Best Smart Phone

Best Smart Phone

Much has been made of the best smart phone on the market. What do you choose, cell phone and PDA choices include the Apple iPhone, the BlackBerry from RIM and the new Google Andriod phone. The decision when picking the best smart phone is a very tough one these days.

According to market research firm Gartner, worldwide sales of smartphones totaled 38.1 million units in the fourth quarter of 2008--a year-over-year increase of 3.7%--and accounted for 12% of all mobile phones sold in the period.

Globally the best smart phone according to sales for the year topped 139.3 million devices, up 13.9% over 2007.

“In general in 2008, the focus from vendors and operators on increasing their smartphone portfolios remained very strong. Samsung, RIM, HTC and Apple saw their volumes and share increase during 2008, thanks to their ability to offer compelling device experiences and touch interfaces.”

iPhone Apps and Appstore Strategy

Any of you that are familiar with what's going on in Apple's AppStore with the thousands of games available and the extremely competitive pricing problems might be intrigued to hear about a new strategy used by 5 independent iPhone game developers to try to raise awareness (and sales) of their games in the AppStore.

Majic Jungle Software, Veiled Games, Antair Games, IMS and Warhorse Games have gotten together to launch The 5 Fingers Games Bundle that includes 5 games, one from each developer, all for $5.

Per the press release, this is the first games bundle for the iPhone, but the real story here is the way in which it came about. Often for a games bundle, a publisher pulls together one or two good titles and pads them out with some weaker games, but this bundle includes the best selling game from each of five developers. The 5 games included in the bundle are:

* Chopper - Previously a #1 game on the App Store
* Up There - The most emotive game on the store
* Sneezies - An adorable puzzle game for all ages
* BurnBall - Addicting and high energy arcade action
* BlackBeards Assault - Puzzle adventure on the High Seas

Samsung now largest cell phone and mobile vendor

Latest research and figures from company Strategy Analytics has shown that Samsung Electronics has now overtaken previous leader Motorola in the 3rd Qtr 2008, now positioned as the biggest mobile and cell phone vendor in the USA.

Samsung's wide range of devices in the cell phone lineup across multiple carriers, technologies and silos were apparently the reasons that have allowed them to leap to the top.

Korean players, Samsung and LG were both winners in terms of latest marketshare stats, giving them 22.4% and 20.5% each in the ball game.

Previous market leader Motorola (led by their impressive Motorola Razr Handset, positioned as the stand out leader since 2004, fell away to now only hold 21.1% from 32.7% only 12 months prior.

Nokia saw its market share drop in the USA to a lowly 8.4%.

The figures suggest overall mobile phone and cell handset sales in the United States went against the world wide forcasts of economic doom and gloom and grew 6.2% from a year ago to 47.4 million phones in the quarter.

Mobile and Cell Phone Sales Compared

Recent Mobile and Cell phone stats show that 303 million cellphones were shipped worldwide in Q3 2008, only increasing by the slight amount of 5% year-on-year. There has been a visible slowdown in shipments to smaller markets - all of which points to the weakest growth rate since way back in 2002. 4 of the major mobile and cell phone players, only grew at single-digit rates or less. Apple was the standout with their iPhone, grabbing a 2% global share. Nokia, Motorola, Sony Ericsson and LG were well below their initial targets, while Apple, RIM and Samsung over achieved on their results.

Mobile and Cell Phone details:

-Nokia shipped 118 million handsets in the quarter, up 5% from the year prior. However it lost market share in every region and continues to miss opportunities in the U.S. where smartphone sales are especially strong.

-Samsung shipped 52 million handset, up 22% from last year. The company’s market share climbed to 17% and volumes increased in North America and Western Europe but were lackluster in emerging markets.

-Sony Ericsson sold 25.7 million handsets in the quarter, which marks a 1% decline.

-Motorola shipped 25.4 million handsets, a painful 32% decline from last year.

-LG shipped 23 million handsets, marking a 17% decline.

Not great news for sure but no surprise, either.

Movaya names new publishers

Movaya (www.movaya.com), a leading mobile commerce service provider, today announced that over 500 publisher and merchant partners have signed up for the company's PlugNPlay and TryNBuy products, enabling these partners to sell mobile content directly to consumers.

"Movaya's technologies are revolutionizing the way consumers discover, browse and download mobile content," said Phil Yerkes, CEO of Movaya. "Rather than relying only on traditional wireless carriers as the prime merchants of mobile content including games and applications, consumers are beginning to discover and download games from all types of online merchants," Yerkes said.

Movaya offers its partners both turnkey and enterprise solutions, allowing merchants to quickly open 'App Stores in a box' for the 99% of mobile phone users that do not have an iPhone. Like both Google and RIM, who are supporting their own unique application stores, Movaya provides its partners with all the tools to build their own mobile application store: catalog of games, billing, distribution and storefront tools.

By partnering with Movaya, online merchants can select from a variety of methods to add mobile games and applications to their current stores. Mobile game publishers, casual game merchants and general video game merchants are currently the early adopters of Movaya's platform.

T Mobile G1

A busy day in the cell and mobile phone arena in the past 24 hours - Google, T-Mobile and HTC have all "officially" confirmed the unleashing of the T-Mobile G1 - capable of handling the Google Android device.

In depth information covering the new release can be found, on the following links moconews. If you want to learn more about the phone and how to get one, check out the new site at www.t-mobileg1.com/

Orders for pre-release are being accepted by phone today and should be ready for collection on or around the 22nd of October at various T-Mobile outlets and online in the U.S. The G1 will cost $179 with a two-year voice and data agreement.

I have been holding off on getting a new phone and if the reviews of the G1 are good, I'll be picking one up. I think this day is a game changer for the mobile world - Apple did a great job educating all of us on the power of a good mobile device but Android will help bring this power to the masses.

Fred Wilson, a well respected NY area Venture Capitalist and a great blogger, had this to say earlier this month:

"They are building a mobile operating system, Android, that is also designed for running web apps in a mobile environment. I think in time, Google's Android will be to the iPhone what Windows was to the Mac. The iPhone laid out many of the killer mobile device innovations, but its a closed device, a closed carrier relationship, and even a closed application store. Android will take all of those good ideas and put them on every device, with every carrier, and in partnership with every app developer. You'd have thought that Apple would have learned the lesson that you can't control the entire ecosystem with the Mac, but they did not."

I couldn't agree more.

Mobile Text Messaging

USA mobile and cell phone customers ranging between the ages of 14 and 30 apparently send up to 20 TXT or text messages each day, compared to only 1 or 2 text messages for older users in the 30 to 43 age group and then only a single SMS or Text Message in the 44 to 64, after leading marketing firm Knowledge Networks conducted a recently survey and audit of texting in the cell and mobile phone arena.

My kids are young so I don't know a lot about daily cellphone usage for teenagers but I was having a conversation with one of my colleagues recently on this subject. He has three boys between 10-15. They all have cellphones and he mentioned that one of them has "probably never" made an outgoing phone call on his cellphone! He will answer the phone if someone calls him but all he does on an outbound basis is text. I knew teenagers loved to text but this data point surprised me. Times are certainly changing.