With a total of ten global and regional events taking place in 2013 Informa Telecoms & Media’s LTE World Series is a testament to the huge growth of the LTE eco-system. The LTE Awards 2013, collocated with the LTE World Summit, are taking place on the 25 June, at the exclusive, elegant De Duif in Amsterdam.
Microsoft’s Windows OS now has 8.4 per cent of the UK smartphone market, while demand for lower cost devices in Southern Italy is being exploited by Sony and LG. Macro economic conditions and increasing diversity in operators’ subsidy strategies are creating contrasts in device vendors’ performances market by market.
In a bid to propagate Android devices even further into the market, Google is preparing to launch a range of Nexus devices with various hardware partners in the final quarter of the year, according to a leaked memo from Japanese operator NTT Docomo.
Google has announced new hardware manufacturers that have joined it as partners for its IPTV service Google TV. LG is the biggest name to join the Google TV ecosystem this year and will unveil a new line of Google TV sets running on its own L9 chipset at CES in Las Vegas next week.
The limited roster of LTE enabled smartphones worldwide was boosted yesterday by the arrival of the LG Revolution on Verizon Wireless in the US. The operator said that the device, which is now available online and in stores, will deliver download speeds between 5 and 12Mbps and upload speeds of 2 to 5Mbps, in areas covered by its LTE network.
Embattled South Korean OEM LG has announced that it’s working on developing its own smartphone chips in a bid to boost its flagging handset business. Although LG is the world’s third-largest mobile phone manufacturer, the company has reported losses for three quarters in a row and is under increasing pressure from rivals HTC and Samsung.
The Google-backed Android operating system overtook Nokia’s Symbian during the fourth quarter of 2010 to become the leading platform in the smartphone segment according to market analyst firm Canalys. Shipments of Android devices reached 32.9 million by Canalys’ estimation, with Symbian trailing on 31.0 million. Symbian’s performance keeps Nokia in first position among the vendors, however, with 28 per cent market share in the top tier, the analyst said.
Strong sales of Apple’s iPhone during the third quarter have propelled the Californian vendor to fourth place in the global handset vendor rankings, according to data from IDC. While Apple has had a strong position in the smartphone segment since the launch of the first iPhone, this is the first time that it has made the top five in terms of overall shipments.
So Windows Phone 7 is out there and pretty slick it looks too. Even Stephen Fry, a long time critic of Microsoft’s mobile strategy was present at the launch event in London to say, ”Microsoft finally gets it”.
The Informer fears this week’s AWIW bears a certain similarity to last week’s but assures you that this is an all new instalment. Just three days after the industry learned that Nokia chief OPK is to step down, his right hand man, Anssi Vanjoki, head of Mobile Solutions, also threw in the Wellington boot.
As Android continues to gather momentum across a broad spectrum of the devices space, handset vendors reveal their high hopes for the platform.
As Las Vegas gadget show CES wound up at the end of last week, Intel announced that it too would be going after a slice of the app store action.
In the mobile handset space, volume market leaders like Nokia, Samsung, LG, Motorola and Sony Ericsson are being challenged by RIM, Apple, HTC and Palm, which are significantly eroding their market share with an assault in the smartphone market.
Android announcements are coming through by the boatload at the moment, with South Korea’s LG Electronics the latest to join the throng on Monday with the announcement of its first Android-based device.
It ain’t over ’til the fat lady sings, so they say. And if the ‘it’ in this particular instance is the summertime, then the fat lady is none other than Mama Cass, and she’s crooning that ‘all the leaves are brown and the sky is grey’. It’s autumn. The Informer himself is a seasonal harbinger, of course, and his reappearance, like that of the little robin redbreast, means winter’s on its way.
We must be in the run up to Christmas already, if the slew of handset announcements this week is anything to go by.
During its swan song, Canadian vendor Nortel has teamed up with Korean manufacturer LG to demonstrate a 3GPP standards compliant data handover between a LTE network and a CDMA network.
Second quarter 2009 handset market data from Gartner shows lead player Nokia coming under increasing pressure as the smartphone sector outperforms the market. Overall handset shipments were down 6.1 per cent year on year for Q209, at 286.1 million but smartphone sales increased by 27 per cent to reach almost 41 million.
The recent 2Q09 earnings results of the world’s top five handset vendors by volume showed a quarter-on-quarter growth of 12.1% in shipment numbers, led by LG, Samsung and Nokia. With channel inventory reduced to more normal levels, prospects for continued quarterly growth in 2H09 have improved. However, challengers such as ZTE could displace Motorola or Sony Ericsson while they restructure.
Korean handset manufacturer LG Electronics has realised it needs to get in on the app store action to be a contender.
Consolidation, convergence and competitionCalls for consolidation in the European mobile market grow louder by the week and four-operator markets look increasingly challenged. Now, those mobile operators that have already built scale seem to be suggesting that there is no option but to expand yet further through diversification.
It is testament to Telstra’s aggressive approach to mobile broadband that an operator in a country of just over 23 million people should rank in the top ten operators worldwide in terms of LTE subscriber numbers. Mike Wright, Telstra’s executive director for networks and access technologies talks to Telecoms.com about the firm’s plans for further enhancing its LTE operation with fresh spectrum and LTE-Advanced capabilities.
Jonathan Bell, VP of Marketing at OpenCloud, discusses how policy and pricing are just two dimensions along which telecoms operators can differentiate their propositions. By adding a third dimension, the service behaviour itself, operators can define and bring true innovation to the market that surpasses the traditional approaches of the past, he says.
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With summer supposedly fast approaching, many look to trim some fat and get in shape for the sunny months. The Informer has never been a huge fan of gyms; in fact his favourite machine in the gym is the one that sells chocolate. Telefonica’s UK arm O2, is one business that is looking to get lean for the holidays, though, and this week it announced that it is to trim 3,500 UK employees.