Fiercemobile Stats

At this rate they are doing  180K/day of products shipped and activated.  This is a bit over half of what Google has claimed to be 300K/day of Androids activated.  Nokia is still doing north of 1M/day….. In order for Apple to reach that 1M/day based on this growth timeline we are looking at the end of 2014.  Now with the expansion of Verizon and other carriers, the growth curb will “hockey stick a bit” and we could even see them hit the 1M/day even by the end of 2012 0r beginning of 2013.

Based on the latest stats on the  market share published by Gartner of the different device manufacturers and platforms, it is clear that Nokia, Apple and Google all have similar momentum and are growing quite steadily.  Today about 20+% of the entire market is based on Smartphones and it has been published that by 2012 more then 50% of the US  Market will be Smart phones.     From all the media, one would think that iPhone and Android would be overtaking Nokia and that Android would be overtaking Apple.   From the extrapolated data, the growth along the same line for the last year shows this is not the case.  Nokia, Apple and Google all seem to have similar growth paths.  As we do know there are more and more devices choosing Android as the platform, there is some strong momentum in the Android camp that is positive accelloration of device penetration.

With this all said, one of the biggest problems Nokia has is in its Market Share in North America.  Nokia has almost become invisible to developers and users of smartphones, and there is a risk that if Nokia does not make some positive inroads here, the effects could be critical.

What is also interesting is that RIM does not seem to have the growth curve like Nokia, Apple and Google ( NAG).  Again through the extrapolation of the growth lines of the different companies,  Apple should pass RIM in Q1 2011, and Android should pass RIM in Q1 2013.  Given this is still 3 years away, it shows RIM strong position today and an opportunity to change this course.  Depending on how Apple releases product through other carriers and its iPhone 4.0 release in the next several weeks, we may even see Apple pass RIM by the end of the year.

During Q1 of this Year, Nokia maintained it leadership in position and scale. The Company added close to 13M new device sales since 1 year earlier.  That is ramping up over 1M new units to ship per month or increasing the volume shipped of 33,000 per day.  For Nokia this is the increase per day, where as Google is shipping in its entirety 100,ooo Units per day.  This is  quite a big change as well, since at CTIA in March they announced the 60,000 Units per day.

As for Smartphone sales,  Symbian still leads the pack as 2.5X greater then the next player- RIM, 3x greater then Apple (iPhone) and 5x greater then Google ( Android).  The volumes for Symbian continue to show phenomenal growth even though the total market share went from 49% down to 44%.

This article caught my attention as it is 2010 and now we are hearing about Nokia going after the Automobile.  Are they late to the game or is this the right timing?  When I go to the iPhone store and look at all the car applications with some of the massive integration efforts that have already started with Apple, my first impression that Nokia might be late to the game.  Nokia has been clearly focused in maps and navigation, so it would only make strategic sense to see this kind of announcement.

In the automotive industry they work on a different clock-speed.  It might not be as slow as the health care industry, but it is close.  In December 2008,  Qualcomm made an announcement on video streaming with mediaFLO with Toyota.   I guess that was good timing as at that time it was considered early days… Now about 18months later when the market is moving it is hard to disengage the standard that Qualcomm has brought to such a profound market leader.

Unlike other countries the Automobile is a very key part of the culture and lifestyle of many Americans.  Although, I have been looking to buses and trains a lot these days, in general, I would say we are very much an Automobile society and I am obsessed with my car like everybody else.  Getting a very strong foot print for Nokia in the car space may be an interesting angle to come back into the US Market, but it is a long  journey.

The key in my mind is for the cellular equipment manufacturer that does get into the Automobile will need to bring not just the data and the telephony aspects to the table, but the integration with the entire entertainment and navigation enablers to the table.   Nokia clearly has the navigation enablers, but lets see about the entertainment ones.  This is again where Apple has been strong, but they have been weak in the location and navigation space.  Could this be a place where Apple and Nokia collaborate?   We did see the strong collaboration between Apple and Google in the past, but now with the strife between them with Android, this could clearly be a unique opportunity as well for standardization to occur where Apple and Nokia come together. If they do not collaborate, then will we see a hodge-podge of different standards and devices integrated into my front seat?

[ Rethink Wireless article]

Operators no longer talk about the three screens – cellphone, TV and PC – but sharing content and services over many screens from fridges to cars. The in-car web systems are particularly important, and Nokia has announced plans to work with automotive entertainment firm Harman to codevelop a smartphone-to-car interface.

Nokia wants to go a step further and make this interface, for passing data and content between the two systems, into an industry standard – though so far, it hasn’t announced a timetable. The partners said the connection would be via USB, with Bluetooth as a back-up.

“The infotainment system of a modern car is a natural extension for the capabilities of smartphones,” said Vesa Luiro, director of Nokia’s automotive business unit. The two companies see a broad range of applications for a more integrated car/mobile system. The full range of smartphone apps could be offered via the high quality screens and audio systems in the car, and the handset and car could exchange information and tap into GPS.

Of course, Nokia has an eye on further enhancing its location and directions offering, Ovi Maps, which has been its most successful mobile software initiative since it made the app free early this year. It says the new connection could combine GPS data with vehicle information – for instance, locating a nearby gas station after a low fuel warning. Luiro said: “Not only will it simplify the use of turn-by-turn voice guidance from Ovi Maps, but also provide a new and easy way of accessing other content on the smartphone, such as music and delivering automotive specific applications from the Ovi Store.”

Pioneer has been working on a similar system using a tethered iPhone, while last week saw reports that Google was in talks to integrate Android with General Motors’ OnStar car service. This would allow the smartphone to control many auto functions remotely and also support similar features to Ford’s MyFord Touch, which provides dashboard phone control, navigation and media playing.

It has been 7 years since I lived in Japan or have been fully operational in Japanese.  Last November, I visited Japan on a M&A due-diligence project and found the changes to the mobile landscape overwhelming.  About one year prior, I was fortunate to be invited by a Canadian Government trade mission on the cross-border business development of the independent music industry and felt that Japan was still locked in the closed internal format wars that separated them from entire planet over the last 15 years.  Japan was a leader in the development of the 3G ecosystem, but it was very Japan focused.  Companies like Nokia and others attempted to bring in Global 3G products,  but it proved to be very costly to reset all the device requirements and to develop a separate category for a Japanese only marketplace.

However, Apple launched iPhone in Japan shortly after via Softbank.  Their visionary CEO Masayoshi Son ( an individual with his team that has built an empire on cross-border tech business/platform investing and facilitation such as Yahoo-Japan) championed the existing system with this some what risky proposition at the time. By Sept 2009, the iPhone was exploding in device sales and by the end of the year it was recorded close to 3M subscribers.  I saw in one trade journal that Japan was the fastest growing market for iPhone sales per capita and the transformation had begun.   The iPhone product was launched very much with the same business model as the rest of the world with a very small launch team just outside of Hatsudai station at the Apple Japan Corporate HQ.  By the time I had arrived the market was changing.  Techcrunch Japan had just gotten started, and the feeling of  the Silicon Alley entrepreneurial spirit had found a way in the Japan mobile space.  There were thousands of iPhone apps available for Japanese consumers, and the touch interface just did not seem to matter.   I found people proud to put their iPhone on the table in front of them at the local Kissaten ( Coffee Shop) as they chatted with colleagues with one had holding that exotic cup of Java, and the other a Marlboro.  I had heard that over 40% of the Apps came from outside of Japan, and it was the first time that the  international content industry had just blown through the Japanese system within the comfortable pipeline created by Softbank and Apple.

This experience got me very excited to see that now there was finally an opportunity for Japanese prowess in the mobile industry to start to go global.  Yes, this was a platform created by the North American Dev team in Cupertino, but the manufacturing was in China and now the content was coming from everywhere around the Globe in one scalable process.   This was a first step in the process for real cross-border development and innovation to begin that surrounded an App ecosystem.  Although, 3M is not a large number when we talk about the incumbents of the Japanese system, or is this the full game-changer to the Japanese market, but it was a beginning.

I decided that it would be time for me to start to bridge my consultancy practice over to Japan as my second International country of clients.   As of 2007, I had been working with the Finland tech scene and had the opportunity to work with several Finnish companies looking for global strategies and mobile market entry into North America.  That pipeline has continued to grow, and we will be visiting Finland at the end of this month on our periodic trade mission.

The mobile content industry has really now gone global with the explosion of the iPhone.  It has changed the dynamics of marketing, content delivery and advertising toward the dream all of us had in the mobile industry for many years.  2010 has really the year to define mobile as the transition has begun for media players to treat mobile on equal terms as part of the overall media strategy.  This is not just at a country level, but the cross-border international opportunities have really started to accelerate.

I returned back to Japan in January to speak about the cross-border opportunities surrounding North America.   In the 10 days I was there, it was apparent that Japan really was my second home, and my 7 years away might have just been too long.  My schedule became packed with meetings with a variety of different companies looking at their position for marketing and sales outside of Japan;  however, the focus seemed to be on China.  It is apparent as a first priority many Japan mobile companies  have looked for international expansion with this gorilla neighbor.   Over the last 15 years, the US Market had proved to be very difficult for many Japanese companies, and you could probably say that there are less then a couple mobile companies that have really been able to make their  US International efforts successful.   The odds have not been so great, and with the large market ( today there are over 500M subscribers) , the close proximity and the technology gaps, China is hard to ignore when it comes to the next step in an expansion  and an International strategy.

I hope my presentation has some effect, as I compared the opportunities between heading to China and then looking toward North America.  The room was filled with start-up CEO’s, Media companies and a variety of others interested in this debate.  The presentation went for over 2 hours into the late evening, and I was surprized I was able to bring back for the first time in a long time my dormant Japanese speaking skills for this kind of  format.  The big discussion points were of course around iPhone, but what I found that was even more profound was the interest in “Android” and the “iPad”.

Android….

NTT DoCoMo made it clear that they would be the leaders in bringing this to market.  Yes, we all knew that Softbank would follow and that we are now looking at a similar AT&T versus Verizon type of phenomena in Japan with Google and Apple playing tag-team to open up the marketplace ( at least it seems that way?)

Android was key part of my presentation as after being with Nokia for so many years, it felt like Google took the play-book right out of Nokia’s hands and have started to execute on the same dream.  Nokia had for so many years tried to bring an open philosophy to the market and the mobile industry, but they just might had been a bit too early.  I do not think Nokia has at all  run out of steam, but they did pull out of Japan and left a vacuum right when the time was for entry.   For Google to compete against Apple and to launch something fresh might have just been the timing for this perfect storm of a  teeter-totter like strategy.  Of course, Eric Schmidt sat on the board of Apple during the conception of the iPhone strategy, and it only makes one wonder if this was some kind of grand plan in market attack between the two companies at any level.

Well Android looks like it is here to stay, and it has become a powerful force as a Global Open Framework.  Apple was able to “blow a hole through the window” and now all the flies and everything can come through.  Open is now the flavor of the month, yet Apple keeps coming out with new and exciting products and services that the balance between Open and Closed is still evolving.

I met with a representative from Nikkei BP, and they asked me if I would work with them on different mobile projects around  North America effects and the Japanese market.  I was even asked to  represent them by covering the CTIA event in Las Vegas this last month.   I look forward to more and more of these types of project down the road and will continue to fine-tune my writing and evolve my Japanese journalist skills.

I will publish an English version of the article on this blog shortly to follow.