Mobile connected device adoption picked up among women and older consumers in the second quarter of 2011, according to new findings from market research firm Nielsen. In the second quarter last year, tablets and eReaders were owned largely by those under the age of 35.
Continue reading Nielsen: Tablet and eReader adoption accelerated among older users, women in Q2
Apple has been fined by South Korea’s telecommunications regulator following the “Locationgate” scandal that caused public outrage earlier this year, Dow Jones reports. This marks the second time Apple has had to pay penalties resulting from the iOS location-tracking snafu. A South Korean lawyer sued Apple and was awarded $1 million won, or approximately $945 at the time, by a court this past June. It was discovered in April that the iPhone and some iPad models were secretly tracking users and storing their locations in a local file. Apple determined that a software bug was responsible for the collection of location data, and it promptly issued a fix. The damage had already been done, however, and lawsuits were filed. Apple’s prompt attention to the matter likely limited the damage, and Wednesday’s fine levied by the Korea Communications Commission is the first penalty we’ve seen issued by a regulatory body. So what’s the damage this time around? $3 million won, or approximately $2,829.
The European Commission now has a total of nine formal antitrust complaints targeting Google, Reuters reported on Tuesday. “The new complaints come from small companies,” one source told the news outlet, and another said two of the complaints were new while three came from national regulators. Until Tuesday, the EC had only confirmed that there were four total complaints. Microsoft has also filed a formal complaint with the European Commission and its general counsel, Brad Smith, said that the search giant “has engaged in a broadening pattern of walling off access to content and data that competitors need to provide search results to consumers and to attract advertisers.” Microsoft has argued that Google has a 95% grip of the European search market. The European Commission is also investigating Google for anticompetitive advertising practices and, in June, the Federal Trade Commission in the United States announced that it will investigate Google’s business practices. The search giant has said in the past that it will be fully compliant with the investigation.
Sprint on Thursday reported greater than expected losses in the second quarter despite modest revenue growth. The nation’s No. 3 carrier pulled in $8.3 billion in its June quarter, up 4% from the same quarter a year prior, but it wasn’t enough to bring the company back into the black. Sprint’s net losses in the second quarter totalled $827 million, 11% worse than the $760 million loss it reported in the second quarter of 2010. On the bright side, however, those losses include $588 million in bad investments and a $52 million tax charge from the state of Michigan, so Sprint would have shown sequential and year-over-year improvements if not for those losses. Sprint also reported its best subscriber churn of late in the second quarter, adding more than a million new subscribers despite shedding 101,000 net wireless postpaid customers. “Sprint’s second quarter results, including our fourteenth consecutive quarter of improved customer care satisfaction, our best ever postpaid churn, more than 1 million net wireless subscriber additions and wireless service revenue growth, validate that our focus on providing simplicity, value and an unmatched customer experience is working,” said Sprint CEO Dan Hesse in a statement. Of note, sprint also announced a deal with LightSquared on Thursday that will see it bring 4G LTE services to 260 million Americans by 2015.
Sprint’s full earnings release follows below.
Continue reading Sprint reports big Q2 loss as it sheds 101,000 postpaid subs
UBS analyst Amitabh Passi on Wednesday cut his price target on shares of Research In Motion stock to $30 from a previous target of $41, and reiterated a Neutral rating. Passi stated in his note to investors that RIM is currently facing challenges in the “platform wars” underway between companies like Google, Apple and Microsoft. While the analyst sees the successful launches of RIM’s BlackBerry 7 phones as being important for the Waterloo, Ontario-based vendor in the near term, he says the company’s successful transition to QNX is much more important to RIM strategically. In other words, there’s still hope if BlackBerry 7 devices aren’t a collective home run. In the meantime however, Passi says that UBS’s checks reaffirm RIM’s declining smartphone market share.
“Our store checks also show accelerating market share deterioration for new subscribers during June and July as multiple top-tier Android products have been rolling out and Apple continues to gain market share,” the analyst wrote. As a result, Passi cut his revenue estimates for RIM’s fiscal year to $19.8 billion from $21.1 billion, and he lowered his EPS estimate to $4.82 from $5.81. Also lowered in Passi’s note were his smartphone unit shipments estimate, which dropped to 51.5 million units from 54.9 million, and his estimate for PlayBook shipments, which now sits at 2.5 million units compared to his earlier projection of 3.6 million tablets.
Android continued on its warpath this past quarter, once again showing gains as it retained its position as top smartphone platform in the United States. Nielsen on Thursday issued its second-quarter smartphone market share data for the U.S., and Android finds itself atop the list again with 39% of the market. IOS remains in the No. 2 spot with 28% and RIM slid to 20% in the second quarter. Windows Mobile and Windows Phone combined to take 9% of the market, while webOS and Palm OS combined to account for just 2% of the market. Nokia’s Symbian OS also held a 2% share in the June quarter. On the list of top vendors last quarter, Apple held its lead by a wide margin with 28% of the total U.S. market. HTC devices accounted for 14% of Android market and 6% of the Windows Phone/Windows Mobile market, making it the nation’s top vendor in both categories and No. 2 overall. Samsung owned 8% of the Android market and 2% of the Windows Phone/Windows Mobile market in the U.S. last quarter, while Motorola topped Samsung’s Android share with 11% to slide into the No. 2 spot among Android device manufacturers.
Poynt is easily one of the best BlackBerry apps ever built and we love writing about it. What we also love about Poynt is that it’s a public corporation so their financials are available to anyone who cares to do a little digging. The mobile industry is hot right now and Poynt serves as an interesting case study about what it takes to grow a large mobile company and how profitable a free app with purely advertising-based revenues can be.
Today marks a pretty big news day for Poynt as the app/company has surpassed more than 8.5 million unique users at the end of June 2011 across North America, Western Europe and Australia, after reaching 3.2 million at the end of June 2010. Of the over 700,000+ new users added in June 2011, 500,000+ were on the Android platform. Existing preloads contributed to over 300,000+ of these Android users in the month of June. So far in July, the average number of new daily users added has exceeded 25,000, putting the Company on track for another record month. Currently, Poynt has over 9.0 million unique users.
Here are the numbers Poynt would like us to focus on:
The last financials posted on Poynt’s site were the Q3 2010 Financial Statements. We should be seeing new filings coming soon but we can see the sort of cost it takes to get to almost 10 million users and the revenue one might expect.
Obviously as Poynt grows its user base, it’s also growing as a company. Traditionally, mobile companies are pretty lean but Poynt seems to be fairly heavy in terms of management and operating costs. Salary and consulting fees increased by $619,702 or 132% in 2010 compared to the same period in 2009. Another area where Poynt differs from a typical mobile company is in advertising. Most app companies will rely on the app stores and manufacturers for promotion, with some blog and inexpensive community outreach. Poynt on the other hand, has advertising and promotion expenses that increased by $692,932 (789%). Overall, a company like Poynt is cash intensive to operate. For the three months ended September 30, 2010, the Company used $1,388,590 (2009 – $2,594,534) cash in operating activities.
Revenue for Poynt has increased but it doesn’t come close to covering their expenses. Sales and licensing revenues for the nine months ended September 30, 2010 increased by 172% to $605,092 from $222,760 for the same period in 2009.
It should be interesting to see what the latest financials for Poynt bring but it would be surprising if revenues ever come close to covering expenses. Perhaps the lean, startup-style mobile company is the only way to truly be profitable in this industry.
It could very well be that Android’s best hope for a competitive tablet offering in the near term lies in Amazon’s hands. Retrevo Labs, a division of consumer electronics shopping site Retrevo, surveyed more than 1,000 U.S. consumers in June to find out what people are looking for in a tablet. While 50% of those surveyed who intended to purchase a tablet this year said it would be an iPad, Retrevo determined that the most important feature to prospective tablet buyers is a low price point. Considering the unlikelihood of Apple budging when it comes to price, Android tablets have a clear opportunity to attack the market at more affordable price points.
Continue reading Study suggests consumers are clamoring for an Amazon tablet – if it’s cheap
RIM announced today that in addition to some management changes, they are cutting about 2,000 employees from their workforce. We knew that some slimming down was on the way for RIM, but weren’t sure of the exact number of employees that would be lost. More on the cuts and other “expense reductions” will be known after the RIM’s next earnings call in mid-September.
“The workforce reduction is believed to be a prudent and necessary step for the long term success of the company and it follows an extended period of rapid growth within the company whereby the workforce had nearly quadrupled in the last five years alone.”
Both Jim Balsille and Mike Lazaridis will retain their co-CEO positions for now however. Along with the cuts comes some movement among management positions at RIM as well. Just a few days ago RIM lost Ryan Bidan to Samsung, and RIM today has announced the retirement of their Chief Operating Officer Don Morrison as well. Keep reading for the full press release.
Continue reading RIM cuts around 2,000 jobs; Shuffles management
We let you know in the end of May about RIM’s Travel Better with BlackBerry contest which has some awesome prizes. RIM has been giving away one BlackBerry device of your choice every week since then and there is still a grand prize trip for two to Australia up for grabs. RIM is even throwing in $2,500 of spending money with the deal. The contest ends on June 26th so if you want to go to Australia as badly as I do I would head on over fast!
The contest is limited to the US and Canada excluding Quebec again. You can enter every week for their weekly drawing for a BlackBerry smartphone which also enters you for the grand prize. You can enter via Twitter (7 times a week) or their website (1x a week) for multiple entries which is also sweet.
Check out the contest at www.travelbetterwithblackberry.com
via:bbr
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