Category Archives: Marketing

Apple hoards tablet share while market falls off a cliff for first quarter

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The first quarter of the calendar year usually results in a decline in unit sales from the previous quarter due to the holiday season rush to buy gadgets. Apple wasn’t completely immune to this market force—IDC says the company shipped 11.8 million iPads during the first quarter of the year, down from 15.4 million units over the holiday season. Despite this drop, Apple’s share of the tablet market was able to shoot up more than 14 percentage points between quarters, largely because of the precipitous decline in tablet sales from the likes of Amazon. According to IDC, Amazon’s share of the tablet market with the Kindle Fire was 16.8 percent in the fourth quarter of 2011, but fell to just 4 percent in the first quarter of 2012.

via Apple hoards tablet share while market falls off a cliff for first quarter.

Its Samsung Day! Congratulations Samsung for being world’s biggest handset maker, and biggest smartphone maker

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So it was 14 years of Nokia leadership in the most widely used technology ever seen on the planet. At its peak, there was a quarter in 2006 that Nokia had 40% of the global market for phones, and there were years when Nokia was as big as rivals numbers 2 and 3 combined, there were quarters where Nokia was as big as rivals number 2, 3 and 4 combined. Nokia had spread to be in the pockets of 1.3 Billion people, 19% of the total population alive on the planet. No other technology ever, indeed no brand is used by as many people as Nokia. Not Sony Walkmans or TVs, not Microsoft on the PC, not Coca Cola in drinks, not Levi’s in blue jeans, not Bic in pens. But now that King has been toppled. The King is Dead, Long Live the King. Now Samsung will take over and build even a bigger footprint, as mobile phone handsets keep spreading to new first-time users in India, Africa, Latin America etc.

via Communities Dominate Brands: Its Samsung Day! Congratulations Samsung for being world’s biggest handset maker, and biggest smartphone maker.

Over-the-Air TV Catches Second Wind, Aided by Web

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There are signs that consumers are responding. TV-antenna seller Richard Schneider of St. Louis says sales at his company are soaring. Mr. Schneider’s Antennas Direct sold 70,000 antennas in January, and he expects to double last year’s sales of about 600,000. That was up from 400,000 antennas in 2010.

via Over-the-Air TV Catches Second Wind, Aided by Web – WSJ.com.

“It’s not a stretch to think that the broadcast business model will outlive that of cable,” said National Association of Broadcasters spokesman Dennis Wharton. “The naysayers can talk all they want about broadcasting being a dinosaur.”

Badoo set to help facilitate hookups across the U.S.

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Essentially, as its Russian founder has explained before, Badoo is a “nightclub on your phone,” where people, “as adults, are looking to do adult things.” The site first was launched in Spain, where it soon expanded to neighboring Portugal, France, and then, hopped the pond to Brazil and Mexico and now, claims users in 180 countries.

via Badoo set to help facilitate hookups across the U.S..

Last fall, The Economist proclaimed it as having “a shot at becoming one of Europe’s leading internet firms.” But now, says GigaOm, the site appears poised to grow rapidly in the United States,particularly after its official American launch just last month.

Look out Facebook!

Jevons paradox

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In economics, the Jevons paradox (sometimes Jevons effect) is the proposition that technological progress that increases the efficiency with which a resource is used, tends to increase (rather than decrease) the rate of consumption of that resource.[1] In 1865, the English economist William Stanley Jevons observed that technological improvements that increased the efficiency of coal-use led to the increased consumption of coal in a wide range of industries. He argued that, contrary to common intuition, technological improvements could not be relied upon to reduce fuel consumption.[2]

via Jevons paradox – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

The high costs of the cloud

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Call it the curse of the cloud. The proliferation of online video services and portable devices to watch them on have added congestion to data networks even as wireless carriers impose fees on its biggest data users. According to Bytemobile, video accounted for half of all mobile data traffic in February, up from 40 percent only a year earlier.

via The high costs of the cloud | MediaFile | Analysis & Opinion | Reuters.com.

It won’t be just iPads and the next generation of iPhones taxing wireless networks. Apple is the first to offer an LTE tablet to the masses, but LTE Android tablets will follow, as will more LTE phones powered by Android, which runs on 51 percent of the world’s smartphones. Verizon, AT&T and Sprint have been building out their 4G networks for years, but Verizon recently warned that despite that effort, demand will outstrip LTE capacity as early as next year.

Can Mobile Operators Create Artificial Demand for Capacity?

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This leads to a fundamental implication; are operators creating artificial demand intentionally to drive market prices up with tiered pricing and data caps, while at the same time, screaming for more spectrum allocation? The question remains, what benefits operators the most, building out networks with extensive capital spending, or making more profits on the demand and supply curve?

via Can Mobile Operators Create Artificial Demand for Capacity?.

Corporations Tend to Think Short-Term

Large corporations are notoriously short-sighted when it comes to, not only predicting, but acting on, consumer demand for the long-term. Since they are coupled to Wall Street fundamentals in creating short-term profits, spending for the longer term profitability usually takes a back seat. Put off today what can be worked out later for consumer demand. This is what we are seeing as network capacity demand outstrips the provider’s ability to keep up. See (The high cost of the cloud)

Facebook Considers Adding The Hate Button

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According to Facebook’s S-1 filing, users are now generating 2.7 billion Likes and Comments per day. With the Hate button, Facebook expects to at least double that. The S-1 noted “popular Pages on Facebook include Lady Gaga, Disney, and Manchester United, each of which has move than 20 million Likes.” Many inside the company think the Hates could easily top that.

via Facebook Considers Adding The Hate Button | TechCrunch.