Global smartphone shipments increased by 38% annually in Q4 2012. This report, available to the clients of our Country Handset Share Tracker service, tracks the world's 11 leading smartphone vendors' shipments and marketshare across 15 major countries worldwide in Q1-Q4 2012. The 15 countries tracked account for 80% of total global smartphone volumes. Countries covered are: Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, UK, and the United States. This report is a valuable tool for any mobile stakeholder that wants to track smartphone vendors' operational performances at a granular country level.

According to Strategy Analytics’ Country Share Tracker (CST) service, 15 countries represented three-quarters of global smartphone shipments in Q2 2012: Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, South Africa, Spain, UK, and USA. During the quarter, Samsung was the number one smartphone vendor in 13 of these countries. Meanwhile, Apple captured the top spot in the United States, desipite early anticipation of the recently released iPhone 5. Indeed, Samsung and Apple have separated themselves from the rest of the pack, as the ony two smartphone vendors with double-digit marketshare worldiwde. More smartphone vendor shipments to 15 key countries worldwide in Q2 2012 can be viewed by clients here.

May you live in interesting times as the old Chinese proverb goes. Well in the information, communication and entertainment industry we certainly do. Some very interesting questions face our industry whether we look at:

• the outcome of much delayed Indian 3G auction or
• the battlegrounds around HSPA+ and LTE or
• the surging Android ecosystem vs. weakening Symbian or
• the upside potential for WebOS under it new owners
• the potential disruption caused by mobile cloud phones and device

Every major technology advancement has lead to a massive disruption in the handset and infrastructure vendor community.

• In 3G, Motorola’s slim myopia led to its near ruin and has provided huge growth for Samsung and a foothold in international markets for LG and SEMC.
• On the infrastructure side 3G was expertly grasped by Huawei and ZTE leading to a new wave of M & A and a new world order which counts Nortel as a victim and seriously challenges ALU.

So how will the migration to 4G change the playing field?

• Who will benefit most on the operator/service provider side?
• Will Cloud Phones be disruptive in LTE?
• Will operators find a path to realign the traffic/revenue mix with mobile broadband devices?

I would welcome your thoughts on these key questions. Also don’t forget to join our client webinar on Thursday May 27.

David

The big two Chinese vendors, Huawei and ZTE, have initially focused their handset activities on emerging markets, such as ChIndia, Africa and Latin America. Enabled by MediaTek, Qualcomm and Via chipsets, the two handset brands have achieved solid shipment growth in GSM and CDMA since 2007. Both vendors will ship tens of millions of units in emerging markets this year, mostly for low-end prepaid users, giving them a base for scale and buying power. This is phase 1.

Phase 2 of their growth targets mature regions, such as Western Europe and the US. ZTE and Huawei are using their success in emerging markets as a springboard to attack developed markets. The Chinese rightly believe carriers are king in developed countries, and they are quietly partnering with a growing number of the biggest players to deliver carrier-branded hardware. Vodafone recently unveiled 8 new Vodafone-branded models across low-, mid- and high-tiers for its European markets, 6 of which are manufactured by ZTE and Huawei. For example, the Vodafone 845 3G touch-smartphone with Android 2.1 is built by Huawei. The Vodafone 547 EDGE touchphone is made by ZTE. In the US, Huawei made the popular mid-tier Tap touchphone for T Mobile. Carriers like the cost-competitiveness and flexible customization offered by the Chinese brands, and they are useful alternatives to the European, American and Asian vendors such as HTC.

Phase 3 will eventually require a more-complex five-pronged strategy to defend against existing or potential new competitors in the operator-branded handset industry such as Sagem or  Foxconn. Huawei and ZTE will need to upgrade their companies’ competences in:

1. branding;

2. industrial design;

3. portfolio management for build-to-plan products;

4. software usability;

5. content and services.

For now, both Chinese vendors are happy to provide 3G handsets mostly as a delivery tool for operator services. For example, the Vodafone 845 from Huawei is optimized for Vodafone 360 services. But ZTE and Huawei will arguably struggle to sustainably differentiate their own brands on pricing and hardware alone. Developing a software and services (S&S) strategy beyond hardware will therefore become an important value-add for Chinese vendors to attract and retain affluent users in mature regions. An S&S strategy will subsequently open up opportunities for Chinese services brands to partner with ZTE and Huawei to showcase their products in new markets abroad. We have a Google phone and a Microsoft phone; how about a Baidu phone?