Euro iPhone News

A new report from ComScore shows that Nokia still has a commanding share of the EU5 (France, Germany, Italy, Spain and UK) Smart Phone market.

During the 3 month average ending November 2011, nearly 30 million smartphone owners used Nokia devices, making it the top smartphone manufacturer in the EU5.  Nokia was the leading with a 29.7 percent of all smartphones in use, but  saw a decline of 17 percentage points in their market share over the last year.

Apple accounted for 20 percent of the smartphone device market share making it the second most popular model. Amongst the top 5, Samsung was the fastest growing smartphone handset manufacturer, increasing their market share by 9.5 percentage points to 17.5 percent in November 2011.

RIM is still struggling to remain relevant.

Judging by observations on the Tube and British Rail – iPhone continues to be the leader in London.

At long last Netflix lands in the UK. The US market leader today launches in the UK with a streaming only service for a cost of six quid a month. This is interesting as Netflix have a huge US following with close to 20 million subscribers of DVD by Post and On-Line. As more subscribers opt for the on-line only option this lets Netflix expand internationally without the pre-requisites for DVD stock and facilities.

So for£5.99 a month you can sign up. To get the best experience you need a device to power the image to the TV: xbox, wii and some DVD players plus your PC or Apple TV.

You can sign up for a free trail at Netflix.

Review at BBC read here 

With the recent Nokia and Microsoft announcement it is worth spending a little tile looking at the smart phone market and the differences in vendors between US and Europe. The Smart Phone market and the share of that market is very revealing. A recent report by Comscore nicely displays the market share and a great deal of other information on users, markets and trends and the differences between US and Europe.

These two graphs shows vendor market share: The striking points are in the US – Nokia and Symbian are virtually irrelevant with a tiny market share, as have Palm and Microsoft. It also shows the rise of Android and how it has taken share away from Apple and RIM. Of course this is market share rather than units shipped.

While in Europe. Nokia have a much, much larger starting point with close to 50% of the market. That’s a huge difference. Apple has a smaller share that in the US and Android is way down. Strangely Microsoft has a larger share in Europe than its home turf.

One key point is the outlets for iPhone and Android in the states and EU are vastly different. And in some way the EU has a more level playing field as the iPhone is available from at least two carriers in every region and the droid devices are likewise available from multiple outlets. In the UK for example iPhone is available from the original launch partner O2 that has been joined by Vodafone, Orange, 3 and T Mobile. That’s pretty much the whole market. So what ever carriers you are with you have access to an iPhone. This is in stark contrast with the US where until a week or so if you wanted an iPhone you had to be or become an AT&T subscriber.

Likewise with the Android devices they are available from so many vendors it is hard to keep to keep track of the devices and carriers, sufficient to say that both are numerous. In some ways this is different from the US where the non AT&T carriers have had to push Android as a competitor to iPhone.

With Verizon now on board this will be interesting to see that happens to market share for droids. And of course if Nokia / Microsoft can make inroads into the US and retain EU market share.

2011 will be a compelling year for the mobile industry.

What a day, after much snow UPS arrive and we have our new Mac Book Pro 15 inch beauty.  One machines chunk of finest aluminium and we have a computer body. This puppy is fast. We are happy with this.

iphone4-white

We happened to drop  into an O2 store yesterday in St Albans and the store manager was insistent that they would have white iPhones in December. He claims this is an O2 fact, even though other sources say this is not so. We need more O2 sources. So please ask your rep and let us know if this one rumour has any legs.

The Apple event this week saw the introduction of iLife 11, the latest version of iLife, the standard MAC applications suite. We saw a glimpse of the next version of OS X or as it is now called Lion. This will ship mid 2011.

And as usual in the last one more thing Steve showed two new Mac Book Air machines. This low weight machine is now available as 11 or 13 inch variants. They are even smaller and lighter than before and start at a mere £849.

Apple will open a new super large London store in Covent Garden any day now. Earlier today chairs and other Knoll products were being delivered. These items are close to the last be delivered.

This store will have a massive street presence in one of the most visited parts of London. Covent Garden is popular with both locals and tourists.

As a side note the Regent St store was packed earlier in the day.

A number of papers have reported that Vodafone will offer UK punters the chance to purchase the iPhone. This comes only a few weeks after Orange announced that it would be making iPhone available, with an expected release date in November.

This should boost competition and may even bring the price down for service plans. We say bring it on.

Is O2 about to change its pricing?

According to many rumors O2 is looking at lowering its price points for both the free 8Gb and 16Gb units. These currently require a subscriber to pony up £45 / mnth for the 8Gb and £74 for a free 16Gb.

People are saying that the price will come down in May as O2 clear the stocks for a new iPhone to be released in the summer time. But who knows.

However later today we will get a peep at the new OS as Apple are holding an invation only iPhone SDK event later today.

O2 is now offering the iPhone on a pay n’ go rate and it’s available now from O2, Car Phone Wharehouse and Apple shops.

Early reports  say it’s selling well even at 349 pounds for the 16Gb unit.