Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Thursday, February 28, 2008
One Billion Mobile Phones in 2007!
Blockbuster year for mobile phones
More than 1 billion phones were sold globally for the first time in 2007, a 16 percent increase from 2006 sales
With more than 1 billion phones sold globally for the first time, 2007 was a banner year for mobile phone sales. As sales continue to grow, the big questions this year are whether global market leader Nokia can expand in North America, and whether Motorola can stop its slide.
Worldwide sales of mobile phones ended up surpassing 1.15 billion units in 2007, a 16 percent increase from 2006 sales of 990.9 million, according to figures from Gartner. Emerging markets, especially China and India, are now the driver for growth, with many people in the countries now buying their first phone.
Nokia continues to dominate. It sold 435 million mobile phones last year, and gained a market share of more than 40 percent for the first time during the fourth quarter, according to Gartner. During 2007, Nokia's market share was 37.8 percent. It is followed by Motorola, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, and LG. Everyone except for Motorola, which lost its second place to Samsung during the fourth quarter, increased its market share.
For the full year, Motorola's market share was 14.3 percent, down from 21.1 percent. Samsung increased its market share from 11.8 percent to 13.4 percent.
Sony Ericsson and LG saw their share increase by less than 1 percent, to 8.8 percent and 6.8 percent, respectively.
Looking forward to this year, sales will continue to grow, according to Gartner. Nokia has the chance to extend its lead even further, with growth in North America the key. "In most markets, Nokia's market share is larger than 40 percent; in North America, it's close to 10 percent," said Carolina Milanesi, research director at Gartner. The Finnish phone giant has tried, and failed, to crack the North American market for many years. But changes in the market will help Nokia, according to Carolina Milanesi.
"Verizon has said it plans to open its network, which might be more on paper than in reality. But North American carriers are starting to realize they need to be more flexible than in the past. For Nokia, and everyone else, it means not having to build Verizon-specific phones, and faster time to market," she said.
In 2008, Nokia will also need to continue to improve its portfolio, offering not only more applications and functions, but also novel designs and improved user interfaces.
Nokia has recently received criticism for not releasing phones equipped with touch-based user interfaces.
"I don't think it matters that Nokia is a little late to the market, as long as it gets it right. Nokia will have to 'wow' users, otherwise it will be crucified," said Milanesi.
Nokia was also late to the market with 3G phones, but became the biggest vendor in the end. "Nokia built a platform, and was able to release a lot of phones, which made it No. 1," said Milanesi. She also thinks Sony Ericsson can grow its market share during 2008.
"Sony Ericsson has a very interesting lineup. With the addition of Windows Mobile, it has a chance to grow in North America," said Milanesi.
A big question for 2008 is the future of Motorola's mobile phone business. If it decides to sell, it's likely that the buyer will be a Chinese vendor, like ZTE.
"If it [ZTE] has the money," Milanesi said.
Friday, February 01, 2008
100 Million GPS SmartPhones?
Wellingborough - February 1, 2008 – The big names in the digital camera world are all at PMA from today and there is no doubt that GPS will be a hot topic amongst attendees. The reason for this is a host of recent announcements from GPS companies such as Air Semiconductors, SiRF, Qualcomm, u-blox, Glonav and Geotate (NXP Software’s spinoff). These companies are finally paving the way for intelligent integration of GPS in digital cameras.
All the major GPS IC companies are looking at the digital camera market because of the volumes involved (over 100million units shipped in 2006 and growing) and the interest that digital camera manufacturers are showing in the technology. These manufacturers have been looking at GPS technology for years now and they have all been facing the issue of the usage mode of digital cameras (click and go). This conflicts directly with GPS, which can require tens of seconds (or sometimes minutes) in order to get a location fix (TTFF).
As outlined in IMS Research’s report “The Worldwide Market for GPS/GNSS-enabled Portable Devices”, solving this conflict is a key element for a successful uptake of the technology in the market. Matia Grossi, author of the report, said “camera manufacturers are unsure of traditional solutions because they are too power hungry, too expensive and take too long to get a location fix. The imminent arrival of GPS-enabled cameraphones, has placed increased emphasis on addressing this capability. Furthermore in the past years their margins have thinned significantly, with the commoditization of their products and the competition from the cellular market, making the issue even more complicated. At the moment there are limited GPS-enabled solutions, mostly in the high-end SLR market using external (and expensive) devices”.
“A new wave of GPS techniques are emerging that will solve the issue in different and innovative ways. As a result, IMS Research’s forecasts that the GPS camera market will show very strong growth over the next 5 years growing from a sub-million unit market in 2006, with a CAGR of over 200%. Currently, two of the most interesting ones are those brought to the market by Geotate and Air Semiconductor.
Thursday, January 31, 2008
GPS design changes cameraphone power consumption - 1% !!
New GPS Chip News - 1/100th the power requirements
This solution could make GPS an integrateable solution for just about any thing.... Now if it is accuracte to 2, 8, 16 meters?Air Semiconductor, a fabless GPS semiconductor company formed in May 2006, has announced today its first product, Airwave1, that deliver low power continuous GPS tracking in order to solve the time to first fix issue for non-connected consumer electronics devices. Air Semiconductor claims its Airwave-1 chip consumes “only 1% of power required by current GPS solutions”.
Garmin to build a GeoMobile Phone
Updated: Edited link, added info.
Garmin, maker of GPS products, announced a brand new product called the nuvifone. The nuvifone is a cell phone that resembles the iPhone and is loaded with applications and services from Google. It has HSDPA for 3G connectivity and uses a large touch screen for user input. Some of the services on the nuvifone are Google Local Search, Gmail and Maps with access to local traffic reports and Google Panaramio. One feature, called Where Am I?, automatically locates the device and displays coordinates, as well as lists the closest hospitals, police stations and gas stations. It has an MP3 player, shoots video and stills with automatic geotagging. It also has Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and full GPS. No word on pricing or carrier support in the U.S. It will not be available until the third quarter.
I am going to ad links to this sort ast it devlopes..
From the handheld GPS side.. htttp://gpstracklog.typepad.com/gps_tracklog/
Monday, January 28, 2008
Several Intrresting Links
An interesting set of bookmarks...
My del.icio.us bookmarks for January 28th
These are my links for January 28th:
Saturday, January 19, 2008
Geotagging via CAN - Camera Area Network
A good article on Geotagging via camera area networking ...
except they left out solutions from Red Hen Systems.
NEW YORK (AP) -- To plan an upcoming hike in the Alps, John Higham scoured scores of photos plotted along his route on a digital map for clues to the steepness of trails and the availability of accommodations or camp sites.
These images were just like all the other vacation photos shared by travelers and amateur photographers, except they'd been tagged with location information in an emerging practice known as ''geotagging.''
Armed with such data, Higham didn't have to search endless combinations of keywords and guess how photographers would describe images in captions. By zooming in on the map, he could easily find geotagged photos along the Via Alpina and gain a fresh perspective.
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