Apple’s iPhone has leapfrogged Research In Motion’s Blackberry to grab fourth-place among handset manufacturers in the United States, tracking firm comScore said Tuesday.
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iPhone passes Blackberry in US: comScore
Research firm IHS iSuppli yesterday issued a report estimating the potential iPad 2 production loss due to the explosion at its Chengdu, China plant at up to 500,000 units. The estimated shortfall comes after Foxconn reportedly reassured suppliers that production will continue.
While most iPad 2 production takes place at another Foxconn facility in Shenzhen, that plant may not be able to compensate for all the lost output in the second quarter at the Chengdu site. The Shenzhen facility at present has capacity to produce 7.5 million units in the second quarter – iSuppli forecasts 7.4 million iPad 2 units will be shipped out during this period. To support these shipments, Foxconn must manufacture a larger quantity of devices, at between 7.8 and 8.1 million units during the second quarter. This means that Foxconn’s shipments will fall short of expected levels by between 300,000 and 600,000 units in the second quarter.
Preliminary investigations into the cause of the blast have pinpointed a buildup of combustible dust in the facility’s ventilation system, and The Wall Street Journal reports that Foxconn has temporarily shut down polishing workshops at all of its facilities for testing in order to ensure that similar explosions do not occur elsewhere. Three workers were killed and over a dozen others were injured in the Chengdu blast.
A spokesman for Hon Hai said the company’s tests at the affected workshops could last two days. “The workshops could be back online as soon as they pass the test,” he said.
Foxconn has indicated that it has ample supplies of polished parts to carry it through the brief shutdown, suggesting that the testing will have little impact on the company’s production capacity. The same can not be said for the damaged Chengdu production lines, as it will undoubtedly take time to sort out the events and restart production. The company does, however, have significant flexibility with its huge number of production lines at a number of different facilities, and its ability to move quickly on construction projects means that it could have the Chengdu plant back up and running in relatively short order.
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Sales of the Verizon iPhone 4 helped push Apple past HTC, Motorola, and Research in Motion during the first quarter to become the number three U.S. handset maker, according to data from NPD Group.
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Verizon iPhone Helps Boost Apple Sales, Android Takes a Dip
Apple iPhone lineup was pushed into the third spot in smartphone market share in the first three months of the year, due in large part to Verizon added sales of the iPhone 4, according to a research firm. In the first quarter of 2011 Apple’s cellphone sales reached 14% of the U.S. market, according to the NPD Group, which set the Cupertino tech giant ahead of rivals HTC, Motorola and Research In …
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Apple’s iPhone market share rises on Verizon sales; Android share drops
But yesterday, comScore finally put some numbers behind that latter argument, building off its earlier report regarding February data on smartphone usage to reveal that the overall iOS platform of iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch reaches 37.9 million users in the U.S., 59% greater than the reach of Android.
Initial research indicates that Apple’s iOS platform, which resides on iPhones, iPads and iPod Touches, has a combined platform reach of 37.9 million among all mobile phones, tablets and other such connected media devices, outreaching the Android platform by 59 percent.
Rather than simply counting device sales, comScore’s data tracks individual users, making that 37.9 million number reflective of users (some of whom have more than one iOS device) rather than devices directly.
As a result, Apple’s iOS reaches 16.2% of the 234 million mobile platform users in the United States, with Android registering at 10.2% with 23.8 million users.
But perhaps most notably, comScore finds that there is not a tremendous amount of overlap in users, with only 10.5% of iOS users accessing the system from multiple devices such as an iPhone and iPad or iPhone and iPod touch.
“These data clearly illustrate the Apple ecosystem extends far beyond the iPhone,” added [comScore senior vice president of mobile Mark] Donovan. “Though it’s frequently assumed that the Apple user base is composed of dedicated Apple ‘fanboys’, there’s not a tremendous amount of overlapping mobile device access among these users. This of course has significant implications for the developer community as they consider the market potential in developing applications for different mobile platforms.”
The survey also shows a broad appeal for the iPad, moving well beyond existing iPhone users to appeal to users of smartphones from a number of other companies. In particular, LG, Samsung, and Nokia smartphone users are overrepresented when it comes to iPad ownership, while users of Research in Motion and Motorola smartphones are somewhat underrepresented in iPad ownership. According to the survey, only 27.3% of iPad owners are also iPhone owners, while 17.5% are BlackBerry owners, 14.3% are Samsung owners, and 12.1% are LG owners.
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Verizon iPhone Leads U.S. Mobile Phone Sales in February as Android Surge Continues
Monday April 04, 2011 10:14 AM EST; Category: iPhone
Written by Eric Slivka
comScore late last week released the results of its latest monthly survey of U.S. mobile phone users, revealing that Apple’s new CDMA iPhone released on Verizon that month ranked as the best-selling phone during the month. That performance helped boost Apple’s share of the mobile phone market in the U.S. to 7.5% for the three-month period ending in February, up from 6.6% in the prior period.
When looking only at smartphones and the operating systems running them, Android’s usage continued to soar during the period, up 7 percentage points to move past Research in Motion to claim the top spot in overall usage in the U.S. (not new purchases) with 33% of the market. RIM slipped to 28.9%, while Apple nudged up slightly to 25.2% as Microsoft and Palm continued to drop.
That result seems to mirror other recent surveys that show Apple essentially maintaining its relative share in the rapidly growing smartphone market while Android surges at the expense of Research in Motion and smaller players.
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IDC’s worldwide smartphone operating system market share projections: 2011 and 2015
(Platforms listed alphabetically)
A new report issued today by research firm IDC is gaining significant attention for its bold prediction that Microsoft’s Windows Phone platform will surpass the iPhone in worldwide smartphone market share by 2015. The report cites the partnership between Nokia and Microsoft as being key to Windows Phone’s performance, which is unsurprisingly projected to come at the expense of Nokia’s own Symbian operating system that will be phased out.
Nokia’s recent announcement to shift from Symbian to Windows Phone will have significant implications for the smartphone market going forward. “Up until the launch of Windows Phone 7 last year, Microsoft has steadily lost market share while other operating systems have brought forth new and appealing experiences,” added Llamas. “The new alliance brings together Nokia’s hardware capabilities and Windows Phone’s differentiated platform. We expect the first devices to launch in 2012. By 2015, IDC expects Windows Phone to be number 2 operating system worldwide behind Android.”
As for the iPhone, IDC sees the device averaging growth of 18.8% per year between 2011 and 2015, but that growth rate is predicted to be slightly lower than the overall smartphone market’s growth of 19.6%. Consequently, IDC predicts that Apple’s share of the smartphone market will slip slightly from 15.7% this year to 15.3% in 2015, although iOS is predicted to remain ahead of Research in Motion’s BlackBerry operating system, which is predicted to slip from 14.9% to 13.7% of the market over the same period.
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Bloomberg reports that the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) is set to announce today whether it will reexamine a preliminary decision ruling that Apple and Research in Motion have not infringed upon a Kodak patent related to digital camera technology. Kodak, which remains confident that it will prevail in the dispute, believes that it can extract on the order of $1 billion in licensing fees from the two companies, on par with royalties it received from Samsung and LG following a fight over the same patent.
A decision is scheduled for about 5 p.m. Washington time today on whether the U.S. International Trade Commission will review a judge’s findings from January that Apple’s iPhone and RIM’s BlackBerry don’t violate Kodak’s patent on an image- preview feature in camera phones. Opening a review would revive Kodak’s effort to extract compensation from Apple and RIM.
“This is a lot of money, big money,” said [Kodak CEO Antonio] Perez, who estimates the royalties may be similar to payments the company received from Samsung Electronics Co. and LG Electronics Inc.
Kodak filed the patent suits against Apple and RIM in January 2010, and the ITC agreed a month later to review the case. Apple struck back with a countersuit against Kodak in April 2010 alleging infringement of a number of patents related to image processing, power management, and memory architectures. The ITC agreed in May 2010 to review that case, but has yet to issue a decision on it.
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CNET reports that four U.S. senators have sent a letter to Apple’s iPhone software head, Scott Forstall, asking the company to remove from the App Store applications that are designed to allow users to be alerted to checkpoints for sobriety testing.
U.S. Senators Harry Reid (D-Nev.), Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.), and Tom Udall (D-N.M.) are named as senders in the letter, which is addressed to Apple’s senior vice president of iPhone software, Scott Forstall. No specific applications are named, but the letter highlights apps that “contain a database of DUI [driving under the influence] checkpoints updated in real-time” as well as one that sends out real-time alerts about the existence of these checkpoints.
“With more than 10,000 Americans dying in drunk-driving crashes every year, providing access to iPhone and iPad applications that alert users to DUI checkpoints is harmful to public safety,” the group wrote. “We know that your company shares our desire to end the scourge of drunk driving and we therefore would ask you to remove these applications from your store.”
The same letter was also sent to Google and Research in Motion to encourage those companies to remove similar apps from their application stores. Research in Motion has already agreed to remove applications offering data on DUI checkpoint locations.
While the letter itself does not specifically reference any iOS applications, a press release from Senator Schumer names Trapster and PhantomALERT as examples of free apps offering location information on such checkpoints.
In addition to real-time information on DUI checkpoints, many of the apps in question also offer information on speed traps, red light and speed cameras, accidents, and other traffic conditions, several of which have also been considered controversial, but the senators’ letter focuses specifically on the DUI checkpoint functionality.
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ChangeWave Research today released the results of a February survey of U.S. professionals and early-adopter consumers showing that even before the unveiling of the iPad 2 customers were continuing to turn to the iPad when considering tablet purchases. According to the report, 82% of surveyed customers who were planning to purchase a tablet were looking to acquire an iPad, with competitors such as the Motorola Xoom, Research in Motion BlackBerry PlayBook, and Samsung Galaxy Tab all barely registering in the 3-4% range each.
Apple’s iPad also continues to enjoy stellar consumer satisfaction ratings, with 70% of users registering as “very satisfied” and an additional 25% pegging their position as “somewhat satisfied”.
In taking a broader look at tablet customers’ buying preferences, the survey also found that tablets, dominated by the iPad, continue to eat into planned purchases of devices such as eReaders and portable PCs, with 17% of tablet-owning respondents reporting that they put on hold or canceled the purchase of a Kindle because of their tablet purchase. Netbooks and traditional notebooks also took a hit, with 10-11% of tablet purchasers reporting that they had delayed or canceled planned purchases in each of those categories of devices.
Finally, ChangeWave surveyed customers planning to purchase an iPad in the near future about wireless service, finding that 24% of customers planned to purchase AT&T service, compared to 17% planning to use Verizon service and 27% opting for Wi-Fi only. An additional 30% were undecided. Notably, Verizon’s solid appeal was present even before Apple unveiled the new iPad with built-in support for Verizon’s network. With the original iPad, customers looking to use Verizon service have been limited to Wi-Fi iPad models paired with MiFi hotspot devices.
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