Tag: market-data

  • iPhone Did Not Conquer Yet the Hearts of the Rich

    iPhone is leading the smartphone market in terms of sales, but smartphone users can also be divided by income: a study conducted by prospermobile.com, shows that the brand of mobile phones most used by the rich is BlackBerry. The study was conducted in June 2011 by interviewing 25,000 respondents.

    According to the study, the BlackBerry is the most used smartphone among users with incomes over $ 150,000 per year. 11.3% of the richest Americans own a BlackBerry, while only 10.9% of them have an iPhone and only 7.2% have an Android smartphone.

    Moreover, the ranking is also the same for users which have income ranging between 100,000 and 149,000 dollars per year. 21.2% of them are using BlackBerry, 19.1% of them use Apple’s iPhone and only 15.8% use a smartphone running on Android OS.

    Interestingly, iPhone starts to lead the ranking of the most commonly used smartphones among users with an annual income between $ 75,000 and $ 99,000. 20% of them use Apple's terminal, while the BlackBerry smartphone is used by only 18.7% of users in this group.

    Android handsets, which are not so popular among wealthy users, seem to be the preferred choice of those with incomes ranging between 35,000 and 49,000 dollars a year.

    The study also shows that BlackBerry users are generally professionals, businessmen or managers and they are not active users of online applications or multimedia content. Only 59.5% of them are downloading applications, while the percentage among iPhone users is up to 85.

    Anyway, this study gets public even before the launch of the iPhone 5, which, according to the latest rumors, will be held in Cupertino, not in San Francisco as happened with the previous generations if iPhones and iPads. The launch will be live on internet, on the Apple’s official website, on Tuesday, October 4.

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  • Apple Falls While Samsung and Android Take the Lead in USA

    Google and Samsung have managed to surpass Apple and its products, iOS, iPhone and iPad, ok the U.S. market, as the latest statistics are showing.

    Out of the 82 million Americans who own a smartphone, most devices (41.8%) are running the Android operating system developed by Google. Apple, with its IOS, ranked second with a market share of 27%, while the third place was occupied by Research in Motion (21.7%), with the operating system designed for their Blackberry.

    Interestingly, while Google gained 5.4% since April 2011, Apple's share grew by only 1%, and RIM has lost 4%. The last two places in the ranking are occupied by Microsoft and Symbian, which have 5.7% and 1.9%, respectively, of the market share.

    Samsung, market leader

    In the smartphones brands rankings, on the first place is Samsung, with a slightly increased market share compared to April 2011, from 24.5% to 25.5%. In second place is LG, which has stagnated at 20.9%, while the third place is occupied by Motorola with a decrease in the market share of 1.5%, from 15.6% to 14.1%. Apple was ranked only the fourth, with a market share increased by 1.2%, from 8.3% to 9.5%. The top is completed by RIM with a share down by 0.6%, from 8.2 to 7.6%.

    SMS, vital for Americans

    Another interesting ranking shows that the Americans are using the phone, beyond the calls, mainly to send text messages, in 70% of the cases. The percentage of those who surf the internet on their smartphone has increased from 39.1% to 41.1% and just the same as the percentage of those who download applications, up from 37.8% to 40.6%.
    The study shows, on the other hand, that 30.1% of the Americans who own a mobile phone are accessing social networks and blogs, 27.8% are playing games on the phone, while 20.3% are listening to music.

    Further reading:

  • Cisco Reports Fourth Quarter and Fiscal Year 2011 Earnings

    Cisco has reported its fourth quarter and fiscal year results for the period ended July 30, 2011. The company reported fourth quarter net sales of $11.2 billion, net income on a GAAP basis of $1.2 billion or $0.22 per share, and non-GAAP net income of $2.2 billion or $0.40 per share.

    "We've made significant progress on our comprehensive action plan to position ourselves for our next stage of growth and profitability, while delivering solid financial results in Q4," said John Chambers, chairman and CEO, Cisco. "As we start our next fiscal year, you will see a very focused, agile, lean and aggressive company, that is laser focused on helping our customers use intelligent networks to transform their businesses."

    Other Financial Highlights from Cisco's report:
          
            —  Cash flows from operations were $2.8 billion for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2011, compared with $3.0 billion for the third quarter of fiscal 2011, and compared with $3.2 billion for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2010. Cash flows from operations were $10.1 billion for fiscal 2011, compared with $10.2 billion for fiscal 2010.
           
            —  Cash and cash equivalents and investments were $44.6 billion at the end of fiscal 2011, compared with $43.4 billion at the end of the third quarter of fiscal 2011, and compared with $39.9 billion at the end of fiscal 2010.
           
            —  During the fourth quarter of fiscal 2011, Cisco repurchased 95 million shares of common stock under the stock repurchase program at an average price of $15.85 per share for an aggregate purchase price of $1.5 billion. During fiscal 2011, Cisco repurchased 351 million shares of common stock at an average price of $19.36 per share for an aggregate purchase price of $6.8 billion. As of July 30, 2011, Cisco had repurchased and retired 3.5 billion shares of Cisco common stock at an average price of $20.64 per share for an aggregate purchase price of approximately $71.8 billion since the inception of the stock repurchase program. The remaining authorized amount for stock repurchases under this program as of July 30, 2011 was approximately $10.2 billion with no termination date.
           
            —  Days sales outstanding in accounts receivable (DSO) at the end of the fourth quarter of fiscal 2011 were 38 days, compared with 37 days at the end of the third quarter of fiscal 2011, and compared with 41 days at the end of the fourth quarter of fiscal 2010.

            —  Inventory turns on a GAAP basis were 11.8 in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2011, compared with 11.1 in the third quarter of fiscal 2011, and compared with 12.6 in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2010. Non-GAAP inventory turns were 11.4 in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2011, compared with 10.3 in the third quarter of fiscal 2011, and compared with 12.1 in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2010.

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  • Vonage Reports Record High Net Income of $22 million

    Vonage Holdings announced results for the second quarter ended June 30, 2011. The Company reported record high net income of $22 million and record high adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (“EBITDA”) of $44 million.

    Vonage generated record high adjusted EBITDA of $44 million, up from $41 million in the year ago quarter and $43 million sequentially. Income from operations increased to $31 million from $24 million in the year ago quarter and $30 million sequentially.

    Net income increased to a record high $22 million or $0.10 per share, up from a net loss of $1 million or $0.00 per share in the year ago quarter, which included $12 million in charges relating to the Company's prior debt.  This increase was driven by a $7 million increase in income from operations and a $7 million reduction in interest expense. Net income increased from $21 million or $0.10 per share sequentially. 

    Revenue was $218 million, down from $225 million in the year ago quarter due to a $3 million decline in deferred revenues related to discontinuation of activation fees and lower customer equipment and shipping revenue.  Revenue declined from $220 million sequentially, primarily due to lower activation revenue and Universal Service Fund ("USF") fees. These factors contributed to a decline in average revenue per user ("ARPU") to $30.28, down from $31.21 in the prior year and $30.45 sequentially.

    Telephony services ARPU was $30.14, down from $30.71 a year ago due primarily to impacts from lower deferred activation revenue.  Telephony services ARPU decreased sequentially from $30.23 due to lower deferred activation revenue and USF fees.

    New Products

    Vonage announced two new products during the past week:  Extensions and Time to Call.

    Extensions, a free enhancement to the Company’s flat rate, unlimited international calling plan, addresses the needs of international long distance callers by extending the value provided by Vonage’s home service plans to additional phone numbers and devices including smartphones and feature phones.

    Time to Call provides low-cost, easy to use international calling on smartphones around the world.  According to the company, it is the first downloadable mobile application that allows pay-per-call international dialing to more than 190 countries. To promote its global launch, the Company is providing a free international call to everyone that downloads the application. This mobile application, designed for iPhones, allows consumers to make international calls of up to 15 minutes while avoiding high prices and roaming fees charged by traditional telecommunications carriers. The service is available in 87 countries around the world.  Time to Call provides direct payment through iTunes.

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  • Apple Took Two Thirds of Available Mobile Phone Profits in Q2

    iPhone is a huge success for Apple. Besides the fact that is making almost half of the company’s revenues, iPhone collects two-thirds of total profits of the smartphone manufacturers.

    This figure was provided by the consulting company Asymco, founded and led by Horace Dediu. He gathered data from financial statements of the main protagonists that are competing on market for our money for phones.

    Asymco says that Apple has 66.3% of the pie, followed by Samsung with 15%, Research in Motion (RIM) is gathering with its BlackBerrys 11% and HTC has other 7.4%. Moreover, four major global manufacturers – Nokia, Motorola, Sony Ericsson and LG – have losses in the last quarter.

    According to Strategy Analytics, Apple now holds the crown of smartphone shipments, with 18.5% of market, followed by Samsung with 17.5% and Nokia with 15.2%.

    Samsung, the main threat, is using three platforms

    Unlike its analysts, who give Samsung with 19.2 million smartphones sold, Dediu estimates the giant at 19.9 million units shipped. Apple has already announced officially that they have 20.3 million terminals. The problem is that Samsung is producing phones that are running on three platforms, Android, Windows Phone 7 and its Bada OS. Rumors say the company refrain from publishing the breakdown and the number of phones, not only because of patent problems they had with Apple and Microsoft, but just because Android deliveries were under Nokia sales, 16.7 million Symbian phones.

    HTC will surpass Blackberry and Nokia

    Asymco analysts also write that the era of slightly increase of the smartphone producers already ended and that is very clear that Symbian and BlackBerry OS have become a burden to their developers and users are not buying any, since the decreases are not cyclic. Nokia already jumped in the Microsoft boat, but RIM is trying a transition to QNX, the operating system on the PlayBook tablet. Also, the hot competition could strongly hit smaller companies such as Motorola and Sony Ericsson. In addition, with iPhone nano entering the fight for the low-cost and medium segment of smartphones would be almost equivalent to a disaster for the small producers of Android or LG, who cannot make profit even so. And that's exactly what Apple is going to do.

    Also, at this rate, HTC will surpass RIM over the next three months in terms of units sold, after giving 12.1 million units in the last quarter (+142%), while RIM has sold 13,2 million BlackBerry phones (+18%).

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  • UK Mobile Gambling Revenue Doubled in 2010

    According to new IHS Screen Digest research, mobile gambling market in the UK witnessed two times  growth in the 2010 when compared with the 2009 figures.

    Mobile gambling in the UK is widely popular as online wagering, and this gambling happens completely through communications medium such as telephone, television and the internet.

    The net mobile gambling revenue recorded in the year 2010 as 41 million pounds, which is more than double to the business turned out in the year 2009 as 19 million pounds. The participation percentage is also increased widely according to the research report, which mentioned it as 13.7% against the 9.8% in the year 2007.

    The 2005 U.K. gambling act was successfully implemented in the year 2007 and made this mobile gambling completely legitimate. This legitimate gambling started to advertise their activities in the television and radio successfully. Past twelve months this gambling market witnessed significant increase in spending money over these advertisements. In addition to this, latest smartphones’ accessibility to the internet helped well to increase this participation in  the UK to a major extent.

    The current 4G and advanced features in the samrtphone making them more appropriate for smart wagering in the UK. This is clearly distinguishing the today’s mobile gambler completely away from the one that was five years ago. As further step in this aspect, some of the special smartphone apps are ventured into the market that is exclusively designed for the smart wagering.  All these situations are clearly indicating the further growth to this market in the year 2011.

    The current mobile gambling, or mobile betting or mobile wagering is completely different from earlier. The research mentioned that this gambling is expected to grow further and online user’s average revenue per user will witness significant growth by 10 to 20 percent in the coming two years. Now, the bet stakes are collected from the user’s account balance like Amazon and PayPal. This trend is indicating that the pretty soon mobile operators will turn into billing centers for this mobile wagering.

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  • Windows Phone Will Dictate the Smartphone World Soon?

    There is a huge race among smartphones as currently Apple and Android leading this market. The prevailing interest for smartphone is making much famous research firms to conduct various researches on this market on constant basis and coming up various predictions. The latest research and results from IDC lifted a new veil for these predictions.

    This IDC research revealed that Windows Phone will pretty soon lead the market almost all over shadowing the current popular contenders Apple and Android.

    This research also started soothsaying that by 2015 the Windows Phone occupies the throne successfully. The research result said the there will be one out of five smartphones sold will result from Microsoft. Is it really necessary for Apple and Android to react to this research?

    Coming to the facts, some people really find it tough to get along with Apple’s monopoly and Android’s beyond levels flexibility as a threat. Nokia was already in huge turmoil through its recent partnership with Microsoft. Nokia is no longer looking into the further developments for their Symbian as there is no such desired sales growth for it. Perhaps, all these conditions might fuel up the growth for Windows Phone besides the huge popularity for Microsoft. Practically speaking the IDC results are going to be true until and unless Apple and Android change their approach towards their customer base.

    The recent security threat at Android Market is still warning many smartphone users and asking them to take a wise decision. Apple is still trying to control its customer base through its strong iOS and iTunes. Market is always against to the controls and all of the sudden there is chances to cut lose and start to go against to the limitations through available choices. This is clearly indicating that the Apple and Android is the people to reconsider their approach keeping in mind the possible threat.

    Above details are released by the IDC basing on their research. Just look into those jaw dropping predictions.

    There is one more vital factor to be remembered by everyone. The 2015 predictions mentioned 23.7% as Android share and in fact this is a commanding figure when compared with other contenders. But, reality is Google will not be making any thing out of this success. The Android’s major success share will goes to Oracle for its java-related patent suit issues. This is according to the Google’s acquisition agreement of Sun Microsystems in January. Microsoft too got its share in Google’s success to bite, through Android original equipment manufacturer and gets a part of share on sold out every HTC device. It is clearly indicating how the Google is going to be squeezed and what it is going to make out of its own success. This kind of squeezing might make Google to neglect from concentrating much on Android’s developments and stays happy with whatever is coming through.

    All the mentioned situations are really supporting the IDC perditions and definitely a success path started to lay down on own for Windows Phone’s future.

  • Carrier router and switch market Back on Track, Up 10% Year-Over-Year

    Infonetics Research has released excerpts from its first quarter 2011 Service Provider Routers and Switches preliminary vendor market share report.

    According to the report, the global service provider router and switch market, including IP edge routers, core routers, and carrier Ethernet switches, totaled $3.2 billion in 1Q11, down 14.7% from the previous quarter, up 10.4% from the year-ago quarter.

    In the IP edge router and carrier Ethernet switch market, which represents about 3/4 of the total market:
    Cisco gained 1.3 revenue share percentage points sequentially in 1Q11 to 34.6%, and is down 8.5 percentage points year-over-year;
    Alcatel-Lucent dropped a few percentage points in 1Q11, maintaining 2nd position; they are up 3.1 percentage points year-over-year;
    Juniper’s revenue is up both quarter-over-quarter (+2.5 points) and year-over-year (+3 points), and holds the #3 spot;
    Huawei is down a couple points sequentially and up a tad year-over-year.

    “Although carrier router and switch revenue was down sequentially in Q1 (as it usually is in the first quarter), the market is up year-over-year, and the last three quarters represent the three all-time highest-revenue quarters ever, a good sign that the market is back on track,” said Michael Howard, co-founder and principal analyst for carrier networks at Infonetics Research.

    In 1Q11, Infonetics made adjustments to how it tracks the carrier router and switch market, which moved some edge router revenue to the carrier Ethernet switch segment (principally for Alcatel-Lucent, Tellabs, and Juniper), both in current and historic data for accurate comparisons over time; these adjustments affected some vendor share standings.

  • Nokia, At the Lowest Rate in 14 Years, on a Growing Market

    Nokia mobile phone market share dropped from 30.6% to 25.1%, reaching its lowest level since 1997, selling in the first quarter of 2011 107.6 million units, according to a study made by the research firm Gartner.

    At the same time, Samsung’s sales increased from 64.9 to 68.8 million units, and the producer has a market share of 16.1%.

    The list is completed by LG, which has sold in the first quarter of 2011 27.2 million mobile phones, representing 7.6% of market.

    Apple is ranked four in the mobile phones top, but also in the operating system top, with 16.9 million iPhones sold worldwide, double value than in the first quarter of last year. The company’s market share, both in smartphones and operating systems, increased from 2.3% to 3.9%.

    The sales of the Canadians from Research In Motion, the Blackberry manufacturer, have increased in the same period from 10.8 to 13 million units, the company having a market share of 3%.

    In the operating systems, Android has become the most popular platform in the world, increasing its last year market share from 9.6% to 36%.

    The market share of Symbian, at which Nokia will renounce in favor of Windows Mobile, has decreased in the last year from 44.2% to 27.4%.

    In total, in the first quarter of 2011 were sold 427.9 million mobile phones, an increase with 19% over the number recorded in the first three months of 2010. Gartner says that, despite this 19-percent increase in sales, would have been sold even more smartphones, but several companies have announced the launch of new terminals for the current quarter, and many customers have waited them and haven’t bought any phone in the first three months of the year.

    Smartphone sales have doubled up in the period mentioned, to 100.8 million units, according to the source.

  • Video Conferencing Becomes More Common Among U.S. Physicians

    Seven percent of U.S. physicians use online video conferencing to communicate with any of their patients, according the new Taking the Pulse study of physician digital adoption trends from pharmaceutical and healthcare market research company Manhattan Research.

    This year’s study of 2,041 U.S. practicing physicians includes a focus on how physicians are using technology in the practice, such as for electronic health records, electronic prescribing and interaction with patients.

    As video chatting becomes more common, this type of communication is emerging as a way for physicians to consult with patients about non-urgent issues, such as follow up questions from an office visit, or to connect with geographically dispersed patient populations that may not have nearby access to specialists. The study also found that certain specialties, such as psychiatrists and oncologists, are more likely to be using video conferencing with patients.

    “Telemedicine has the potential to open up consultations with top specialists, regardless of your location,” said Meredith Ressi, Manhattan Research President. “Combined with the impending shortage of primary care physicians, the implications of these technologies for how healthcare is delivered in our country are remarkable.”

    However, the study found that physician concerns regarding reimbursement, liability and HIPAA are still major barriers to communicating online with patients. Some of these issues are starting to be addressed as telemedicine solution providers such as American Well partner with insurance companies to facilitate payment and increase their security measures. “Despite these hurdles, we still expect to see more physicians use this model to improve practice efficiency and expand their patient base, without the overhead associated with only in-office visits,” Ressi said.