Tag: Windows Phone 8

Smartphones overtake feature phones

Posted on August 14, 2013 by - News

smartphones-genericSmartphone sales are up again, but growth is slowing. The worldwide market gobbled up 435 million phones in the second quarter, up 3.6 percent over the same period last year. However, worldwide smartphone sales have now reached 225 million units, up 46.5 percent from a year ago.

It was only a matter of time before smartphone shipments outpaced feature phone shipments and according to Gartner, this happened last quarter. Feature phone, or dumb phone shipments totalled just 210 million units, down 21 percent year-on-year.

“Smartphones accounted for 51.8 percent of mobile phone sales in the second quarter of 2013, resulting in smartphone sales surpassing feature phone sales for the first time,” said Anshul Gupta, principal research analyst at Gartner. Asia/Pacific, Latin America and Eastern Europe exhibited the highest smartphone growth rates of 74.1 percent, 55.7 percent and 31.6 percent respectively, as smartphone sales grew in all regions.

Samsung still reigns supreme, with 71.4 million units shipped last quarter and a 31.7 percent market share. Apple ranks second with 31.9 million units, but it is losing market share fast. LG and Lenovo had a very good quarter, shipping 11.5 and 10.6 million smartphones respectively. ZTE ranked fifth with 9.7 million units. Nokia, HTC, Blackberry and Sony are no longer in the top five. However, the top five vendors accounted for just 60 percent of the market, while 40 percent went to smaller outfits, including an ever increasing number of Chinese white-box manufacturers.

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Gartner found that much of Samsung’s demand is now coming from mid-tier products and high-end devices with ASPs up to $400. It concluded that Samsung needs to do more to make its mid-range offering more appealing.  Oddly enough Apple also saw a dip in ASP, which is currently at the lowest level since 2007. This is the result of surprising strong sales of the iPhone 4 in some markets. Apple has recognized the trend and it plans to introduce a new, cheaper iPhone next month.

But Lenovo is the name to look out for. It’s making a killing in the dreary PC market and it’s doing even better in smartphones, although much of its effort goes unnoticed in the west. Lenovo almost doubled its share over the last 12 months and the company plans to bring its smartphones to western markets soon, possibly even next year.

Android remains the dominant operating system, with a 79 percent share, up from 64.2 percent a year ago. Apple’s iOS ranks second with a 14.2 percent share, down from 18.8 percent in Q2 2012. Microsoft gained some ground, but Windows Phone 8 still has a tiny share, 3.3 percent, up from 2.6 percent last year. Blackberry’s share halved to 2.7 percent and the Canadian company is now looking for a buyer. As with all things Blackberry, the decision comes three years too late.

Security concerns hamper BYOD adoption

Posted on June 27, 2013 by - News, Products

Keep taking the tabletsAlthough BYOD is one of the hottest trends in the industry, it seems that the adoption of BYOD policies and gear is still being hampered by security concerns.

According to Insight UK’s latest survey, security, or more specifically data loss, is still the biggest problem concerning IT departments, at 72 percent.

However, although security is the top concerns, 55 percent of respondents said they have no plans for the introduction of BYOD policies designed to inform employees of how they should protect themselves. Three quarters of businesses questioned issuing mobile devices themselves, while one quarter allow employees to bring their own devices and access corporate networks and documents, allowing the data to leave the company every single day.

“It’s interesting to note that a year down the line almost three quarters of those businesses surveyed have seemingly moved to tackle this trend by issuing their own devices to employees and you’d think that means those allowing BYOD would now have their ducks in a line when it comes to policies surrounding this,” Ashley Gatehouse, VP EMEA Marketing, Insight, said. “To hear almost half have no plans to create a policy is clearly at odds with the raft of measures we know businesses already have in place to protect the flow of data within the corporate network. Failure to implement a policy or define rules regarding the use of personal devices at this stage of proceedings is tantamount to leaving the backdoor wide open and hoping you don’t get robbed.”

The survey also found that support for iOS and Windows is increasing, while Android and BlackBerry devices are becoming second tier. A total of 26 percent of IT departments support just iOS and Windows and going forward the divide will become even more apparent, as 38 percent plan to support Apple products and 29 percent are betting on Microsoft. Android and BlackBerry are in a different league, with 17 and 16 percent respectively.

In terms of actual support and implementation of BYOD policies, 82 percent of IT departments view security as the top concern, while device integration into existing infrastructure ranks second at 60 percent. Providing support to BYOD users is the third biggest concern, at 52 percent.

Unsurprisingly, the survey concluded that sales teams and new business teams are most likely to adopt personal devices. This probably has something to do with age, or the fact that they are on the go more often, or both.

Although not every staff member is keen to take the BYOD route, 60 percent of companies say they are implementing BYOD strategies that cover all staff, regardless of job function or status. However, 22 percent believe BYOD should be a privilege available only to senior executives.