Market
Smartphone Market by OEM
Source: BofA, Merrill Lynch
From the perspective of unit shipments, last year (trailing twelve months or TTM) shipments of smartphones were 158.9mn, up 6% YoY, a sharp deceleration from the 22% growth in 2008. However we attribute this to the macro weakness.
Nokia slightly lost share, down from 40% in 2008 to 39% in 2009e and down [...]
Android Surges Among Handset Purchasers
Between September and December 2009, the proportion of future smartphone buyers who planned to purchase an Android-based phone jumped from 6% to 21%.
2G/3G Patent IP Ownership
Interesting charts on who owns what 2G/3G IP and what they collect in royalties for that IP.
The same report states that Apple pays significantly less royalty for the iPhone. It is suspected to be in the 5.5% range.
The iHog iPhone
The average iPhone user consumes 5-7x the monthly bandwidth of an average wireless voice subscriber, and 2x+ the amount of an average 3G/smartphone phone user, or 250 – 350 MB. Despite notable usage differences, 3G pricing plans for smartphones in the US have remained relatively fixed price, in contrast to usage based pricing offerings in [...]
Handset industry recovers from a trough, but who would benefit going forward?
During its 3Q09 results release, Nokia raised its 2009 global handset shipment forecast from -10% to -7% yoy. Goldman Sachs believes this signals that the worst is over for the global handset market; although this seemed to be widely expected by the market, handsetrelated stocks reacted positively post Nokia results (23% /55% share price appreciation for [...]
The Future of Content Without Walls
“Even as the landscape evolves, the market for portable electronics is growing unabated,” said Noah Elkin, eMarketer senior analyst and author of the new report, “Always-On Devices and Networks: New Opportunities to Reach Consumers.”
Marketing, Not Ads, Fuels Social Spending Growth
“In 2010 and beyond, a substantial portion of marketers’ expenses will go toward creating and maintaining a fan page, managing promotions or public relations outreach within a social network, and measuring the impact of a social network presence on brand health and sales,” wrote eMarketer senior analyst Debra Aho Williamson in the report, “Social Network [...]
Microtune Introduces Breakthrough Receiver Chip Delivering Superior Performance, Cost and Sizeto Worldwide Digital TV Market
New RF-to-Baseband IC Delivers Uncompromised TV Receiver Performanceat Compelling Price Point New Chip Enables Manufacturers to Deploy a Smaller, Higher-Performance and More Cost-Effective Receiver in Global Designs for the Next Generation of Thinner, Lighter, Multi-Functional TVs
PLANO, Texas, Dec 10, 2009 (BUSINESS WIRE) — Microtune(R), Inc. (NASDAQ: TUNE) [...]
ONR Awards $9.5M SDR Contract to Raytheon
The award is to Conduct a base study effort in FY 2010 on the development of an open architecture software defined radio system.
Further information is available here.
ZTE SDR Base Station Records over 200,000 Volume Shipment
SDR Solution Helps Meet 3G Market Demands and Lowers Operator TCO
13 November 2009, Shenzhen, China – ZTE Corporation (“ZTE”) (H share stock code: 0763.HK / A share stock code: 000063.SZ), a leading global provider of telecommunications equipment and network solutions, today announced that itsSoftware Defined Radio (SDR) base stations have recorded a total [...]
US Leads in Scientific Publications but China is catching up
From Thomson Reuters:
China’s research output has increased dramatically since 1999 while most output increased to upwards of 112,000 papers nations remained fairly stable. During the same period the USA increased by 2008 —with the nation more than doubling its output from 265,000 to 340,000 publications per year, an increase of its output since 2004 alone. [...]
Multimode wireless and SDR success lies in software optimization
I have a nice quote in a Mobile Handset DesignLine article written by Fanny Mlinarsky.
Venture Capital Leads Returns
According to Thomson Reuters, venture capital still has better returns than many other investments (at least through March 2009).
Frequency Band and Communications Systems Trends
A nice chart showing frequency band allocations by year and corresponding 3GPP releases.
Average Number of Frequency Bands per Cell Phone
Multiband UMTS is driving the number of frequency bands in cellular handsets.