Our Wireless Smartphone Strategies (WSS) service tracked Coolpad ranked the 11^th largest smartphone vendor globally in 2012, with 2.6% marketshare. It grew smartphone volume by 108% YoY from 2011, indicating the Shenzhen-based Chinese vendor is ambitious to push into the top 10 club this year.

The company is on the right track to become a 3G smartphone specialist, with an encouraging breakthrough recently also in the North American 4G LTE market. Its first LTE phone at MetroPCS achieved an encouraging start last year.

However, how to further define and implement its overseas strategy, especially in North America and West Europe, remains the key for the rising Chinese brand. We would recommend Coolpad to:

- Launch a decent flagship model with a unified sub-brand (like Samsung Galaxy, Huawei Ascend does) globally;

- Initially target prepaid carriers / customers because prepaid segment is price-sensitive and accessible for Chinese brands;

- Prepare for the potential IPR risks associated with overseas expansion. Coolpad is reportedly have accumulated over 4000 handset related patents at this moment, however, it is still vulnerable to get involved into IPR war. We believe patent swap would be an effective way to ease risks;

- Branding and marketing initiatives are needed to tap into richer customers in developed markets;

- Prepare for the direct competition with Huawei and ZTE in overseas market. Compared with the two rivals, Coolpad exclusively focuses on the smartphone market and lacks synergy among different product lineups. We would recommend Coolpad to further differentiate from rivals with improved hardware designs and more localized services and apps (e.g. social networking);

- Balance volume and profitability. Shifting upwards with more mid- and high-tier models, in order to improve ASP and profit margin, which will ensure the Hong Kong listed-company has sufficient cash on hands for the upcoming overseas expansion.

Smartphone shipments in the United States grew 25% annually in Q4 2012. Apple captured the number one smartphone spot overall, as well as the top smartphone vendor ranking at the country's two largest operators, Verizon Wireless and AT&T. Android partners, such as Samsung, LG, HTC and Huawei, combined to keep the Google platform as the number two OS overall. The full report, USA Smartphone Vendor Marketshare by Operator: Q4 2012, available to the clients of our handset country share tracker (CST) service, tracks mobile smartphone shipments, vendor marketshare, and OS marketshare for 20 major vendors and 5 major platforms in the United States across 4 top operators and total market on a quarterly basis from Q1 2011 to Q4 2012.

Our Handset Country Share Tracker (CST) team attended the launch of the new Samsung Galaxy S4 smartphone at Radio City in New York, US, on Thursday 14th March, 2013. Several thousand attendees joined the event.

We trialed the S4 earlier this week and were briefed on the strategy behind it. This is a concise summary of our initial analysis:

Key Hardware: As expected, the S4 contains a 5.0-inch, full-HD, super AMOLED display with an impressive 441ppi in a rounded-slate formfactor. There are Qualcomm Snapdragon quad-core / Samsung Exynos octo-core chipsets, varying by region. Other specs include 2GB RAM, dual-camera, NFC and MHL. The S4 looks visually similar to the previous S3, but the materials feel better quality and it is slimmer, lighter and nicer to hold in the hand.

Key Software: Samsung has clearly worked hard on its software and the results are impressive. There is finger-hover for the touchscreen, gesture recognition, improved eye-tracking, and better camera-editing.

Key Services: Samsung has layered a rich suite of Samsung proprietary services on top of the Android Jelly Bean OS. There are plenty of “S” services, such as S-Health and S-Translator. Google will be worried by this.

The S4 will launch commercially in the US and worldwide at the end of April 2013. Versions will support 3G, 4G and TD-LTE. There are 325 carriers in 166 countries onboard, such as AT&T and Verizon Wireless. Pricing will be Note-like.

We forecast tens of millions of units to be shipped worldwide this year. Provided there are no major "hidden" bugs that become apparent after launch, the S4 will be another blockbuster product for Samsung.

Which competitors will be impacted by the S4? Apple, LG, Sony, HTC, Blackberry, Nokia, Huawei, ZTE and Motorola will all be getting some sleepless nights in the next few weeks. Models such as iPhone 5 and HTC One could feel some pain.

We will publish a full report to clients on Friday 15th March, 2013.

Our Handset Country Share Tracker (CST) team attended the launch of the new Samsung Galaxy S4 smartphone at Radio City in New York, US, on Thursday 14th March, 2013. Several thousand attendees joined the event.

We trialed the S4 earlier this week and were briefed on the strategy behind it. This is a concise summary of our initial analysis:

Key Hardware: As expected, the S4 contains a 5.0-inch, full-HD, super AMOLED display with an impressive 441ppi in a rounded-slate formfactor. There are Qualcomm Snapdragon quad-core / Samsung Exynos octo-core chipsets, varying by region. Other specs include 2GB RAM, dual-camera, NFC and MHL. The S4 looks visually similar to the previous S3, but the materials feel better quality and it is slimmer, lighter and nicer to hold in the hand.

Key Software: Samsung has clearly worked hard on its software and the results are impressive. There is finger-hover for the touchscreen, gesture recognition, improved eye-tracking, and better camera-editing.

Key Services: Samsung has layered a rich suite of Samsung proprietary services on top of the Android Jelly Bean OS. There are plenty of “S” services, such as S-Health and S-Translator. Google will be worried by this.

The S4 will launch commercially in the US and worldwide at the end of April 2013. Versions will support 3G, 4G and TD-LTE. There are 325 carriers in 166 countries onboard, such as AT&T and Verizon Wireless. Pricing will be Note-like.

We forecast tens of millions of units to be shipped worldwide this year. Provided there are no major "hidden" bugs that become apparent after launch, the S4 will be another blockbuster product for Samsung.

Which competitors will be impacted by the S4? Apple, LG, Sony, HTC, Blackberry, Nokia, Huawei, ZTE and Motorola will all be getting some sleepless nights in the next few weeks. Models such as iPhone 5 and HTC One could feel some pain.

We will publish a full report to clients on Friday 15th March, 2013.

Mobile handset shipments experienced a slowdown in the United States and Canada in Q1 2012, while volume growth in Brazil and Mexico well out-paced the global +4% growth rate. Samsung maintained top spot in Brazil, while Nokia regained the leading position in Mexico. Apple continued to ramp up across Canada and the US, in both of which it holds a solid number two position thanks to an expanded operator presence and a multi-tier iPhone family. This published report, available for download to clients of our Handset Country Share Tracker (CST) service, tracks quarterly handset shipments and vendor marketshare for 4 major countries in North and South America from Q1 2009 to Q1 2012. They are Brazil, Canada, Mexico and USA.