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2009 Will Be a Painful Year for Mobile Device Vendors
Bear in mind that the $200 iPhone price points only apply on long-term contracts (usually 2 years), that imply a large subsidy by the carrier.
The "real" price of the iPhone 3G is more like $350-500. Certainly, if you buy it on prepay, it's a $500+ device, and in some countries more like $800.
I certainly think that there's a reasonable opportunity for Apple to expand its market share, but of the overall global 1-billion phone market, it's probably chasing realistic addressable target of 5% or so for the foreseeable future, although 50m phones is a pretty tempting target.
A more interesting prospect is if Apple introduces a smaller "iPhone Nano", or better still a clamshell version, as there is a large part of the market that would never go near a large tablet-type device.
Nokia's New Product Blurs the Featurephone / Smartphone Divide
I tend to agree, although Internet usage isn't necessarily the only measure of the value of "smartness". Arguably the reason that Nokia sells so many is that the OS makes it easier for *Nokia itself* to spin the platform into many different handset variants. And if you look at Japan, NTT DoCoMo uses Symbian for its own purposes, to create its own handset platform.
But in terms of end users actually doing "interactive stuff",and especially browsing the web with large volumes of traffic, you're probably right, although there's quite a large number of people using downloaded Symbian apps for things like VoIP. Also there's huge differences between the US, Europe and Asia in all of this
Dean
On Nov 27 12:50 PM KenC wrote:
Nokia sells about
> half of the smart phones in the world, and yet, smart phone usage,
> as measured by internet access indicates very few people are using
> it as a smart phone. You wonder if usability plays a role in that.
Comm Forecast No. 1: No More Landlines
However, one thing does seem fairly clear to me - copper is not going to disappear any time soon for calling *businesses* rather than consumers. While the very largest firms might use VoIP + copper, the average hairdresser or restaurant or travel agent seems unlikely to use cellular. In those cases, you want to call a place, not a person.
Dean Bubley
Vodafone's Blackberry Phone Sans Wifi: A Big Mistake?
I'm pretty confident that if they'd asked for it to include WiFi, it wouldn't have been a major challenge to add it - it's in the BlackBerry Bold & various others, for a start.
First Out of the Gate: WiMax Vs. LTE
WiFi operates in unlicenced spectrum, and the testing/conformance burden for equipment manufacturers is *much* lower than for WiMAX. I can't see there being many cameras, game consoles etc that have WiMAX. The problem is one of scale - most countries will not have national WiMAX networks in the foreseeable, and those that do have them will mostly be in unfavourable frequency bands with poor indoor coverage.
I reckon about 1% of global laptop shipments in 2009 will have WiMAX, and I reckon the figure will struggle to get to 15% even in a few years time.
The main competition for WiMAX isn't really LTE, it's HSPA, which is already pretty widespread. This is the whole thrust of my post - LTE won't be mainstream until 2013 onwards.... but 3.5G cellular is already.
DeanB
With WiMAX and 3G on Your PC, What Will Happen?
Fair point - although that's possibly because I spend most of my time looking at the mobile industry, for whom pretty much all the computers of interest are notebooks. Certainly I hear a lot of folk in the wireless business talking about PCs as a synonym for laptop or notebook.
Another case of the tech industry using the same words in different ways, in different contexts.... (you should see the range of possible uses of the word "application"...
As it happens, it wouldn't surprise me to see more desktops getting used with mobile modules or external modems as well.
Dean
Just How Late Is Nokia with HSUPA devices?
On the other hand, it could be used for *operator* VoIP or other rich communications, managed P2P, decent-quality realtime video uploads & as a means to compete with home DSL/cable in some places.
Some operators have been quite aggressive deploying UPA - especially T-Mobile in Europe, Vodafone, some of the 3 subsids, AT&T etc.
Either way, it's unusual for Nokia not to have at least *some* devices supporting it before its main competitors do. It's been first to market with radio technologies like UMTS900 before.
Does a Mobile Internet Devices Market Exist?
A few comments -
Tiffy - yes, it sounds like we're in total agreement.
Mollytjm "absolutely no one buys an iphone because they want a phone. they do want something closer to a pocket computer". Sorry, that's wrong. There are plenty of iPhone users who just want it because it's a phone that looks cool, at least initially. Some/most will later discover it does a bunch of other stuff, but certainly outside the US I wouldn't underestimate the power of aesthetics or subsidy.
Also a sizeable % teenagers don't like the iPhone's lack of proper numeric keypad. It's impossible to send SMS without looking at the screen - you can't send messages with the phone under your school-desk / in your pocket. (And some non-teenagers would prefer a proper QWERTY if they're heavy SMS/email writers)
Various - Bluetooth headsets are only useful for a % of users, for a % of the time. If the phone rings on your bedside table, or while you're in the pub, are you going to fumble around to put the headset on? No. Nobody I know uses a headset for 100% of their calls, and unless you talk while you drive a lot, probably few people are >50%. A phone needs to be a phone.
Brewer - I don't get other "enthusiasts"... berating me on SeekingAlpha or my main blog. Given I'm independent of the debate (to be honest, I prefer featurephones to smartphones for my main mobile device), it seems to me that Apple fans are particularly vociferous - and go out looking to start a fight with people who aren't being belligerent.
Others - clearly there's broad mix of people who want smaller/larger and single/multiple devices. It depends on wealth, existing behaviour, country, preferred services, preferred usage models, whether you carry a bag, how large your pockets are and a zillion other factors. Proclaiming one device or form-factor as the God Product is unreasonable.
DB
Does a Mobile Internet Devices Market Exist?
Read the post again. As I said, you can choose whether or not to include the iPhone in the "MID" category depending on how you define the segments. You can call it a small MID or a large smartphone, or both, depending on your preference.
And as you yourself say "it's redefining the cellphone market". I'm not talking about the cellphone market, I'm talking about MIDs.
Honestly, I'm getting fed up with iPhone fanboys trying to read criticism into anything I wrote about the thing, particularly when I'm praising it. I've repeatedly said its a good device - it's just a shame about the attitudes of some of its fans, who seem to go actively looking for negative comments, where none are made or implied.
DB
Complete Web Browsing On Your Cell Phone? Not Yet
Yes, I take your point about standards, but there's a lot about the PC-oriented web which is based on de-facto rather than de-jure standards. There's a lot of websites with Flash, there's quite a lot of websites with Java, there's a lot of websites with questionable Javascript implementations (yes, I know the difference). PDF wasn't an open standard until a couple of months ago, either, yet most people have viewed it as "must have" for years.
Many websites are "long tail" ones that are unlikely to be bothered about how well they render on mobile for many years, if ever. Based on the numbers I'm seeing & predicting, mobile access will remain a minority or secondary consideration for many website developers, especially in areas like B2B. I wouldn't expect Boeing's webmaster to be too worried about someone downloading 747 specs to a mobile phone, for example.
The market evolution will be defined more by "public expectations than published standards", to use your terms. If a given customer's favourite website doesn't work on a phone, when it does on a PC, it's unlikely to be poor standards compliance that gets blamed.
It's also worth bearing in mind the Flash Lite is already supported on a lot of phones, notably most of the current higher-end Nokia devices, plus it's being blended with Java by SonyEricsson. I certainly don't think Flash is the be-all and end-all of the mobile web, but I don't think it's going to suddenly evaporate either.
Are Text Messaging Prices the Biggest Wireless Issue?
That said, some of the US carriers' pricing seems egregiously high when compared to prices of 1c or less in some countries in Asia which use essentially the same type of infrastructure.
There is a fine line between "value-based pricing", where the user willingly pays a premium for a service they really like - and "resentment-based pricing", where the user feels extorted, but pays anyway as it's a "must have" service. Resentment-based pricing leads to spectacular churn rates at a later date, when credible competition appears. It also leads to regulatory pressure if customers feel ripped-off.
From a European analyst's perspective, some of the North American carriers are now seriously miscalibrating the value/resentment balance on SMS pricing.
Complete Web Browsing On Your Cell Phone? Not Yet
In other words in 5 years' time, *most* mobile users will still have either no, or sub-standard, web performance.
Complete Web Browsing On Your Cell Phone? Not Yet
You completely misread that "I don't use an iPhone because I want Flash".
My post isn't about my personal device decisions. What I'm using personally is irrelevant to my analysis of the wider market.
I'm not a particular fan of any brand of handset or OS and I also don't give advice to other people on what devices to buy, nor do I recommend investments. And I certainly don't need advice from other anonymous people on what devices I should use personally - as I'm in the industry I'm quite aware of the options and their pros/cons.
What my clients pay me for is to look at the way the mobile industry will *most probably* develop, or sometimes other scenarios, or how they could influence them. My blog & the syndicated posts on SeekingAlpha are adhoc comments on the way I see certain trends developing - hence this one about mobile browsing.
I'm currently surrounded by about a dozen devices of various types, I switch between them regularly, and I have used an iPhone a fair bit (I even bought my father one as an Xmas present). Some of them are paid for by me, some of them are sent to me for evaluation - such as the E71 which I'm using as my main work email/web device at present. If O2 send me an iPhone, I'd probably use that more, and to be honest it's been ages since I used a BlackBerry, so ideally I'd play with one of those for a month or two as well.
Complete Web Browsing On Your Cell Phone? Not Yet
Not only that, but in a previous post of mine I pointed the finger at network problems (ie not the phone) for the lacklustre reported 3G performance in the US, and yet I still get comments such as XamaX's.
Don't you realise that this almost religious over-reaction is counterproductive? I know people who specifically don't want one because of the uncool "enthusiast" connotations.
The fact is that many websites have Flash. Currently, the iPhone doesn't render them. Java is missing, too. Hence the UK Advertising Standards Authority recently banning one of Apple's ads for being misleading when it said "all the parts of the internet are on the iPhone."
In terms of the perennial question of "Do people WANT the real PC Internet on a mobile device?", the answer is some do, some don't, for some sites, some of the time. In certain cases a mobile-specific site is convenient and more useable, but in other instances it's incredibly frustrating if you're trying to use a familiar feature and it's not there. The best sites (eg Google) offer you both an optimised version and the "real" PC one.
DB
Are Global Smartphone Sales Poised For Takeoff?
To the first poster Papita with the rant "you people are coming out of the woodwork" - you're talking gibberish. I've been a technology industry analyst for 17 years and advise clients (mostly non-investors like manufacturers and network operators) on trends in a variety of mobile sectors. The content here is syndicated from my own mobile-industry blog.
MightBuyOneNow & others - This is something on which I've done a lot of research. In my view, this notion that smartphones will be substitutes PCs for people in developing markets is wishful thinking by people in the mobile industry. It's not supported by observed facts, although obviously there are occasional specific exceptions.There are numerous reasons, not least the fact that PC prices are falling rapidly, and PCs have (typically) a 2x or 3x working life compared to a phone. They can also be shared more easily among families. Further, kids in education get access to PCs as governments wish to encourage future computer literacy for business, and develop local software industries. I'm not aware that anyone *writes* software on a phone, or runs their company's accounting system on one either.
Then there are hidden factors - for example, many people in developing countries use PCs to watch (often illegally copied) movies bought on video CDs or DVDs. And it's difficult for teenagers to have 15 separate IM chat windows open on a phone.
This doesn't mean that people won't want Internet access on mobile devices as well - that will certainly be a growing trend, and indeed is probably the main thing driving smartphone sales.
In China, according to official stats, about 73m people access the Internet on mobile phones... but virtually all of them also access it on PCs. The vision of "mobile-only"... Internet users is a myth, with a specific exception for Japan, and to a lesser degree in India.
For more detail, please see:
disruptivewireless.blo...
disruptivewireless.blo...
Thanks
Dean Bubley