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 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.

Nokia announced the imminent arrival of two new Lumia smartphones at it's New York event today. The Lumia 920 and Lumia 820 devices integrate many of the things that Nokia and Microsoft having been working on during the last 18 months, including Windows Phone 8 operating system, wireless charging, PureView imaging technology and software to deliver some cool camera effects.

In brief, the key hardware specs of the Lumia 920 are:

- DISPLAY: A 4.5-inch display with a capacitive "Super Sensitive Touch" touchscreen interface that can be operated with/without gloves (utilising Synaptic's ClearPad Series 3 technology). The display delivers "PureMotion HD+", which Nokia claims is the best smartphone display technology around, combining greater than 720HD resolution with a very fast refresh rate. It also includes sunlight readability sensors and smart polarisers that change the colours and tones of the display to make it readable in direct sunlight.

- CAMERA: An 8.7MP CMOS sensor with Carl Zeiss optics, combined with Nokia's PureView imaging technology that first appeared in the 41MP Nokia 808 device a few months ago. The Lumia 920 takes excellent photos and HD video even in poor lighting conditions thanks to two key innovations: firstly an aperture of f/2.0 which allows an enormous amount of light to be captured and allows the use of a large silicon sensor in a thin form factor; and secondly floating lens technology that provides image stabilisation and allows the shutter to stay open longer without creating blurred images. Nokia claims that the Lumia 920 captures 5 to 10 times the amount of light that other cameraphones capture. The key to the image stabilisation feature is tiny springs that are mounted on the whole camera module, not just on the lens.

- BATTERY: The Lumia 920 is powered by a massive (for Nokia) 2000 mAh Li-Ion battery, but the main innovation here is the integration of wireless charging using the Wireless Power Consortium's "Qi" standard. This is a big boost for Qi and the WPC as Nokia brings other partners to the market too, including Virgin Atlantic and the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf, who will have charging stations in their business lounges and coffee tables respectively. This will hopefully propel Qi forward to create a single standard, increasing compatibility and reducing fragmentation in the wireless charging landscape.

- PROCESSOR: Qualcomm's 1.5GHz Dual-core Snapdragon S4 processor, MSM8960, is at the heart of the Lumia 920. It's a low-power, high-performance processor built on the leading-edge 28nm process node, delivering a stutter-free user experience and long(er) battery life. The modem in the MSM8960 supports 5 LTE bands and 4 HSPDA bands. Qualcomm's stranglehold on the Windows ecosystem is now in its third year of exclusivity.

- MEMORY: 32GB NAND Flash. Nothing sensational here and no memory card slot despite WP8 now supporting removable memory. Also, only one memory capacity option, unlike some of Nokia's competitors who offer higher memory capacity options for an extra $100, over 90% of which is pure profit. Has Nokia missed a trick here?

The Lumia 820 has some subtle differences:

- DISPLAY: 4.3 inch AMOLED display with 480x800 resolution, compared with the Lumia 920's 4.5-inch IPS-TFT with 720x1280 resolution.

- CAMERA: Same resolution 8MP main camera, but an aperture of f/2.2, compared with 8MP f/2.0 on the Lumia 920.

- BATTERY: A smaller 1650mAh battery. Still with wireless charging, this time in an exchangeable shell!

- PROCESSOR: Same.

- MEMORY: 8GB embedded NAND FLASH plus a microSDHC card slot supporting up to 32GB external memory, compared with the Lumia 920's 32GB and no slot.

The Lumia 920 is the culmination and integration of technology that has appeared in multiple Nokia devices recently. It takes the best of the Lumia 900's large display size, with the aesthetically pleasing curved display on the Lumia 800 and the incredible camera technology on the Symbian-based 808 PureView and mixes them up with some cutting-edge new image stabilisation camera technology, 4G LTE support, NFC, wireless charging and of course Windows Phone 8 .... Not bad Nokia!

Read the first impressions from our User Experience Practice of the Lumia 920's appeal to smartphone users here - Will Consumers Switch OS to get a Nokia Lumia Windows Phone 8?

- Stuart Robinson

Global smartphone shipments grew +43% year-on-year in Q1 2012. The growth was almost entirely due to the popularity of Android and Apple’s iOS, which now account for a record 8 in 10 of all volumes. Blackberry OS fell to its lowest global marketshare level since 2006, while Microsoft showed emerging signs of life. This published report, available for download by clients to our Wireless Smartphone Strategies (WSS) service, tracks global smartphone operating system shipments and marketshare on a quarterly basis from 2009 to Q1 2012.

Yesterday’s Nokia announcement at CES of an AT&T-bound Lumia 900 Windows Phone with LTE represents a significant win for the device vendor, whose marketshare in the smartphone-hungry North American market, as illustrated here, has been on a steady decline for at least the past 4 years.

Together with the earlier-announced T-Mobile version of the Lumia 710, Nokia will now have at least two smartphones selling in the US that are not based on Symbian, a platform that had only niche appeal to US consumers and operators.

According to the Strategy Analytics Handset Country Share Tracker (HCST) service, T-Mobile was Nokia’s most important operator client for smartphones in the US in 2011, as the vendor’s business-centric Eseries devices are long gone from AT&T’s portfolio. So what is likely to happen with the arrival of the two new Lumia models?

At AT&T:

• Time-to-market will be a critical factor for the Lumia 900. Rival HTC has also just announced its first LTE Windows Phone, the Titan II, which could steal some of Nokia’s thunder with an early arrival. Highlighting unique-to-Nokia capabilities like Drive navigation will be critical in attracting Windows Phone buyers.
• The Lumia 900 alone will not instantly catapult Nokia into first, second, or even third place at the operator, and the vendor will be faced from heavy competition from Samsung and HTC, both of whom will be fighting for the #2 spot behind Apple.
• RIM, with its below-average superphone portfolio, could be hurt the most here. If, indeed, there is only room for 3 competing platforms, then AT&T’s OS-diverse portfolio could squeeze the BlackBerry maker’s volumes in 2012.

At T-Mobile:

• Following the recent arrival of the Sprint iPhone, T-Mobile has become the only major US operator without a strong third platform.
• The low-priced (US$50 with contract) Lumia 710 will have a lot of appeal to cost-sensitive feature phone upgraders.
• Nokia will not compete with pricy HSPA+ 4G superphones, but rather will take volume from more low-end devices from Samsung and LG, as well as T-Mobile’s own myTouch brand, as consumers look for a simpler alternative to Android.

Ultimately, the success of these two handsets depends largely on the level of promotional support given to them by the operators, especially in retail stores where a lot consumers make their decisions based on sales rep recommendations. Nokia has been working closely with both carriers on this dimension, winning critical drive slots and retail display real estate.

Finally, it is worth to note the significance of both the AT&T and the T-Mobile phone carrying the Lumia sub-brand, rather than their own re-branding. Globally recognizable, memorable sub-brands have been key parts of the strategy for the world’s leading smartphone vendors (e.g., Apple’s iPhone and Samsung’s Galaxy). In the operator-dominated US market shared brands are still a rarity, and we see this as a positive sign for Nokia’s long-term recovery.

Alex Spektor
Wireless Smartphone Strategies

This year’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES) takes place in Las Vegas, USA, from Tuesday 10th to Friday 13th January, 2012. There will be dozens of major and minor announcements vying for your attention, but here are three trends we recommend to look out for at the show:

1. Windows Phone LTE handsets

While the main mobile event of the year -- MWC -- occurs a mere six weeks afterwards, CES tends to feature a number of major handset launches of its own -- especially those with a strong focus on the valuable US market. This year, the Windows Phone ecosystem plans to revitalize its assault on the US market with a raft of LTE handsets to counter Android 4.0, Apple iOS 5 and BB10.

A hotly tipped 4G model is the successor to the Nokia Lumia 800, Nokia’s first flagship Windows phone, which was not launched in the US. Instead, Americans could get the opportunity to see what may be Nokia’s first ever superphone, perhaps an enhanced Lumia 800 with a larger screen and LTE, which could be called the Lumia 900 or simply the Nokia Ace. It is important that Nokia gets its sub-branding right for the American market, so we will be watching this one closely.

Elsewhere, HTC should be ready to launch its own LTE Windows Phone devices, while rumors indicate Samsung’s contribution to that market may also be imminent. Sony Ericsson, despite being a launch partner for Windows Phone 7, has been conspicuous by its absence so far. That might be about to change, however, if the ‘tile’ theme for its official pre-show teaser (below) is anything to go by.

 
 Source: Sony Ericsson

2. Intel Medfield devices

Despite initial hype, we’ve seen few LG Windows Phone launches in recent quarters. Two years ago LG was a lead OEM partner for Intel’s Moorestown mobile chip. Unperturbed by the absence of that chip in the broader marketplace, rumor has it that the successor to Moorestown -- the 32nm Medfield chip -- could soon make its public debut inside an LG handset.

After keeping a low mobile profile in 2011 (excluding the Infineon purchase), we expect Intel to make a bigger noise about Medfield at CES this year. While it remains to be seen whether the chip giant has managed to crack the handset market, we would be surprised if Intel didn’t significantly raise its profile in tablets, with the anticipated launch later this year of Microsoft’s Windows Phone 8 and Windows 8 possibly its best opportunity yet.

But the loudest Intel-related noise may well come from ultrabooks -- the ‘thin, light and fast bootup’ notebook platform designed to serve the market demand suggested by the popularity of the Apple MacBook Air and iPad. While not all of the ultrabooks will feature 3G chipsets, they are being positioned as ‘ultra-mobile’ devices, so that would eventually seem a natural feature for many to have.

 

3. More smartphone-to-smart-TV convergence?

2012 is the year that many major players will have a fresh crack at smart TVs. Google’s first effort last year ran out of steam pretty quickly, while Apple is publicly treating TV as nothing more than a hobby. However, we expect both companies to renew their focus on the living room in 2012, and where better to make a statement of intent than CES?

Given the expected overlap with their mobile platforms -- Android and iOS -- it stands to reason that Google and Apple will look for ways to more closely integrate your mobile device with your TV. Not only does this increase the functionality for end-users -- for example, by using the device as a remote control for media streaming -- but potentially leverages the existing commercial relationship into new product areas. Apple will not be formally present at CES, of course, but Android hardware partners we recommend investigating at the show include Samsung, LG, Sony and even Vizio.