Does anybody really know what smartphone market share is?

An article in Wired online this week had a chart showing US smartphone market share (link). The chart gave more detail than I've seen recently from other research companies, so I thought it was worth reproducing the data here:



The source is Nielsen Mobile, formerly Telephia. The interesting thing about them is that they do much of the service quality monitoring for the operators, so they have much more direct access to mobile usage information than folks like IDC and Canalys, the people usually quoted for smartphone share.

Wired was focused on Palm's loss of market share, which is indeed striking (but not exactly news). But take a look at the chart again; there are a couple of other items that I think are more newsworthy.

The first surprise is that Nielsen shows Apple in fourth place in smartphone share. That's wildly different from what Canalys, the source usually reported, has been saying (link). Here's how they compare for Q4 2007:




What in the world is going on here?

I'm not sure, but I have some guesses. Canalys doesn't directly measure market share, it receives self-reported shipment reports from the manufacturers and then adds them up. That means Canalys measures shipments into the channel rather than sales, and it depends on the hardware companies to be honest.

Riiiight.

Nielsen Mobile doesn't explain on its website exactly how it measures share, but apparently it's using a mix of survey results and the usage data it gathers from the operators (link). So its numbers should reflect current usage of phones rather than shipments. If Nielsen is measuring installed base share, rather than share of current sales, that might explain the difference. Although in that case, share should not be changing as fast as Nielsen shows. So I'm still confused.

If anybody can shed more light on the source of the difference, please post a comment. I've also asked Nielsen, and will let you know if I hear anything.

The conflict in the numbers underlines how ridiculously useless the publicly-available third party sales numbers are in the mobile phone market, and how little attention the press is paying to the inconsistencies. Apple's share varies from 8% to 28%, and no one even notices. Hey, we got a pretty chart and it confirms what we wanted to say, so don't ask questions.

If you want more information on the problems with mobile market share tracking, I wrote a detailed post here (link).

I said there were two newsworthy things about the Nielsen numbers. Can you spot the second one?

That's right, since the iPhone was released, RIM has been gaining share. So much for the folks who predicted at the launch of the iPhone that it was going to take the smartphone market away from RIM. Instead, at least in the first round of competition, we see what you'd expect from a segmented market -- RIM appeals to some customers, Apple appeals to a different group, and both companies do well.

I can't wait to see what the numbers will look like in six months, after the iPhone 3G has been out for a while. Although probably Canalys and Nielsen will still disagree wildly on what's happening.

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Only 10% of Japanese people know how to use all the functions in their mobile phones

A Japanese survey of mobile phone users, translated by What Japan Thinks, reports that only about 10% of Japanese mobile phone users say they have mastery (or a good command) over all the functions of their mobile phones (link). About 75% of users say they have mastered less than half of the functions in the phone.

The most confusing functions were e-wallet, applications in general, music player, and Internet access.

What Japan Thinks concludes that few people in Japan "are really comfortable with their phones," which I find reassuring because it says that people in Japan aren't all that different from everyone else on the planet. In many countries there's a tendency to believe that people in Japan (and Korea) use mobile devices so differently from everyone else that there's nothing useful to learn from them. It's as if they're on a different planet. But the reality is that even in Japan, a phone overloaded with features and cryptic menus is confusing to anyone except the most dedicated technophiles.

It is interesting that so many mobile phones in Japan have e-wallet, applications, music, and Internet built in. That's a result of the aggressive rollout of integrated phones and online services by Japanese mobile phone operators -- the real driver that I think makes the Japanese mobile market so different.

(By the way, in case anyone's interested, another survey determined that 14 percent of Japanese cats won't go to the bathroom if someone's watching [link]. Who knew?)

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FIFA 08

Although I don't go in for much gaming on my phone, there are many who do. I have a friend who behaves pretty much like the guy in the video below, too engrossed in his phone, playing games!



Nokia have 120,000 licenses for FIFA08, to give away until the end of August 08, details of which you can find here.

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What I Want in a Mobile Phone

Currently I use the Nokia N82. Although I don't change my phone as often as I used to, I still get the occasional impulse to try something different. I bought a Sony Ericsson W890i just the other day, using an upgrade I had available, but it only lasted two days - the speaker is just awful! Ringtones and text alerts sound distorted.

So, for the next phone I get this is going to be what I look for:

3G - As a minimum, the phone must be 3G
Bluetooth - Almost a default feature these days, but I expect my phone to be Bluetooth 2.0 compatible, for stereo connectivity
Form factor - I like candybar phones, I do not like slide, nor clamshell.
Keypad - My phone has to have a usable keypad. Messaging on my phone is by far the biggest usage, text, email and IM.
Battery - My phone *must* have a decent battery. All the features in the world mean nothing if the phone cannot survive at least one day of solid usage as an absolute minimum.
Size - I don't want a bulky phone. Not too long, and not too thick.
Java support - My phone has to have good java support, to at least run the java GMail app and Opera Mini. Opera Mini is especially necessary if my phone has a poor native browser.
Email support - I wasn't sure if this would be an required option or not, as I use GMail, I mainly login via a bookmark on my phone's browser. But for sending email direct from the phone, it is easier to compose in the phone's email client, so decent email support gets on the must have list.
Alarm Clock - The most used feature on all my phones. If I can manually adjust the snooze time, so much the better.

Optional features on my phone are:
HSDPA - Ideally, the phone I buy should support HSDPA
WiFi - This is an optional extra. I rarely use WiFi, but it's a nice feature to have if possible
Operating system - S60 is by far the best I've ever used on any phone, and it has just got better and better over the years. But I'm not so blind to S60 as to not consider other phones. I like Nokia S40, UIQ, and standard SE phones too. But if a phone carries S60 it is a definite plus
Customisability - What I mean is I want control over the shortcuts on my phone, on how the display looks, on what appears on the standby screen and what doesn't.
MP3 Player - I like to listen to music on my phone, but it isn't essential.
Radio - As above. A radio is a useful option to have, but not essential.
Camera - So far down the list. I really am not bothered about a camera on my phone. If there is one, I'd like it to be worthwhile, to take decent pics, but I am not fussed too much.
GPS - Including GPS support is a nice touch, but overall I think I've used Nokia Maps three times in the last six months, and two of those occasions was because I could, not because I needed to. An application like Sports Tracker is useful, but not enough to make GPS vital.
Profiles - I like to be able to adjust the tone settings on my phone to my own comfort, that means being able to set different ring tones and text alerts for each separate profile.

I think I've covered the essentials and desirables. There's nothing extreme in my list, I think my requirements are quite conservative really. My N82 covers all of this (apart from maybe a decent keypad and size), I would want my next phone to cover all the essentials and as many desirables as possible.

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Nokia N78 Review

I haven't had much hands on time with the N78. I recall seeing an early prototype at a testing session, and I was less than impressed. When the handset was officially announced, I was at a press event at the Nokia store in London. Seeing the handset there, I changed my mind and thought it could be a worthy successor to the almost mythical N73.
As I said, my hands on time with the phone is severely limited, however Rafe over at All About Symbian has an excellent in depth review, in three parts. Click here for part one, here for part two, and here for part three.

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N-Gage

I don't play games on my phone. I just have no interest in it. The only reason for installing the full NGage app on my phone is it allows me to move the icon from the main menu screen and hide it away in a folder where I store all unused apps.

However, there are some who like to play a game or two. I've been reading about a game called Reset Generation over at All About Symbian. And I found that there is an option to put a full version of Reset Generation right here on the blog. So, here it is:

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Nokia N95 8GB
It's hard to believe the N95 8GB version has been available for a year now. Despite this, it is still one of the best featured handsets on the market, and there are some cracking deals around. Such as that at E2Save, you can buy the N95 8GB right now with 7 months half price line rental

Just in case you haven't been following the phone market in too much detail, the stand-out features of the N95 8GB include:

• 8GB Internal Memory
  
• 2.8 Inch QVGA 16 million colour screen
  
• HSDPA Mobile Broadband
  
• 5.0 Megapixel Camera
  
• Built in GPS
  
• 3.5mm Audio Output Jack
  
• TV Out option
  
• MP3 Player
  
• Stereo FM Radio

And that's just for starters, there is so much more. I would expect most people reading this blog have purchased the N95, but if you're anything like me you have more than one contract on the go, and this is a very good deal.
This deal is available to UK residents only.

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