive, dropping two percent of total market share (and 5.5 percent of smartphone market) but their market leadership remains pretty safe. They shipped 440 million handsets - a volume that almost totals that of all other companies from the Top Five (470 million). Things are even more convincing in smartphone terms where Symbian accounts to 47 percent of all sales globally.

However Apple have managed to double their market share, shipping 25 million iPhones, compared to 11 million in the previous year. RIM also noted a healthy 48 percent increase pushing the number of sold handsets to 34 million.

Table 2
Worldwide Smartphone Sales to End Users by Operating System in 2009 (thousands of units)

Company	2009 Units	2009 Market Share (%)	2008 Units	2008 Market Share (%)
Symbian	80,878.6	46.9	72,933.5	52.4
Research In Motion	34,346.6	19.9	23,149.0	16.6
iPhone OS	24,889.8	14.4	11,417.5	8.2
Microsoft Windows Mobile	15,027.6	8.7	16,498.1	11.8
Linux	8,126.5	4.7	10,622.4	7.6
Android	6,798.4	3.9	640.5	0.5
WebOS	1,193.2	0.7	NA	NA
Other OSs	1,112.4	0.6	4,026.9	2.9
Total	172,373.1	100.0	139,287.9	100.0

Source: Gartner (February 2010)

When it comes to smartphone platforms, the open-source Android has the biggest market share growth shipping on nearly 6.8 million devices in 2009. That's more than 10 times better than the 0.6 million in 2008. Another year like that and they might just take the second spot (or even first if Symbian doesn't up its game urgently).

An interesting trend is that the iPhone OS managed to reach a wider user base in 2009 than all the various versions and reincarnations of Windows Mobile. Now that should tell you something Microsoft, you better get your back into Windows Phone 7. We're waiting...

Tim Cook Talks IPad, Apple

Philip Michaels, Macworld.com, Feb 24, 2010 5:50 am

PCWORLD

Apple chief operating officer Tim Cook sang the praises of the forthcoming iPad, outlined the company's plans for retail expansion, and gave an overview of the company's other products during a wide-ranging talk before investors at the Goldman Sachs Technology & Internet Conference in San Francisco on Tuesday.

The Apple COO didn't have anything new to announce during his half-hour-long conversation with Goldman Sachs analyst David Bailey. But Cook's comments do offer some insight into Apple's approach as it enjoys record revenue and sales.

Just a month ago, Apple reported its best-ever quarterly performance, thanks to record Mac and iPhone sales. On Tuesday, Cook was particularly effusive in his praise of the iMac, which he called "very key, and we think it will continue to be very key."

The iMac is just one of the products that's helped the Mac outgrow the overall PC market in 20 of the last 21 quarters. Cook noted that market research firm IDC puts the PC market at about 300 million units and compared that to the 10 million Macs Apple sold during its 2009 fiscal year.

"The ceiling [for Apple] is still far off," he said.

Apple is also enjoying strong growth with the iPhone and iPod touch. The latter handheld, in particular, saw its sales double year-over-year in 2009.

"That helps fuel more app sales, which helps fuel more developers, which helps make the [iPhone OS] platform stronger," Cook said.

In talking about Apple's success, Cook focused on the company's efforts to recruit top talent as well as its focus on core products. "This is the most focused company I know of, am aware of, or have any knowledge of," Cook said. "We say no to good ideas every day" so that the company can keep its focus on a small number of areas. Cook took note of the tables conference attendees were sitting at, and pointed out that most of Apple's product line could fit on those tables. "And we had revenue last year of $40 billion," he added...see more

Hungarian electric car splits into two smaller cars

By Mico Tatalovic |24 February 2010
WIRED

Central and Eastern Europe might not be the first places you think of when it comes to electric cars. In fact, you're probably more likely to think of bad cars, such as the infamous Yugo, dubbed the worst car in history.

But times have changed. A few European car enthusiasts have been pushing for clean vehicles made in their own country, addressing the dearth of clean, home-made vehicles in the region.

One such company is Hungary's Antro, which is developing a car that splits into two smaller cars, and plans to take it/them to market by 2012, assuming the Mayan prophecies fall through.

The environmentally-conscious company started research back in 2002 and, with backing from various local sponsors, has invested 1.5 million euros in market research and development of a working prototype.

The Antro Solo concept (pictured above) is a three-passenger car, with a hybrid drive and solar cells on its roof that the company says could generate enough electricity for up to 20km a day at city speeds.

Futuristic looking in itself, the grander plan for the car is much more audacious: Antro intends to allow users to be able to connect two Antro Solos to form a six-passenger Antro Duo. Or perhaps more interesting still, owners of a Duo could split the car into two smaller Solos should Mum have different weekend plans to Dad. Or if they divorce.

The current prototype looks interesting, but I can't believe its chances of ever making it to past the prototype stage are much above slim.

Also worth a mention, just across the border to the south of Hungary, is a Croatian company called Dok-ing. It specialises in making landmine clearance machines, and sports the company motto: "Don't send a man to do a machine's job." But it, too, has launched its own project for a small electric city car called Dok-ing XD -- a fully electric three-seater that promises to travel 155 miles on a single two-hour charge.

The project was disclosed in 2009 after four years of development. But like Antro, Dok-ing XD sounds and looks good, but the likelihood of it hitting mass production are low. Local media hype followed announcement of the project last summer, but there has been no news since. The working prototype was expected to be on roads by the end of last year, which led to mass production being optimistically scheduled for middle of 2010.

Apple to launch an 'explicit' category for rude apps?

By Andrew Lim on Wednesday, 24th February 2010
RECOMBU

Cult of Mac has just been informed by a developer that a new section has appeared in iTunes Connect. When a developer submits an app they need to select a category and it looks like Apple may be getting ready to launch an 'explicit' category. This potentially means that all the rude apps which were recently removed, could be put back into the app store in a different section. An explicit section hasn't appeared in the front end yet so it might not amount to anything but it's very interesting. We asked a developer friend to double check that the new section existed and it does, as you can see from the screen-shot below.

US Unable To Win a Cyber War

Posted by CmdrTaco on Wednesday February 24, @11:30AM
SLASHDOT

"The inability to deflect even a simulated cyber attack or mitigate its effects shown in the exercise that took place some six days ago at Washington's Mandarin Oriental Hotel doesn't bode well for the US. Mike McConnell, the former Director of National Intelligence, said to the US Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee yesterday that if the US got involved in a cyber war at this moment, they would surely lose. 'We're the most vulnerable. We're the most connected. We have the most to lose,' he stated. Three years ago, McConnell referred to cybersecurity as the 'soft underbelly of this country' and it's clear that he thinks things haven't changed much since then."...

Browse Browser's Trends

Denise Dubie, Network World, Feb 23, 2010 5:47 pm

Recent market share statistics deliver good and bad news for Microsoft. The company saw its Internet Explorer browser lose more ground, seemingly to Google Desktop and Chrome, while its Windows 7 operating system quickly gained market acceptance.

Beware the rogue Wi-Fi access points in Windows 7

"The last six months have been a mixed bag for Microsoft," said Victor Janulaitis, CEO of Janco Associates, in a press statement. The research firm points out in its February 2010 Browser and Operating System Market Share Study that Microsoft IE market share has dipped by more than 12% since February 2007, mostly due to interest in competitive offerings from Firefox and Google.

Beware the rogue Wi-Fi access points in Windows 7

"Firefox and Google have been the main recipients of this change in market share," the report reads. "Google's Desktop and Chrome are new entrants into the browser market; however, interest in both products has dropped with the recent release of IE 8."

According to Janco Associates, Microsoft IE continues to lead the pack of browsers, but Microsoft did lose some 6% in the past 12 months and now holds a bit less than 65% of the total browser market, compared to more than 80% in February 2007). Firefox market share remained mostly flat, declining less than 1% to more than 17%. At the same time, market share for Google's browser grew more than 2% to close to 6% while Safari saw a nearly 1% increase to 1.39%. Janco also uses this report to declare Netscape as "officially dead."...

the US Federal Communications Commission will soon announce a national broadband plan

Jared Newman, PCWorld, Feb 23, 2010 7:42 pm
PC WORLD

With the United States falling behind other nations in broadband adoption, the Federal Communications Commission will soon announce a national broadband plan aimed at getting more people online at faster speeds. A new survey by the FCC shows why 93 million Americans don't get broadband -- a combination of high costs, poor understanding, and a general apathy for the Internet -- highlighting how difficult implementing a national broadband plan will be.

Here are four things I hope will come of the FCC's proposal, which will be submitted to Congress on March 17:

100 Mbps: Affordable, Not Just Available

A key goal for the FCC is to bring 100-megabit-per-second broadband to 100 million homes by 2020, but the current market shows that the speed you get isn't necessarily the fastest possible. Many Internet service providers offer a few speed tiers, with cheaper plans for casual Web browsers and pricey turbo speeds for power users. This will have to change for 100 Mbps Internet to be adopted on a grand scale...