An Opinion: Windows Phone Will Gain Serious Market Share This Year ...
... because the carriers (network operators) want a 3rd viable smartphone and MIDs ecosystem.
The two articles clipped in reverse chrono below were written by Mike Feibus the principal analyst at TechKnowledge Strategies, a Scottsdale, Ariz., market research firm focusing on client technologies. Both of the articles reference a short (11 page) but interesting whitepaper focused on the US titled "Android v. Apple: Why No One Will Win the Smartphone Wars and what it means for the wireless marketplace." That year old whitepaper is here ...
marketing.netshelter.net
The whitepaper was written by Mike Feibus for NetShelter with contributions from editors from SmartPhone Experts, AndroidCentral.com, AndroidandMe.com, AndroidTapp.com, and Mobileburn.
>> Windows Phone Will Gain Serious Market Share This Year
Mike Feibus
Beta News
April 21, 2012
betanews.com
Let me repeat that a little more verbosely. Watch for Windows Phone to grab a serious hunk of market share at the end of 2012. No doubt about it. "Huh?" you ask. Believe it.
The Feibus-is-crazy club most assuredly is enjoying a surge in membership right about now. And why not? There is certainly plenty of evidence to suggest that Windows Phone thus far has underwhelmed.
Just this past week, in fact, Nokia’s financial results confirmed what the company, Microsoft’s primary Windows Phone partner, earlier had warned: that shipments of phones built around its fading Symbian platform are now in free-fall, and its WP7-based Lumia family isn’t picking up the slack as the company had planned.
Microsoft’s earnings report, released the same day as Nokia’s, echoed much the same. Indeed, Windows Phone stood out arguably as the weakest link in what proved to be an impressively strong quarter for the software giant.
So why, then, would I predict such a rosy change in fortunes for Microsoft’s struggling smartphone platform? It’s because of what was revealed in an earnings call from another wireless player, also that same day: Verizon.
Fran Shammo, Verizon’s CFO, responding in part to a question about the high cost of subsidizing iPhones for new contracts, says that the carriers need a viable third horse in the smartphone platform derby to keep the balance of power -- and thus the prices that Apple believes it can charge the carriers for its phones -- in check. For its part, Shammo said, Verizon will throw its weight behind Windows Phone.
The last time Verizon tinkered with the balance of power between carriers and platforms, it bet on Android, introducing the Droid in late 2009 backed by $100 million marketing campaign. That fall, iOS was the second largest shipping smartphone platform in the United States with 30 percent share, and closing in on market leader Blackberry. Android’s US share, meanwhile, stood at just 5.4 percent for that quarter. (These figures courtesy of Gartner.)
Android’s share quadrupled the following quarter -- that’s Q4 09, the first full quarter of Droid shipments -- to 20.4 percent. A year later, Android enjoyed a majority of all domestic smartphone shipments (51.6 percent), while iOS share dipped to 20.1 percent.
Last April, BetaNews published a white paper I wrote predicting that the carriers soon would elevate an underdog platform like Windows Phone to hold the market leaders in check. And this past week, that’s exactly what Verizon has signaled it intends to do.
Now, don’t expect Windows Phone share to quadruple in the fourth quarter, as Android’s share did three years earlier when Verizon took up the cause:
• For one thing, the smartphone market is several times larger.
• Second, there aren’t any fading platforms today. Three years earlier, Android had RIM and Symbian to snatch sales from to pad share.
• Third, the viable competitors -- Android and iOS -- own a much larger share of the market than the competitive alternatives did when Android was trying to claw its way into relevancy.
Still, there’s little doubt that Windows Phone will snag share in the fourth quarter -- in spite of itself. Bet on it. ###
>> Carriers Will Make Sure No One Wins The Smartphone Wars
Mike Feibus
Beta News
Published 12 months ago (April 2011)
betanews.com
Let's say your company wants to produce smartphone apps. On the conference room white board, developers have laid out the beginnings of a small-screen game that will make Angry Birds look like Ms. Pacman. Everyone's pretty excited.
You don't have much budget, so you're going to have to start by focusing on one platform and fan out to others once you're successful. Time to bet on a horse, and start immersing yourself in the ecosystem.
OK, so Blackberry World is underway this week in Orlando, and Google I/O kicks off next week in San Francisco. Where do you go? Conventional wisdom would tell you to hone in on the Android track at Google I/O. Android's had all the momentum in the smartphone market lately, growing its share from almost nothing to market leader in less than 18 months.
In this case, conventional wisdom would point you to the wrong coast. This is the U.S. smartphone market, where a handful of powerful carriers stand between you and your potential customers like the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor. And like the Statue of Liberty, the U.S. carriers welcome your tired, your poor, your huddled masses. It is a key reason why newcomer Android was able to leapfrog Apple's iOS in such an astoundingly short time: the carriers needed something to neutralize Apple, and Android was the best bet.
It is also why the Android folks increasingly are feeling less the hunter and more the hunted. Seen in this light, it is easier to understand why Google is now cooperating with the carriers by pulling tethering apps from the Android Market, a move that is raising the hackles of the Android faithful.
Now, there are no guarantees that Blackberry, which is still nursing wounds sustained during Android's ascension, will become the carriers' next darling and re-gain market dominance as a result. But if Research in Motion's updates to the aging platform prove to be competitive, the carriers will give Blackberry every chance to succeed. The same holds true for Microsoft's Windows Phone 7 -- and for HP's WebOS, or for any new kid that might show up.
This upside-down market dynamic and what it means for investment decision-makers in the smartphone ecosystem is the subject of a new white paper -- "Android v. Apple: Why No One Will Win the Smartphone Wars" -- developed by NetShelter in collaboration with contributions from influential editors from SmartPhone Experts, AndroidCentral.com, AndroidandMe.com, AndroidTapp.com, and Mobileburn. I am the author.
"The carriers will give down-and-out platforms every chance to regain shelf space, provided they can dust themselves off, re-invest and re-emerge with a compelling alternative," the white paper says. "This has profound implications for players across the mobile landscape -- applications developers, handset makers, chipmakers, marketers and retailers."
It's like this: Individually, the carriers compete among themselves for customers. But they share a common goal learned from the PC-era -- and again during Apple's influence over music with iPod and iTunes and its recent reign in the smartphone market: Never allow a platform to gain so much influence that it can wrest control of the market from carriers' hands.
There's only so far carriers will let Android go or let Google control. The recent huff about tethering apps signals what lies ahead.
Mike Feibus is principal analyst at TechKnowledge Strategies, a Scottsdale, Ariz., market research firm focusing on client technologies. ###
- Eric - |
