Nokia revealed the latest iteration in its flagship smartphone range today, in the form of the Lumia 925, and our Wireless Smartphone Strategies (WSS) service attended the event. As the name implies this is a refinement of the Lumia 920 concept rather than a ground-up redesign, but there are still plenty of new features to explore.

The most striking tweak is the case. For the first time with the Lumia range Nokia has incorporated aluminium into the case design. There is now rounded metal around the entire edge of the Lumia 925, blending into the screen on the front and a polycarbonate backing. Going hands-on with the Lumia 925 we found this to be a positive development as it adds a degree of sophistication and apparent durability to the device.

The whole unit now feels thinner and lighter too, which is mainly a product of the decision not to incorporate wireless charging into the core design and instead offer it as an optional, clip-on back plate. This adds a bit of extra bulk, but not prohibitively so. Nokia claims 80% of Lumia 920 consumers use wireless charging, but will this remain the case when people have to pay extra for an accessory to enable it?

The other notable industrial design tweak is a slight bulge for the camera, which may be due to the thinner body, or due to a ‘6th lens’ which is included to improve bright-light performance. Among a number of other camera tweaks in the impending Lumia Amber software update is Smart Camera, which enables a ‘burst mode’ capturing ten 5MP images in quick succession.

The premium-tier Lumia 925 will debut with Vodafone in mid-June and will appear at T-Mobile USA, China Mobile and China Unicom, among others, soon after. While still reliant on Windows Phone traction and retail execution in a bid to restore some of its lost smartphone market share, Nokia will also be partnering with the latest Superman movie, which premiers at the same time as the hard launch, for a bit of extra buzz.

Apple was in the unfamiliar position of receiving mostly negative speculation ahead of its March quarter earnings announcement, amid fears that the Apple brand was losing its lustre and that it was losing sales to cheaper Android alternatives, especially in developing smartphone markets.

In the end iPhone sales were in line with our expectations at 37.4 million units, while iPad sales were at the top end our expectations at 19.5 million units. Revenues were at the top end of Apple’s previous guidance at $43.6 billion, with revenues from Greater China at an all-time high, while gross margin was at the low end of guidance at 37.5%. This resulted in quarterly net profit of $9.5 billion, down from $11.6 billion in the year-ago quarter, the first year-on-year fall in quarterly profits by Apple for ten years, in spite of record March quarter revenues. Gross margin in the year-ago quarter was 47.4%, meaning margin has fallen by over 20% in the past year.

This margin decline points to a lower average selling price (ASP) for Apple devices. The ASP for the iPhone declined slightly year-on-year, with the lower-priced iPhone 4 contributing a higher proportion of the mix than has historically been the case thanks to being made more available in some developing markets. Furthermore, higher than expected sales of the iPad mini, following supply shortages in the previous quarter, will have been a major contributor to the margin decline by causing a lower iPad ASP.

In conclusion this was a solid quarter from Apple, with revenues beating expectations but profitability falling slightly short. iPhone shipments of 37.4 million units, at an ASP of $613 are in line with expectations, while the lower-priced iPad mini was probably the single most significant contributor to both the higher revenues and the lower profitability. Apple guided around $34.5 billion revenue and 36.5% gross margin for the June quarter, which will have done little to reassure investors concerned about Apple’s declining profitability.

Here I am discussing Apple earlier today as part of a Bloomberg TV roundtable:

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.

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.

Chinese search giant Baidu and France Telecom’s Orange are teaming to launch a data-efficient browser for low-cost smartphone users in Africa. Both players launched a co-branded version of Baidu's browser on Orange’s Egyptian operator MobiNil. The browser is a pre-installed app on carrier-sold Android-powered smartphones. It is expected that Baidu and Orange will challenge Google’s market share due to the growing smartphone adoption in the region.

The move is also quite equivalent to the impending launch of the low-cost Firefox OS mobile platform in Brazil, which is also the product of a collaboration between a browser company - Mozilla - and a global mobile operator - Telefónica.

Subscribers to Strategy Analytics’ Wireless Smartphone Strategies (WSS) services can access detailed country-level and platform-level market data on all the major African markets from this report: Global Smartphone User Base Forecast by OS for 88 Countries: 2007-2017, and can find a detailed insight into Firefox OS and the market potential for browser-based platforms in general in this report: Telefónica, Firefox & ZTE Take HTML5 Phones to the Masses.

HTC launched its new range of smartphones based around Microsoft's yet-to-be-released Windows Phone 8 operating system today. Strategy Analytics’ Wireless Smartphone Strategies (WSS) service had some hands-on time with the 8X and 8S, and here are our first impressions.

1. Hardware: Both devices use colourful polycarbonate cases that are not dissimilar to those used by Nokia for its Windows 8 smartphone generation, which are designed to complement the colourful appearance of the OS home screen. The flagship 8X has a 4.3-inch 2.5D display, while the mid-tier 8S has a 4.0-inch screen and a twin-colour design.

2. Software: Both phones, of course, run Windows Phone 8. Microsoft has yet to formally launch the latest version of its smartphone OS, so we were not given the opportunity to try it out. Among the known upgrades are a more customisable home screen and greater convergence with the PC version of Windows, but more details will have to wait until the end of October, when the formal unveiling is due.

3. Components: Both phones run Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 SoC’s, with the 8X having a 1.5GHz variant and the 8S a 1GHz one. Only the 8X supports LTE, but not the 8S, which is a weakness for a flagship model in developed markets.

4. Services: We’re not aware of any HTC-specific apps or services beyond what will be standard on Windows Phone 8. These are, however, the first HTC Windows Phone handsets to feature ‘Beats by Dr Dre’ branding.

5. Operators: 8X will be available in 50 countries beginning in early November with 126 mobile operators. The 8S will be available in 52 countries beginning in November with 146 mobile operators. This is a good level of worldwide distribution that is not far from that offered by rivals Nokia and Samsung.

6. Competitors: The comparison with Nokia’s Windows Phone 8 smartphones is inevitable. While Nokia has a special relationship with Microsoft, HTC is claiming publicly to be the Windows Phone 8 launch partner. The other main competitor is Samsung, which was the first to announce its Windows Phone 8 offering, and which is keen to lessen its dependence on Android. However the biggest competition is with other platforms: Android, iOS and BlackBerry.

* Our First Impression: HTC has produced some relatively innovative designs for its new Windows Phone generation of smartphones, but their success relies more on the willingness of Android and iOS consumers to try a different OS. Being a lead Windows Phone 8 partner should help.

The new Apple iPhone 5 will account for a large proportion of total 2012 global handset subsidies, according to Strategy Analytics’ Wireless Smartphone Strategies (WSS) service, despite only being on sale for the final four months of the year. With demand for the first 4G iPhone likely to be higher than ever, carriers will need to dig deep into their subsidy budgets to ensure they capitalize. The addition of a larger screen, better processor and 4G connectivity is likely to ensure Apple has another hit on its hands, as implied by pre-orders topping 2 million in the first 24 hours. Clients can read in-depth analysis into the implications of the iPhone 5 launch here.

At a launch event in Central London, attended by our Wireless Smartphone Strategies (WSS) service, Motorola and Intel teamed up to launch the first high-tier smartphone to run an Intel processor. The launch of the RAZR i marks an important juncture for both companies. Moto has not seen anything like the demand for its smartphones in Western Europe as it has in the Americas, and the location of this launch is most likely intended to address that. Meanwhile Intel’s Ultraphones have yet to set the industry alight, and the chip giant will be hoping to raise the profile of its handset offering with this launch.

Our first impressions of the RAZR i are that it’s a solid, well-designed device with some noteworthy features. One of the main differentiators for us is the ‘instant-launch’ camera, which allows you to go from sleep mode to taking a photo in around a second - no need to unlock, just one click to activate, and another to shoot. The Intel ‘Medfield’ chip is now clocked to 2GHz, but there is still a claimed 20 hours of ‘mixed-usage’ battery life, which seems to address any concerns about Intel’s ability to produce power-efficient mobile handset chips.

Whether all these features translate to significant sales, however, remains to be seen. Smartphone consumers are spoilt for choice by strong offerings from a large number of OEMs across several platforms, and it’s not yet clear whether Intel’s strong PC brand translates to the mobile handset sector. The Motorola RAZR i will launch in the U.K., France, Germany, Argentina, Brazil and Mexico in October, with other countries to be announced shortly, and with the right pricing could give the dominant OEMs and mobile chip-makers in those countries cause for thought.

According to the latest research published by Strategy Analytics’ Wireless Smartphone Strategies (WSS) service, smartphone shipments fell 5 percent annually to reach 24 million units in the United States during the second quarter of 2012. The Android operating system lost ground to Apple iOS as Android’s market share fell four points on an annual basis to 56 percent.

This was one of the slowest growth rates ever experienced by the important US smartphone market. A volatile economy, maturing penetration of smartphones among contract mobile subscribers, and major operators tightening their upgrade policies to enhance profits were among the main causes of the slowdown.

Android remains the number one platform by volume in the United States, but its market share is peaking as Apple iOS gains ground. Apple’s US market share has risen by ten points from 23 percent in Q2 2011 to 33 percent in Q2 2012. Apple is rumoured to be launching a new iPhone in the coming weeks, and that event, if it takes place, is going to heap even more pressure on Android in its home market.

Blackberry’s smartphone market share in the United States has dropped from 11 percent to 7 percent over the past year, reaching its lowest level in recent history. Consumers, businesses and operators continue to be frustrated by Blackberry’s limited toushcreen smartphone portfolio and repeated delays to its new BB10 operating system.

United States Smartphone OS Shipments and Market Share in Q2 2012

Ever since new RIM CEO Thorsten Heins announced a broad-based strategic review designed to identify how best to create shareholder value, rumours about the potential sell-off of some or all of the company have abounded. The latest one to do the rounds (again) is that Facebook or Amazon are two of the most likely acquirers.

With mobile having supplanted the PC as the dominant technology platform of the age, it’s easy to see why companies that owe their success to date to the internet accessed via PCs would be keen to strengthen their position in mobile by owning their own ecosystem. The Apple ‘walled garden’ strategy of controlling the hardware, software and services in order to optimise the user experience has become more fashionable following the success of its mobile devices, with even Microsoft imposing considerable restriction on Windows Phone licensees.

Amazon has already demonstrated its desire to optimise the mobile user experience via the Kindle Fire, while Facebook has yet to solve the problem of duplicating PC-based commercial models on Mobile. Acquiring RIM would give both instant significant capabilities in hardware design, their own OS and the kind of distribution network it would take years to establish from scratch.

However there are no fewer factors that warn against such a move. Assuming they have to buy the whole company, much of it would be superfluous to their core needs and they would then have to choose between shutting down those parts or partake in areas far from their core business, as well as trying to reconcile two very different corporate cultures. Also to be considered is the fact that RIM’s handset sales are in rapid decline, and the sale of a national champion may be met by significant resistance in Canada.