According to our Wireless Smartphone Strategies (WSS) service, global smartphone revenues will grow +37% over the next 5 years. Increasing smartphone volumes will be partly offset by decreasing price points, as vendors and operators penetrate deeper into the price-sensitive prepaid market. Falling component prices will enable sales expansion in lower price-tiers, particularly for emerging markets like Asia and Latin America. Meanwhile, Apple and others will continue to target the subsidy-led premium category. Our detailed report forecasts global smartphone sales volume, revenues and wholesale ASPs by six major regions and five price-tiers from 2003 to 2017. Extensive analysis of the premium, high, mid, entry and ultra-low price-bands is included. The published report can be downloaded by clients here.

Tizen OS is being heavily supported by Samsung and others as an alternative smartphone platform to Android. Is Tizen a credible Android challenger? Or will it be a "Bada 2.0" flop? Extensive analysis and Tizen smartphone forecasts for 88 countries can be downloaded by clients in this published report, from our Wireless Smartphone Strategies (WSS) service.

Ubuntu OS is being hyped as an emerging smartphone platform that could be a long-term alternative to Android. What opportunities and threats does the Ubuntu OS face? Will it be low-cost enough and have a decent services ecosystem? Extensive analysis and forecasts for 88 countries can be downloaded by clients in this published report, from our Wireless Smartphone Strategies (WSS) service.

Apple iOS has reached a fork in the strategic road. Should Apple continue along its current path and do nothing? Or should Apple downscale and upscale into smaller and bigger screens? Extensive analysis and forecasts of Apple iOS sales for 88 countries can be downloaded by clients in this published report, from our Wireless Smartphone Strategies (WSS) service.

According to the latest research from our Wireless Smartphone Strategies (WSS) service, global Android smartphone profits reached US$5 billion in total during the first quarter of 2013. Samsung dominated and captured an impressive 95 percent share of all Android smartphone profits.

We estimate the global Android smartphone industry generated total operating profits of US$5.3 billion during Q1 2013. The Android platform accounted for 43 percent share of the entire smartphone industry’s operating profits, which reached US$12.5 billion worldwide in the first quarter of this year.

We estimate Samsung’s Android smartphone shipments generated US$5.1 billion of operating profit worldwide in Q1 2013. Samsung captured a huge 95 percent share of all Android smartphone industry profits. An efficient supply chain, sleek products and crisp marketing have been among the main drivers of Samsung’s impressive profitability. LG followed in second place and took 3 percent global profit share. LG delivered a small profit during the quarter, but it currently lacks the volume scale needed to match Samsung’s outsized profits.

Samsung is, for now, the undisputed king of the global Android smartphone industry. We believe Samsung generates more revenue and profit from the Android platform than Google does. Samsung has strong market power and it may use this position to influence the future direction of the Android ecosystem. For example, Samsung could request first or exclusive updates of new software from Android before rival hardware vendors.

Exhibit 1: Global Android Smartphone Profit Share in Q1 2013 [1]

Facebook Home, announced last week and due to be released on Friday April 12, occupies a space somewhere in-between an app and a bespoke user interface, or ‘skin’. Unlike OEM skins, Home is optional and requires manual download by the end-user, but unlike most apps, Home is intended to supplant the native user interface of the device.

The potential positives for end-users revolve around easier access to Facebook from your smartphone and a deeper, more intuitive integration of Facebook services such as photo sharing, instant messaging and event notification. However this is a double-edged sword, and all but the most committed Facebook users may view such a comprehensive change in the user experience as a negative, especially if native apps such as Maps, Gmail, search, etc are made more difficult to use. We believe this will result in a large proportion of the initial installs of Facebook Home after its release this Friday will subsequently be uninstalled.

The potential positives for Facebook will come mainly from greater user-engagement with Facebook on mobile and an enhanced ability to monetise that activity - through targeted advertising pushed to the ‘Cover Feed’ for example - which Facebook is under considerable pressure to achieve. The main threat to Facebook from Home will be in the form of potential negative publicity regarding the user-experience compromises the app requires and, of course, privacy concerns arising from such deep Facebook integration.

Among the major smartphone OSs, Facebook Home is likely to be restricted to Android, as iOS, Windows Phone and BlackBerry make no claims to being ‘open’ and are under no obligation to accommodate Facebook’s attempt to replace their own UI. While we expect the majority of users to continue to access Facebook via a browser or the less intrusive native mobile apps currently on offer (assuming Facebook maintains them), if even 5% of Android users retain Home as their UI that would give Facebook tens of millions of Home users in 2013. Facebook may attempt to increase this proportion through revenue-sharing arrangements with OEMs and mobile operators (most likely tier 2 and below), but the more coercive it is in encouraging end-users to use Home, the greater the likelihood of public backlash and consequent damage to the Facebook brand in general.

According to our Wireless Smartphone Strategies (WSS) service, smartphone sales volumes will surge +56% in Africa Middle East this year. The rate of growth in Africa is almost two times higher than the global average. Growth will be driven by first-time buyers and 2G handset upgraders in major countries such as Nigeria, Egypt and Saudi Arabia. More details can be viewed by clients in this published report, which forecasts worldwide smartphone sales for 88 countries globally, including Brazil, Spain, Russia and others.

According to our Wireless Smartphone Strategies (WSS) service, smartphone sales volumes will surge +69% in India this year. The rate of growth in India is two times higher than the global average. Growth will be driven by a wave of low-cost Android and Microsoft models for prepaid users from companies like Samsung, Micromax and Nokia. More details can be viewed by clients in this published report, which forecasts worldwide smartphone sales for 88 countries globally, including India, China, US and others.

According to our Wireless Smartphone Strategies (WSS) service, global smartphone sales will grow by +33% in 2013. Asia Pacific will remain the largest region, accounting for half of global smartphone sales in 2013. The two largest countries by far in 2013 will be the USA and China. This published report, available to clients, forecasts global smartphone sales, for 88 countries worldwide, from 2007 to 2017. Almost every major country worldwide is covered, including United States, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Russia, Brazil, Mexico, South Africa, Saudi Arabia, UK, Germany, France, Italy and Spain. This report can be used by operators, software developers, content developers, handset vendors, component makers, car manufacturers and other stakeholders to determine the size and growth rate of the huge global smartphone market.

Andy Rubin, the boss and creator of the dominant global smartphone operating system, has stepped down from running Android in order pursue other avenues within Google, stressing “I’m an entrepreneur at heart.” Android was bought as a start-up by Google back in 2005, with Rubin kept in charge, and he spent the next eight years getting Android to the point it’s at now. But as he has said himself, Rubin is a product development guy rather than an operations guy, and he seems to be keen to get stuck into something new, maybe at Google’s mythical X Lab together with Google co-founder Sergey Brin, who also seems to prefer inventing to running things.

In the short term this should have little bearing on Android, which after all is also looked after by the Open Handset Alliance.  Rubin’s shoes are being filled by Sundar Pichai, who already runs the Chrome browser and Google Apps web applications arms of Google, so he is a steady pair of hands. But in the longer term, Rubin’s departure could well coincide with the need for Google reassess what its strategic aims are for Android. It’s got more installed base than Google could possibly have wished for, but effectively capitalising on that installed base is another matter.

Android so far has existed mainly to compete with Apple, but Chrome and Google Apps are more targeted at Microsoft products such as Internet Explorer and Office. Apple has its desktop and mobile operating systems on a convergent path, while Microsoft has made its intentions clear by shoe-horning the Metro UI on top of the latest version of Windows. Google has responded by ramping up its Chromebook operations, but it seems inevitable now that Android and Chrome OS will also merge in the not too distant future. With a unified OS across all devices - mobile, tablet, PC, TV, console, car, etc, choosing a platform looks set to be one of the biggest lifestyle choices a consumer can make. By replacing Rubin with Pichai Google is positioning itself for the next phase of the platform wars.