Microsoft Windows Phone 7 could threaten Google's Android smartphone dominance, according to NPD Group's Connected Intelligence. Microsoft must boost its brand recognition.
At least one research firm believes Google's (NASDAQ:GOOG) Android operating system could face a stiff challenge from a competitor other than Apple's (NASDAQ:AAPL) iOS: Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) Windows Phone 7 (WP7).
NPD Group's Connected Intelligence service said Android is the preferred platform among current smartphone owners as well as those who wish to buy a new smartphone in the next six months.
With a mindshare of 63 percent, Android generates more interest than any other OS and is the platform 36 percent of consumers claimed to be "most interested in."
For example, the firm said one-third of BlackBerry smartphone owners reported being most interested in an Android smartphone as their next handset. This makes sense with current market activity.
NPD said Android has accounted for at least half of all smartphone buys in the last three quarters. comScore, IDC, Gartner and Nielsen have all pegged Android as having around 40 percent or more market share.
However, Android's lead is far from assured. Connected Intelligence analyst Linda Barrabee said WP7 may pose a greater threat to Android's dominance. Barrabee said 44 percent of smartphone owners and intenders are considering WP7 for their next purchase.
This is good timing for Microsoft, which is expected to see new devices from Samsung and HTC ship with its "Mango" OS, a considerable refinement over the current NoDo build. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said he hoped WP7 would eventually become "a very strong third ecosystem in the smartphone world" alongside Android and the iPhone.
Unfortunately, Barrabee said, Microsoft must overcome some serious brand recognition issues. Some 45 percent of consumers Barrabee surveyed are still not aware of Windows Phone 7.
Also, the 50 percent of consumers who plan to purchase a smartphone in the next six months, but who are not interested in Windows Phone 7, 46 percent claimed they didn't know enough about the platform. Clearly, Microsoft is going to have to rev up its marketing machine to spread the word about WP7 beyond its "Really?!" ads.
"Windows Phone 7 has a way to go before consumers really understand what it is," Barrabee said. "But with the right marketing mojo, apps portfolio and feature-rich hardware, Microsoft could certainly improve its standing and chip away at Android's dominant market position."
Microsoft must love this report, but it can't bask in its glow; it needs to treat it as a cautionary tale that it has a lot of work to do to make WP7 a household brand. No doubt Nokia will play a big part in that when it launches WP7 phones next year.
HTC Corp (宏達電), the world’s No. 5 smartphone maker, unveiled a thinner and sleeker smartphone in New York late on Tuesday, hoping to boost its sales in the crowded mobile market.
The HTC Rhyme, with a unibody design and the latest HTC Sense 3.5 software, comes in three colors and has complementary accessories, such as a docking station, a sports armband and tangle-free headphones, the company said in a statement.
The Rhyme also comes with a tethered accessory called a “charm” that blinks when a user receives a message or a call.
“It’s more respectful than a ring and more noticeable than vibrate,” HTC said.
“HTC keeps listening to consumers’ needs and we’ve observed that many consumers hope their mobile phones can be more user-friendly and personalized,” HTC chief executive Peter Chou (周永明) said in the statement.
The Android-powered smartphone will go on sale in the US on Thursday next week. It will cost US$199 and will be available through Verizon Wireless, the top US mobile provider. The phone will also be available in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and the Asia-Pacific region next month.
However, a Taiwanese analyst said that the HTC product launch did not have much of a surprise factor, because the company released only one new model with mid-end specifications.
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“While the design is stylish and it’s positioned as a lady’s smartphone, we believe the selling price is too high and the market will be difficult to penetrate due to the iPhone,” Jeff Pu (蒲得宇), equity research analyst at Fubon Securities (富邦證券), wrote in a research note.
Though it lowered its target price for HTC shares to NT$1,050 from NT$1,180, Fubon Securities maintained its “buy” rating.
“While we are not ignoring the macro risks, we believe HTC will have strong growth stories in 2012, such as the growing popularity of 4G LTE [long-term evolution] and volume opportunities in China,” Pu said.
Although ongoing patent litigation with Apple Inc could cast a shadow over the company’s share price, recent developments with Google Inc, such as a patent transfer from Google to HTC, have shown Google’s commitment to strengthening its Android patent portfolio, and that is positive for HTC, Pu said.
About one in eight people around the world can now connect to the Internet wherever, and whenever, they want to.
A U.N. report released Thursday has found that active mobile broadband subscriptions surged last year, reaching 872 million worldwide last year, up from 531 million in 2009.
In rich countries almost every second person has a high-speed mobile subscription, while in poor countries it's still just one in every 20 people.
But poor countries showed the sharpest rise — about 160 percent year-on-year — as customers passed up costly fixed-line broadband connections in favor of affordable cell phone plans that allow them to access the Web, email and other online services on the go.
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The report by the International Telecommunication Union concluded cell phones in general are now "de facto ubiquitous" with more than 5 billion people having some kind of cellular subscription.
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The survey of 152 countries also found a growing divide between countries with super-fast broadband — like Sweden, South Korea and Japan — and those where high-speed access is lagging, particularly in Africa.
Investment in broadband capacity means the average European theoretically has 77 Megabits/second of Internet bandwidth to their name, compared with 27 Mb/s in the Americas and about 11 Mb/s in Asia and the Arab world, though the figures mask strong variations among countries within regions.
Overall, South Korea remained the top ranked country worldwide for information and communications technology, followed by northern European nations Sweden, Iceland, Denmark and Finland. The U.S. remained in 17th place overall, but dropped three places when it came to access.
"This is mainly due to penetration rates for mobile cellular subscriptions and households with computer and Internet, where the U.S. has lower figures compared to the countries ranked above the U.S.," the Geneva-based ITU said.
Other conclusions of the annual report were that dial-up Internet access is likely to disappear within a few years, and a warning that frequently cited user statistics for popular sites like Facebook are unreliable indicators of actual Internet use.
