MobilePhones101

Driven by smartphones sales, global mobile phone vendor shipments were a record 401.4 million units in fourth-quarter 2010, up 17.9% year-on-year from 340.5 million in fourth-quarter 2009, according to the International Data Corp (IDC) Worldwide Mobile Phone Tracker. Shipments totaled 1.39 billion units on a cumulative worldwide basis in full-year 2010, up 18.5% from 1.17 billion in 2009.

The strong quarterly and annual growth comes after a weak 2009, which saw the market decline by 1.6%, says IDC. A stronger economy and a wider array of increasingly affordable smartphones helped lift the mobile phone market to its highest annual growth rate since 2006, when it grew 22.6%.

“Mobile phone users are eager to swap out older devices for ones that handle data as well as voice, which is driving growth and replacement cycles,” says Kevin Restivo, senior research analyst with IDC’s Worldwide Mobile Phone Tracker.

It’s not just smartphone-focused suppliers that capitalized on the mobile phone market’s renewed growth last year, notes IDC. Chinese handset maker ZTE, which sells mainly lower-cost feature phones in emerging markets, moved into the number 4 position worldwide in Q4/2010 (its first quarter among IDC’s Top 5 vendors).

“Change-up among the number four and five vendors could be a regular occurrence this year,” adds Ramon Llamas, senior research analyst with IDC’s Mobile Devices Technology and Trends team. “Motorola, Research In Motion and Sony Ericsson — all vendors with a tight focus on the fast-growing smartphone market who had ranked among the top five worldwide vendors during 2010 — are well within striking distance to move back into the top five list.”

IDC believes that the mobile phone market will be driven largely by smartphone growth through the end of 2014. “Feature-phone users looking to do more with their devices will flock to smartphones in the years to come,” notes Restivo. “This trend will help drive the smartphone sub-market to grow 43.7% year-over-year in 2011,” he adds.

Reference: http://www.semiconductor-today.com/news_items/2011/JAN/IDC_310111.htm

Beetel, recently launched a range of mobile phones, among them is the TD 590, a 3G phone. The TD590 has a front facing VGA camera for video chatting and a 3.2 MP rear camera. It is a dual-sim handset and is compatible with both, EDGE and 3G. It supports motion sensing and widgets for social networking on Facebook, Nimbuzz, Yahoo etc. There is also support for Stereo Bluetooth playback, FM Radio with recording and java compatibility.

The TD 590, another phone taking advantage of the imminent 3G network

Arun Gupta, Director, Business Development, MediaTek says “TD 590 is one of the few handsets in the market that offer high-end features at low end prices. It supports 3G with video calling among other heavy duty multimedia functions. All of these require high end processing power which is enabled by our processor running at the heart of this phone. It is based on the ARM 9 technology.”

The TD 590 from Beetel supports all high-res video formats and the user-interface has animated effects. This and all the other features are run by a chipset from MediaTek. The device is available for a price of Rs. 6,999.

Reference: http://tech2.in.com/india/news/mobile-phones/beetel-launches-3g-phone-td-590/156422/0

KOLJATA: Sharp Business Systems India, Indian subsidiary for Japan-based Sharp Corporation, on Monday said it is looking forward to opportunities in mobile handset market and solar power business — new areas of high growth in India.

Talking to newspersons here on Monday, Sunil Kumar Sinha, Managing Director of the company said, “Our new solar power and mobile handset businesses will help us grow several folds in the years to come.”

The company has entered Indian mobile phone handset market by launching 4 handsets, named – Alice, Blink, Tango and Cyborg. The company targets to sell one million handsets in the country within April 2011.

He said 74 per cent of Indian mobile phone handset market has been captured by the mobile phones priced around `5,000. Since the mobile handsets launched by the company in the Indian market is priced between `6,500 and `18,000, the company expects to get a market share of three per cent out of the rest 26 per cent of Indian mobile handset market in the next one year.

He said the company would import mobile handsets for now. When asked whether Sharp Business System Indian would set up unit to manufacture mobile phones in India, Sinha said, “India is a large country and any global company can not rule out setting up manufacturing base here.”

Reference: http://expressbuzz.com/finance/sharp-enters-mobile-handset-market/225243.html

Two new mobile phones just received the necessary approvals from the Global Certification Forum, namely the Samsung GT-I8700 and the Toshiba TG03, both of which are expected to arrive on the market with Microsoft’s new Windows Phone 7 operating system on board.

The newly receive approvals show not only that there might be more Windows Phone 7 devices brought to the market during the ongoing year, but also the fact that Microsoft and handset vendors around the world are moving closer to the official launch date of the platform.

There are not too many details available on the two new smartphones, but chances are that they would be unveiled in the near future, at least when the Samsung GT-I8700 is involved, since Toshiba won’t be launch partner for the new OS.

As the unwired (which brought news on the GCF approval) notes, the GT-I8700 Windows Phone 7 device passed through the GCF with quad band GSM/GPRS/EDGE and tri-band UMTS/HSDPA/HSUPA at 900/1900/2100 MHz connectivity options.

Basically, this means that the handset would be fit for use in the North American market, courtesy of that AT&T 1900 MHz UMTS support.

As for Toshiba’s TG03 mobile phone, it comes with quad band GSM/GPRS/EDGE and tri-band UMTS/HSDPA/HSUPA at 800/850/2100 MHz.

Reference: http://news.softpedia.com/news/Samsung-GT-I8700-and-Toshiba-TG03-Receive-GCF-Approval-158335.shtml

Developers interested in coming up with themes for BlackBerry mobile phones that run under the new BlackBerry 6 operating system can now take advantage of the new BlackBerry Theme Builder features that RIM announced officially not too long ago.

One of the main new additions to the solution is an enhanced UI, which offers developers the possibility to click on any object on the Preview screen so as to make changes directly to the object.

As expected, the new version of the application comes with the option to create themes for the recently released BlackBerry Torch 9800 smartphone, not to mention that it enables the packaging of these themes so that they can be uploaded to the BlackBerry App World.

In addition to creating themes for handsets based on the BlackBerry 6 OS, one will also have the possibility to:

- change the font and color for the following items: Pop-up menus, Group box, Tray, or Universal search;
- add a Today item in a custom theme layout to receive feeds from:
BlackBerry Messenger application
Facebook application
Twitter application
- add the following organizational items to a Today item in a custom theme layout: Tasks, Memos.
- add a set of images to create a slide show for the wallpaper on the BlackBerry device.
- create a wallpaper so that images display at specific times.
- change the following new application icons: Podcasts icon, Visual voice mail icon, Setup icon, Social Feeds icon

Reference: http://news.softpedia.com/news/BlackBerry-Theme-Studio-6-Beta-Released-158486.shtml

The Sony Ericsson LiveView has been introduced, a micro display product with remote control functionality that mirrors mobile phone activities.

The LiveView uses Bluetooth connectivity to wireless pair up with most phones that run Android 2.0 and above and lets users control this phone without taking it out of their pocket or bag.

It runs on the Android platform and has the ability to read texts, see incoming calls and keep up to date with Facebook and Twitter.

It can also let the user control music features of the handset from the micro display, selecting tracks and controlling volume.

The LiveView runs on the Android platform and acts as a calendar reminder, as well.

The device can be clipped onto a watch strap, a keychain or a laptop.

Reference: http://www.siliconrepublic.com/digital-life/item/17953-sony-launches-micro-device/

Paris – Consumers confirm strong interest in using their mobile phone as wallet according to a recent market poll sponsored by Alcatel-Lucent (Euronext Paris and NYSE: ALU). These findings were uncovered as part of a youth market study exploring the appeal of a mobile wallet service. The study, conducted by Alcatel-Lucent, over a two week period this summer, with members of its Youth Lab, indicated that eighty-one percent showed a strong interest in the service and 89% would be willing to pay a monthly fee.

Two hundred and twenty six members of the Youth Lab from 10 different countries, including; Spain, Brazil, France, United States, United Kingdom, China, Mexico, Germany, Italy and Japan, most of whom are already using their mobile phone for micro payments such as ringtones offered a fresh perspective on the appeal of mobile wallet services. Most notable in the survey results was the appeal of application scenarios and the ability for these applications to save time. The option to “Buy a movie ticket without needing to wait in line” was the most appealing to respondents. Seventy-five percent were interested in “location based coupons” and “profile based coupons”.

Reference: http://www.webwire.com/ViewPressRel.asp?aId=124036