Tag: nok

  • Sandisk Sees Growth In Mobile Devices


    Sandisk expects increased demand for its mobile storage products as a result of continued growth in the smartphone, MIDs and notebooks sectors.

    The flash memory provider said demand for its mobile solutions was actually increasing – as were prices.

    Eli Harari, Sandisk’s CEO, speaking in its first quarter earnings this week, said he expected demand for NAND to continue to grow particularly for mobile and portable computing platforms.

    He said this would help absorb the industry supply growth projected for second half of 2009 and ensure price stability.

    Pointing to the changes currently taking place in the mobile market, he compared them to those experienced by the Internet in its early days.

    He said these would also have important implications for Sandisk’s mobile storage business.

    Apple’s iPhone and its App Store, RIM’s Blackberry Market, the adoption of Android by smartphone makers, as well as Nokia and Microsoft’s plans were all mentioned as playing a role in fuelling the demand for flash memory.

    "The opportunity for us is these devices will have to be content with wireless bandwidth and coverage limitations, making off-line, local caching of increased amount of data, central to devices’ usability," he said.

    "Paradoxically, the promise of always-connected devices in cloud computing is resulting in the ever greater need for local storage on the devices themselves."

    Harai said Sandisk was seeing increasing demand from "major players" in the mobile ecosystem for its mobile storage solutions, including Mobile Card, embedded iNAND and solid state drives for notebook PC’s.

  • Nokia's Q1 Profit Drops 90% – But 5800 Smartphone Shines


    Nokia’s first-quarter profit plunged 90 per cent as the Finnish handset maker showed its vulnerabilty to the current economic difficulties.

    The world’s leading mobile manufacturer posted a net profit of just EURO €122 million (USD $161m), compared with EURO €1.22 billion (USD $1.58bn) in the year-ago period.

    One bright note was sales of Nokia’s first touchscreen S60 smartphone.

    The company revealed today that it has sold 2.6 million 5800 XpressMusic devices in just one quarter of availability.

    Overall, however, the company’s sales fell 27 per cent to EURO €9.28bn (USD $12.2bn) for the quarter, down from EURO €12.7bn (USD $16.77bn) in the first quarter of 2008.

    Handset sales were down 33 per cent to EURO €6.19 (USD $8.17bn), although the company did sell more phones than some analysts had predicted.

    Nokia shipped 93.2 million devices, down sequentially from the 113.1 million units it shipped in the fourth quarter of 2008 and down 19 per cent from the 115 million it sold in the year-ago quarter.

    Nokia’s market share remained steady at 37 per cent.

    While the Finnish giant’s result are hardly impressive, it isn’t alone in suffering from the downturm.

    Equally, the results were better than widely expected, which led to shares in the company rising by 8 per cent.

    Nokia sold 13.7 million converged (S60) devices, down from 14.6 million in Q1 2008 and 15.1 million in Q4 2008, of these 5 million were Nseries and 3 million were Eseries.

    Nokia’s industry outlook sees similar device volumes and market share for Q2, but expect overall conditions to improve in the second half of the year

    Olli-Pekka Kallasuvo, Nokia CEO, said:

    "In what has been an exceptionally tough environment, we continue to invest in a focused manner in consumer Internet services delivered across our broad portfolio of mobile devices. Combined, these solutions will drive our future growth. As an example in Q1, I am especially pleased with the performance of our first mass market touch product, the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic. Together with Comes With Music, it is a great example of Nokia providing solutions that consumers value.

    Regarding the health of the overall mobile device market, the inventory already in the sales channels decreased substantially during Q1 due to extensive destocking by operators and distributors. This adversely impacted our sales volumes in the quarter. However, it has also resulted in the demand picture becoming more predictable as we enter the second quarter."

  • Strong Q1 Expected from Nokia's 5800 Smartphone


    Nokia’s Q1 sales are expected to be down when accounced tomorrow – despite the success of its 5800 XpressMusic smartphone launched last year.

    Analysts estimate 2.5 million 5800s may have been sold in the first three months of the year – helped by repeated sell-outs in the UK and roll-outs into new markets.

    Key to the Nokia smartphone’s success is its cost – often undercutting the iPhone while offering comprehensive features.

    Despite the device’s strong sales, however, the Finnish mobile giant is expected to report a drop in overall shipments of 20 per cent, with revenues around USD $12.6 billion.

    The company had sales of USD $16.4 billion in the fourth quarter of 2008.

    While Nokia remains the leading global mobile maker, its position has been under fire recently – not least in the smartphone category where the iPhone and BlackBerry have nibbled at its market share.

    However, there may be positive news for Nokia. Some analysts expect the company to announce that it has reduced inventory levels from the fourth quarter of 2008, raising the prospect of an upswing in the second quarter.

    Recent measures have seen Nokia streamline its operations, cutting 1,700 jobs worldwide and temporarily suspending outsourcing for handset manufacturing.

    Nokia is also expected to provide more details tomorrow on reports that its joint venture with Siemens is bidding for parts of Nortel Networks’ CDMA carrier networks business.

  • iPhone: Not A Top 20 Handset For Browsing And Buying On The Mobile Web


    The iPhone sits outside the top 20 when it comes to the most popular phones for browsing and buying content on the mobile web worldwide.

    Nokia’s 3110c is the top handset, followed by the Samsung M800 and then Nokia’s 6300, according to statistics released today by Bango. The iPhone appears as 24th on the list.

    The data represents the activities of major brands and businesses as their consumers browse to mobile websites and buy mobile content and services.

    Ray Anderson, CEO of Bango, said the stats will be of interest to businesses that monetize their mobile content and services across a wide demographic as spending by iPhone users is restricted to the Apple App Store.

    Bango detected a total of 1,811 different types of handsets accessing the mobile Internet in just one month (February).

    The Bango Top 20 Handset chart shows that smartphones account for 30 per cent of handsets in the Top 20.

    "The iPhone has done a lot to encourage people to browse the internet on their phones," said Anderson.

    "But to get the most out of their mobile marketing spend, companies who are riding the iPhone wave, attracted by its excellent features and user demographics, need to optimize their mobile websites for all phones.

    "Without this, they will be missing out on the mass market."

    Anderson said marketers need to choose their best channel to market and consider sales projections from the leading manufacturers.

    Based on the number of handsets projected to be sold by the end of 2009, outside of Japan and Korea, he said Nokia is the leader with sales of the S60 likely to reach 300m, followed by Windows Mobile and iPhone at 40m, RIM at around 25m and Google around 5m.

    "What is clear is that mobile marketers need to better understand their users," he said.

  • FutureDial's Mobile Content Solution Can Have "Huge Impact" On Operators' Revenue Potential

    INTERVIEW: Sanjiv Parikh, vice president of marketing for FutureDial, talks to smartphone-biz.news about its mobile content management service and its potential to generate revenue for operators and retailers.

    Apple has shown how its App Store can be a lucrative earner – and has inspired similar ventures from the likes of Google’s Android, Blackberry, Nokia and even the as-yet-unlaunched Palm Pre.

    But how can wireless operators and even retailers ensure they maximise their earnings from the lucrative mobile content market?

    Software company FutureDial believes it has the answer.

    Sanjiv Parikh, vice president of marketing for FutureDial, said its Retail Management Solution (RMS) 4.0 allows mobile content to be directly loaded to handsets at store counters – an industry first.

    He said the "Buy Content" feature enables retailers to sell user-selected content from an integrated online content site at a store counter.

    "Online content is still very difficult to access using phone browsers. It’s still not very user friendly," he said.

    "So when someone is buying a new phone, the store would ask if they want the content transferred from their old phone, but also if they are interested in games, applications, music files and so on for their new phone.

    "It’s an additional up-selling opportunity."

    Parikh said initial feedback suggested this new feature was having a "huge impact" on clients’ business.

    He said the idea was to provide operators or retailers with complete flexibility when it came to providing their own content.

    With this in mind, FutureDial also offers a solution to clients that have their own music or content portal.

    Main Markets

    RMS is supported on over 1000 handsets and this number is continually being added to – at a rate of 50 new handsets a month, if necessary.

    FutureDial’s main markets are the US and Europe, with a major UK carrier deal expected to be announced "shortly".

    Parikh said the latest version of RMS – launched at MWC in Barcelona last month – helps stores to close the sale on new phone purchases, maximize customer acquisition and retention, and increase ARPU.

    As well as allowing content downloads, RMS also offers users phone-to-phone content transfer, backup and restoration services across thousands of handset models at the store counter.

    The mobile content transfer service handles personal address books, pictures, calendars, messages, and audio/video files.

    A major addition in RMS 4.0 is an operation from a tablet-sized touch-screen online terminal called Talisman for "mobile personalization" services, either for use by store staff or as a customer self-service kiosk.

    Solution Aids Content Management

    Parikh said the content transfer, back-up and restore features of  RMS essentially address the issue of how consumers manage old phone content when switching handsets.

    He said it helps consumers move personal content – and to protect it by offering a backup and restore function.

    These aspects of the solution work in two ways.

    Firstly, with operators and equipment retail stores so that when a consumer switches phone, content can be transferred and backed-up at the store counter.

    He said that the more tech-savvy user was happy to do this themself at home – and FutureDial provides a product that connects mobiles to PCs to back-up and download content.

    Backing-up: "Complex & Tedious"

    But he said for many people it was a complex and tedious process.

    "What we found based on our home back-up offering is that many customers didn’t like to do this themselves," he said.

    "They would rather have someone do it for them and they are willing to pay for the service.

    "This has turned into a major opportunity for service providers."

    Around 70 per cent of stores using RMS charge for the service.

    Parikh said a fear of losing content and data – which often involves a huge investment of time and effort – also put many people off changing their handsets.

    But he said that even if they overcame that fear, simply by changing to a new phone could result in lost revenue for operators.

    "When users start with a new phone it can take up to 18 weeks before they come back to the original usage levels of the old phone," he said. "That’s a lot of user revenue lost."

    That wasn’t the case with RMS because content is instantly transferred onto a new handset – enabling usage to continue as before.

    Loyalty Has Rewards

    Parikh said RMS’s second function is to create loyalty in users by ensuring they return to stores for future back-ups – and so creating the potential for sales of sleeves, cover and other accessories.

    He said one US operator using RMS in hundreds of its stores had seen a marked upturn in user loyalty.

    "This loyalty element really helps operators avoid churn and sell more," he said. "It’s a revenue opportunity but it also give consumers the feeling that the service provider is taking care of them.

    "That’s a major element in such a fiercely competitive market."

    Please let us have your comments on RMS – will in-store content delivery and back-up appeal to the mass market?

  • Smartphone Market: RIM and Apple Closing On Nokia


    Nokia still tops the smartphone market with sales of 60.9 million handsets last year for a total global market share of 43.7 per cent.

    But the Finnish phone-maker’s sales grew by just 0.8 per cent and its market share dropped from 49.4 per cent, with rivals Research In Motion (RIM) and Apple taking bigger slices of the smartphone pie.

    Research firm Gartner said Nokia still has more than double the market share of its closest competitor, RIM, which has 16.6 per cent.

    It points to the introduction of high-profile handsets by competitors as a key factor in Nokia’s slipping market share.

    The researchers predict that while Nokia’s low-end smartphones will continue to fare well, its higher-end N series handsets are in for a tough ride.

    RIM, on the other hand, has profited from new devices, such as the BlackBerry Bold and the BlackBerry Storm, which have taken its market share from 9.6 per cent in 2007 to 16.6 per cent in 2008.

    Generally, Gartner said worldwide sales of smartphones had grown at their slowest pace yet in the fourth quarter of 2008 as the financial crisis hit demand.

    It said an estimated 38.14 million smartphones sold in the three months to December, an increase of 3.7 per cent over the same period in 2007.

    This is the slowest rise since Gartner began tracking the market for smartphones in 2003.

    Nokia suffered a 16.8 per cent drop in sales during the December quarter.

    Total smartphone sales in 2008 reached 139.3 million units, up almost 14 per cent over the previous year.

  • Skype Deal With Nokia Stokes Operators' Fears Over Lost Revenue












    Operators O2 and Orange have reacted to plans by Nokia to embed Skype in handsets and may refuse to stock the N97.

    Skype is linking up with Nokia to embed its calling software in the Finnish company’s new handsets.

    Initially this will be the N97 by Q3 2009 and also, later, in other N-series devices.

    However, the deal, which was announced at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, has angered UK operators Orange and O2, according the Mobile Today.

    It reports that the two operators are considering refusing to stock the N97 unless Nokia strips out the Skype client.

    Key to their concern is ownership of the customer and potential lost revenue from calls from Skype’s VoIP service.

    Rival operators 3 UK and T-Mobile UK are said to be backing Nokia and Skype’s partnership.