iTunes Radio closes Pandora's box
Apple’s iTunes will add free-to-the-user online and mobile radio to the platform in the autumn of 2013, meshing music purchase with enhanced tools for discovery.
iTunes Radio also meshes with Match, the cloud-based music storage and retrieval utility sold for $24.99/year, whose users will enjoy ad-free online and mobile radio.
The main casualty of iTunes Radio is likely to be #1 US internet station Pandora, which this week launched the next phase of its battle to win the better royalty terms of commercial radio. |
Media, Internet, Music and Radio |
June 2013 Access this report
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Apple, price and market share
Apple’s numbers have got so good they’re bad: after growing at over 50% for two years, relative revenue growth has, inevitably, slowed. The products remain very strong, and direct competitors continue to have little impact. (Apple’s mobile phone market share has never been higher, for example.) However, the premium phone market itself, which the iPhone dominates, is at a potential tipping point. |
Media, Mobile, Technology, Telecoms |
April 2013 Access this report
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Samsung maintains the pace with the S4
Last week Samsung updated its flagship Galaxy S smartphone with a solid incremental upgrade that will cement its dominance of the high-end of Android, helped by a $14.7bn marketing budget and wide distribution
Impact will be strongest on other Android OEMs: the preceding S3 was heavily outsold by the iPhone and the new model is unlikely to change this, with similar design and positioning |
Mobile, Non-UK Telecoms, Technology, Telecoms |
March 2013 Access this report
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View from Mobile World Congress
Major European mobile operators were downbeat, with mobile revenue growth in Europe still massively underperforming the US, and their (misplaced in our view) anger at the OTT players being channelled into promoting new mobile OSs to compete with both Apple and Android
Samsung is cementing its dominance, while the other branded players focus on flagship models to try to cut through the noise. Meanwhile the flood of Android from Chinese OEM/ODMs is growing, at increasingly good quality. All other mobile platforms appear increasingly marginal |
Mobile, Telecoms |
March 2013 Access this report
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US Q3 handset sales: 80% smart, 41% iPhone
In Q3 the ‘big four’ US mobile operators sold 22.6m phones to retail contract customers (90% of the market): 80% were smartphones and 41% were iPhones The iPhone has had close to 50% of US smartphone sales every quarter since December 2011, when Sprint began selling the iPhone, and shows no sign of weakness US iPhone sales are supported by a market pricing structure that masks the iPhone’s price premium |
Mobile, Technology, Telecoms |
November 2012 Access this report
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Apple joins the rush for a tablet Christmas
After selling 100m iPads in 10 quarters, Apple has entered the ‘smaller, cheaper’ tablet market with the $329 (£269) iPad mini. This is well above the $200 (£159) point hit by Amazon and Google, who are selling at cost, but we expect ecosystem and design to make it a bestseller
Tablets are still in price discovery: the iPad’s US ASP has fallen from $610 to $505 since launch while Google and Amazon have found a market for smaller devices at $200. Apple is moving to extend its dominance and prevent competitors building a bridgehead in a new sub-segment |
Media, Technology, Telecoms |
October 2012 Access this report
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iPhone 5: maintaining the status quo
Apple has refreshed the iPhone with a thinner design, better performance and the addition of 4G LTE, returning it (arguably) to the status of the best phone on the market for 6-9 months, until competitors catch up again.
Apple’s choice of LTE bands gives Everything Everywhere a 12 month exclusive selling ‘4G speeds for your iPhone’ in the UK, although given that the iPhone 5 also supports the latest enhancements to 3G, the impact of this will depend much on how well it is marketed. |
Mobile, Technology, Telecoms |
September 2012 Access this report
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Announcement Season: Amazon, Nokia, Apple
Amazon, Nokia and Apple are expected to announce new mobile devices in the next fortnight. We outline the main products and features expected and their implications |
Media, Technology, Telecoms |
September 2012 Access this report
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Apple, Samsung, Patents and Android
A US jury has found Samsung infringed Apple’s patents with Android products and awarded $1bn damages. This is 17% of Samsung’s Q2 operating profit and would be crippling to any other Android OEM: it sends ripples of uncertainty through the ecosystem.
We expect the verdict to accelerate IP licensing between Apple and other Android OEMs, with Apple (like Nokia and other IP holders) levying a fee per device, though Google’s ownership of Motorola may mitigate this somewhat. |
Technology, Telecoms |
August 2012 Access this report
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Mobile platforms update, Q2 2012: Apple. Android, Samsung and Facebook
Around 125m smartphones were sold globally in Q2, up over 30% from Q2 2011. Around 450m mobile handsets were sold in the quarter, giving smartphones a volume share of around 28% Apple and Android dominate with a combined of 85% of units sold, and a cumulative total of 810m devices running their mobile platforms. Of these we estimate that 680m are active, of which 95m are tablets Android arrived later and has grown faster, but Apple’s market share of smartphones as been steady at 20-25% for several years: Android’s growth has come at the expense of Nokia, RIM and feature phones |
Mobile, Non-UK Telecoms, Technology, Telecoms |
August 2012 Access this report
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Tablets: Google and Microsoft try for second place [2012-068]
Apple sold 67m iPads through March 2012, and retains over 70% market share for premium tablets. Apple is aiming for the same long term dominance it enjoyed with the iPod, which maintained similar market share for a decade Microsoft and Google are taking radical steps to try to change this. Both are now making and selling their own hardware, while Google will sell a tablet at cost Microsoft and Google now have coherent tablet propositions, but they remain far behind on broader app ecosystems. Like Nokia, they are now back in the game, but they still have to play |
Media, Technology |
July 2012 Access this report
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UK mobile user survey 2012: networks over handsets (apart from the iPhone)
In this report we show the findings of our 2012 UK mobile user survey. The report is a wide ranging analysis of the mobile market based on our consumer research, focusing on the competitive landscape among the mobile operators and smartphone manufacturers, and the changing consumer behaviour that has and will continue to impact the market |
Mobile, Telecoms |
June 2012 Access this report
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UK internet advertising forecasts for 2012/2013
Recent news flow and feedback from media buyers indicates that growth in UK internet advertising is slowing due to the ongoing weakness in the economy
Paid search, buttressed by its link to e-commerce and measurable ROI, is suffering less than internet display, with growth in spend on social media slowing and price deflation especially for non-premium inventory
Online classifieds are also being hit by the economic woe, resulting in some sectors growing more slowly and non-advertising communications taking a larger share of spend; the secular shift to the internet continues |
Media, Internet |
June 2012 Access this report
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Apple updates the ecosystem, spurning Google
Apple has announced the features of the next version of iOS, the platform that runs the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch. Key steps includes the replacement of Google Maps with Apple’s own mapping service, Facebook integration and expanded features for the Chinese market.
By replacing Google Maps, and in numerous smaller ways, Apple is starting to direct its users away from Google: a key theme across many new features is moving search and discovery away from raw web search. |
Mobile, Technology, Telecoms |
June 2012 Access this report
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Apple, television and disruption
The Apple rumour mill turns to television, with widespread speculation that Apple will shortly announce… something, that will offer a different approach to the TV experience. However, if Apple distributes TV content in new ways, it will need to work with existing channels and often pay providers, who are unlikely to enable fundamental disruption to their business models. |
Media, TV, Fixed line, Telecoms |
June 2012 Access this report
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iPhone passes 50% smartphone share in the USA
In the last few quarters the iPhone has grown to 50% of total smartphone unit sales in the USA, while smartphones overall are now around 42% of the installed base
In the last 12 months we estimate US mobile operators spent around $15bn subsidising iPhones, slightly under 9% of their revenue |
Mobile, Telecoms |
May 2012 Access this report
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UK mobile advertising begins to take off
UK mobile advertising jumped 157% year-on-year to £203 million in 2011, marginally higher than our forecast of £180 million, with strong growth in both search and display
Mobile advertising now accounts for 6% of internet search and display spend, but still lags mobile devices’ share of internet consumption, which has been rising strongly due to rapid smartphone and tablet adoption, and we estimate is now at around 15%
We expect much of the lag between mobile’s share of internet consumption and ad spend to disappear over the next five years, indicating continued high growth |
Media, Mobile, Internet, Telecoms |
March 2012 Access this report
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Mobile revenue growth and outlook Q4 2011: from bad to worse
In this presentation we show our analysis of revenue growth trends for mobile operators in the top five European markets (UK, Germany, France, Italy and Spain). The historical analysis is based on the published results of the operators, although they include our estimates where their data is inconsistent or not complete. A copy of the underlying data in spreadsheet format is available to our subscription clients on request. |
Mobile, Telecoms |
March 2012 Access this report
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Themes from Mobile World Congress
Mobile operators, services and handset makers are diverging – they all come to the MWC but have increasingly little to say to each other as their businesses move in very different directions
In the context of -5% European mobile revenue growth, the MNOs at the MWC were a sober bunch, focusing on industrial services, defensive moves around messaging, and a (not unreasonable) plea to regulators for some relief |
Mobile, Telecoms |
March 2012 Access this report
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The new iPad: solid, predictable and devastating
Apple refreshed the iPad yesterday, delivering few surprises, a market leading product and a set of features that we expect to ensure continued dominance into 2013 |
Media, Mobile, Technology, Telecoms |
March 2012 Access this report
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