By Anthony Wing Kosner, Contributor
“We’re at a tipping point with connected devices,” a recent blog post from Microsoft’s Internet Explorer team reads. “Every day, 3.6 million mobile devices and tablets are activated worldwide. That’s over five times more than the number of babies born each day!” They’ve got a point, but it is a sad irony for Microsoft that so few of those mobile devices run their software. …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Forbes Latest
By Daniel Sparks, The Motley Fool
Filed under: Investing
When Nokia announced its Lumia running Microsoft Windows Phone on Nov. 28, 2011, no one really knew whether the phone would be a success or not. Now, slowly but surely, the phone is gaining meaningful market share in the fast-growing smartphone market. Two recent reports, in particular, uncover surprisingly bullish data for Nokia’s Lumia.
An Apple and Google world
During the first 12 months of the phone’s existence, Lumia sales were pretty insubstantial. This changed, however, when Nokia announced 4.4 million units sold in the fourth quarter. That figure was an increase of 51% from the prior quarter.
When we consider the sales volume of its competitors, however, these numbers seem less impressive. Apple , for instance, sold 47.8 million iPhones during the corresponding quarter. Samsung sold a whopping 63 million smartphones. Most of the latter devices, of course, use Google‘s Android for their mobile OS. When it comes to monster sales, Apple and Samsung are on top.
Together, Google and Apple make up about 90% of top smartphone platforms in the U.S., according to a study published last week by comScore that measures installed user base of smartphone platforms. So far, the smartphone market is still an Apple and Google world. So Microsoft‘s place in the highly competitive market may seem small, but the company is vying for third place.
Two surprising reports
comScore revealed that Microsoft earned the No. 4 spot among smartphone operating systems in the U.S., with a 3.2% share in February compared to 3% in November. BlackBerry‘s market share, on the other hand, fell substantially — from 7.3% in November to 5.4% in February. The change in sales is likely even more drastic. As MacRumors notes, “comScore’s data tracks installed user base rather than new handset sales, which means it is more reflective of real-world usage but slower to respond to shifting market trends than some other studies.”
A report from Net Applications, published last Wednesday, revealed that mobile Internet traffic generated by Microsoft’s Internet Explorer is already more than double the traffic from BlackBerry’s browser. Microsoft claimed 1.99% market share while BlackBerry’s share dipped to just 0.91%. Perhaps much of BlackBerry’s installed base of smartphones is sitting around unused.
Microsoft should claim third place
Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android still dominate the smartphone market, but Microsoft is on pace to officially claim the third spot. Recent reports of Lumia success in China — one of the world’s fastest-growing smartphone markets — indicate that Microsoft has an even better chance of attaining meaningful market share.
Is it time to bet big on Microsoft in the smartphone market? Probably not. But Microsoft is poised to potentially pull off a surprise. For now, investors should view Microsoft’s small success in smartphones as a possible upside bonus, though its continued ascent far from certain, given Apple and Google’s dominance.
It’s been a frustrating path for Microsoft investors, who’ve watched the company fail to capitalize on the incredible …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance
By Evan Niu, CFA, The Motley Fool
Filed under: Investing
In recent times, Apple has been trying to shift consumer focus away from market share in unit terms while emphasizing different usage statistics, arguing that even though people may buy competing devices, they might not be using them as much.
Well, if the Mac maker is looking for more ammo, it needs to look no further than new data out from Net Applications. The mobile version of Apple’s Safari browser has now reached 61.8% in March, well ahead of Google‘s Android browser at 21.9%. Opera Mini ranked third with 8.4% share, and Google’s Chrome grabbed a 2.4% share. Microsoft Internet Explorer earned just 2%.
Chrome for Android only launched just over a year ago, which means all smartphones running older versions of Android (which is a lot) don’t get the popular browser as a default. It can still be downloaded manually from Google Play, but the figures imply that most users just stick with what’s already there.
Apple’s figure in March was a jump from the 55.4% it posted in February, although its mobile browser share tends to fluctuate between 60% and 66% most of the time. Apple offers other browsers on its iOS platform, but subtly undermines them by only allowing Safari as the default and prohibiting alternatives from using the Nitro JavaScript Engine for better performance (Apple claims this is for security reasons).
Browser usage is just one of the numerous ways in which tech heavyweights vie for consumer mindshare, since browsers allow companies to shape how we view the Internet. Browser choice has even landed Microsoft in hot regulatory water recently, when it agreed to pay up a $732 million fine to the European Commission.
While you may think that Apple’s mobile browser share would draw regulatory scrutiny, it’s still hard to argue that Apple’s mildly anticompetitive practices are translating into total market domination, since regulators tend to focus more on unit share over usage share.
Still, the figures raise an obvious question: Why aren’t Android users browsing the web more?
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The article Apple Continues Its Mobile-Browser Domination originally appeared on Fool.com.
Fool contributor Evan Niu, CFA, owns shares of Apple. The Motley Fool recommends Amazon.com, Apple, Facebook, and Google. The Motley Fool owns shares of Amazon.com, Apple, Facebook, Google, and Microsoft. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance
