Windows Phone is now third in the smartphone wars!

   The IDC have done it again and this month they're back with an update to the distribution of the mobile OS' and they have revealed that the for the first time ever Windows Phone is officially the world's third placed operating system!

   This months stats show that Windows Phone is slowly starting to garner more attention, while Blackberry's current lack of phones is starting to impact their overall market share. Obviously, the battle for third place seems somewhat insignificant because both Blackberry and Windows Phone are miles behind the runaway success stories of Android and iOS!  

   As you can see from the tablet above Android is the runaway leader in terms of market share, with huge quantities of devices being sold, indeed Google announced that there are at least 900 million devices which have been activated running their operating system just yesterday! In second place is Apple with their quantities of sales steadying a little and seeing 6% year over year growth in the volumes of phones they ship. Having 17% of the market is still a remarkable achievement considering that they only sell three phones at any given point in time!

   Then comes Windows Phone which saw year over year growth in sales of 133%, which means they only shipped 7 million phones in the last quarter, but some growth is good growth! Then there's Blackberry devices, Linux devices, Symbian devices and the fateful 'other' categories which round out the stats.

   Do you expect Blackberry to head back above Windows Phone when cheap BB10 device start arriving? Can Windows Phone gain on Android and iOS? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!
Via PocketLint.

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PC shipments drop: Smartphones and tablets were the culprits.

   PC shipments have been struggling a bit for quite while now, but apparently the start of this year has been the worst quarter for PC sales yet! According to the IDC the first quarter of this year saw total shipments drop to 76.3 million, a drop which has been attributed to smartphone and tablet sales.

   The IDC revealed that PC shipments fell 13.9% compared to the same period in 2012 and that is considerably worse than the projected 7.7% sales drop which was forecast. For the purposes of clarity the IDC lists desktops, portables, mini notebooks, and workstations as PCs but handhelds, x86 servers and tablets aren't considered computers.

   With that in mind the table below demonstrates how the biggest five PC companies are getting on and it's bad new for everyone except Lenovo, who probably have their home market CHina to thank for their flat-lining sales. Everyone else's sales dropped down by varying amounts.

   The IDC's David Daoud said that:

"Although the reduction in shipments was not a surprise, the magnitude of the contraction is both surprising and worrisome.. The industry is going through a critical crossroads, and strategic choices will have to be made as to how to compete with the proliferation of alternative devices and remain relevant to the consumer."

    Windows 8 is also taking some of the blame here too with Bob O'Donnell adding that:

"While some consumers appreciate the new form factors and touch capabilities of Windows 8, the radical changes to the UI, removal of the familiar Start button, and the costs associated with touch have made PCs a less attractive alternative to dedicated tablets and other competitive devices."

   In case you were wondering where Apple were, because they normally top the PC sales charts with statistics companies who include the iPad in their figures, well they're in sixth in this chart. The guys from Cupertino sold 4.1 million Macs, compared to the 47.8 million iPhones and 22.9 million iPads in the last quarter. The Mac sales were down from 5.2 million in the year before. Their CFO, Peter Oppenheier said:

 “We established new all-time quarterly records for iPhone and iPad sales, significantly broadened our ecosystem, and generated Apple’s highest quarterly revenue ever.”

   Obviously this year over year decline is worrying for all manufacturers and it goes a long way to explaining why we've seen a lot more devices like the Asus Vivotab and the HP Envy X2 knocking around. We'll keep an eye out for more comparisons in the coming months to see how things fare!
BusinessWire Via PocketLint.

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IDC show off mobile sales numbers for Q4 2012!

   The quarterly results in smartphone sales are in and as always the IDC's statistics make very interesting reading! The most interesting data from our point of view is the smartphone data and that is what we'll consider.

   Naturally Samsung and Apple turned out to be number one and two in terms of shipped devices just like normal. But, after those normal candidates we've seen Huawei leapfrog Sony into third place and there's ZTE bringing up fifth place!

   Interestingly everyone inside the top five saw growth in double digits and there was exceptional growth for both Samsung and Huawei, both of whom saw growth above 75% year-over-year! Every one else did well, but we were surprised to see Huawei's Chinese competitor ZTE only record growth just above 10%!

   With regard to smartphone sales in general they were all quite high in Q4 2012, there were 219.4 million units, which equates to 45.5% of all mobile phones, which is the highest percentage ever sold. This was a solid growth of 36.4% year-over-year, although the IDC were slightly disappointed that this came in below their forecasted growth rate of 39.5%!

   For the whole year though the totally added up to 712.6 million smartphones which were shipped in the whole of the year, a 44.1% increase from 2011.

The full press release is available here.

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24/07/2012

Has MobileFun outed the design for the next iPhone.

   It really is that time of year again folks; iPhone rumours are front and centre of every tech website at the moment. And today MobileFun have helped add a bit of fuel to the fire, with their 'leak', from secret sources, of the new cases for the forthcoming iPhone.

   The changes that the new cases show are; a taller version of the current iPhone but keeping exactly the same width, a new connector port and the headphone jack moved to the bottom of the phone.

   And the main thing, it's a case for a 4 inch phone! So finally Apple will be joining in with the big boys with a bit of luck!

Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.7 banned throughout Europe.

   Samsung got a little bit of respite last week in the British courts after the judge ruled that Apple would have to apologise and publicly state that Samsung didn't copy the iPad with the 10.1" Galaxy Tab.

   But, it seems that as far as the wins for Samsung have gone, with German courts today ruling that the 7.7 did copy the iPad. But, as you can see there's a slight conflict here; British courts have ruled that there was no infringement, whereas European courts went a different way. Today's sales injunction is in direct conflict with a UK court ruling earlier in July. 

   This seems to be so confusing for all parties; not even Samsung knows where they stand at the moment! We don't think this will impact Samsung too badly even if the ban does stand because the Tab 7.7 has such a high price and low demand. The company has said to Slashgear today that they would like to point customers in the direction of the Galaxy Tab 2 (the 7incher) because of the lower price point and more support! Win Win!

In other news:

• Samsung's court dates with Apple may cost the North Koreans $2.5 billion if the South Korean's are found guilty of wilful IP infringement!
• Apple has claimed that the design of the iPhone and iPad is worth an extra $24 per device! An interesting claim but that's what's been filed with the Californian courts.
• And to conclude the Apple news; the company is reported to be working on some revamped designs for the companies iPod touches and nanos!
• Android is supposedly lacking in developer interest by 16% when compared to iOS according to IDC.
• RIM has promised a sneak peak at BB10 for their most loyal and dedicated customers.
• The LTE packing BlackBerry PlayBook is due on July 31st for $550!
• Talking of LTE, the UK rollout has been pushed back again! OFCOM has announced the auction of spectrum won't begin until 'early 2013'! Talk about holding us back for no apparent reason!

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