Samsung & Apple Now Account for 86% of Smartphone Industry Growth

Samsung and Apple Now Account for 86% of Smartphone Industry Growth
Samsung and Apple have proven to be the only smartphone makers hanging strong in a highly-competitive market.
Michael Comeau
Jan 27, 2012
http://www.minyanville.com/businessmarkets/articles/smartphone-market-share-q4-2011-smartphone/1/27/2012/id/39068

Does a rising tide lift all ships?

In some cases maybe, but in the smartphone-manufacturing world, it's becoming increasingly apparent that two companies are overpowering the competition.

Now, we all know that the two superpowers in smartphone operating systems are Apple's iOS and Google's Android.

Apple's iPhones are obviously the only phones using iOS, and as evidenced by the company's spectacular fiscal first-quarter earnings report, they are selling like crazy. To be exact, Apple sold a whopping 37 million units during the December 2011 quarter, a year-over-year increase of 128%.

Over in Android territory, results for the hardware makers haven't been hot across the board. Motorola Mobility, which is set to be acquired by Google, lowered fourth-quarter guidance in early January as its smartphone sales rose by just 8.2%. And Motorola hasn't been the only Android smartphone maker to disappoint. Former hotshot HTC also saw dramatically slowing sales through the holiday season.

Elsewhere in the industry, Research In Motion remains on the ropes, and Nokia's still losing share.

However, Korea electronics giant Samsung just proved that Apple still has one tough competitor left on the hardware side, and the numbers show that the two companies are dividing the smartphone world up between them.

Samsung just reported its fourth-quarter earnings results, and despite some weakness in areas like LCD panels, Samsung is more than hanging tough within the smartphone world.

Samsung's Android-powered Galaxy phone line appears to have squeezed out much of its Android competition, allowing it to survive the assault of the iPhone 4S, which was the first iPhone to debut in the fourth quarter.

Samsung didn't report unit sales numbers, but the research firm Strategy Analytics estimated that Samsung sold 36.5 million smartphones in Q4, equaling a 241% year-over-year increase. In fact, while Apple sold more units, Samsung's growth rate was actually far greater.

Regardless, Apple's and Samsung's combined fourth-quarter market share was 47.4%, up from 26.7% the year before.

Put another way, as the two titans' sales rose a combined 173%, versus a miserable 10% for the remaining players.

Put a third way, the two companies accounted for an insane 86% of the industry's unit growth in the quarter.

Which of these guys will ultimately win?

It doesn't really matter. Given how fast the rest of the competition is falling off, there's plenty of money for them to split.

Is Amazon interested in buying WebOS from Hewlett-Packard?

September 30, 2011
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2011/09/amazon-is-latest-rumored-to-be-interested-in-buying-webos-from-hp-1.html

Amazon.com's Kindle Fire is a jump into the growing tablet market and a clear challenge to Apple's blockbuster ability to integrate hardware and software so seamlessly.

But what will Amazon's post-Fire moves look like as it seeks to build a major business in tablets, something only Apple has so far been able to pull off?

According to both VentureBeat and the New York Times site Deal Book, Amazon is considering buying the WebOS mobile operating system from the struggling Hewlett-Packard in a move to nab an OS of its own and to gain some mobile tech patents as well. Amazon officials were unavailable for comment on the rumors Friday.

Unlike Apple, Amazon doesn't own the software that will run on its tablet. Android is owned by Google, though Google shares its Android with the world at no cost and the version of Android that will run on the Fire is a build unique to Amazon.

But while Google doesn't charge for Android, others do. Microsoft, for example, is collecting royalties from Samsung for its use of Android and has agreements with other Android users, such as HTC, that pay Microsoft and/or call for shared patent portfolio licenses.

Google, known for its weak patent portfolio, is attempting to buy Motorola Mobility in both a move to help shore up its IP and get into the hardware business in a limited way.

HP bought Palm in April 2010 for $1.2 billion, mainly for WebOS, but in August the company gave up on making hardware for the operating system.

As pointed out by VentureBeat, HP has been eyeing Amazon as a possible partner for WebOS as far back as July, Jon Rubinstein, who was then leading HP's WebOS division, said in an interview with the website ThisIsMyNext. This was due to Amazon's potential to match WebOS with an ecosystem of content -- books, music, TV shows and movies.