iTrouble for iPhone, Samsung outships Apple by 2-to-1 from April to June, new report shows @ Jason Lewis Site的部落格

iTrouble for iPhone, Samsung outships Apple by 2-to-1 from April to June, new report shows

By Robert Dominguez / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

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The South Korean electronics giant, already the global market leader in smartphone sales, shipped an estimated 52.1 million devices in the second quarter, Juniper said -- twice the 26 million iPhones that Apple said it sold.

A visitor tries out the Samsung Galaxy S III smartphone at the company's flagship store in Seoul, South Korea.

As far as smartphone sales go, the newest Galaxy helped put the iPhone in a world of hurt.

Samsung outshipped Apple by a two-to-one margin in the April to June period, according to a Juniper Research report released Thursday.

Much of Samsung's strong sales was due to the success of the new Galaxy S III phone, which launched in June and was an immediate hit with users and tech reviewers, the report said.

The so-called iPhone killer -- the S III has a larger screen, higher resolution and other features to rival the iPhone -- moved 10 million units in June.

"At the end of the day, the S III is really strong competition for the iPhone," Jonathan Geller, editor-in-chief of tech site BGR.com (Boy Genius Report), told the Daily News.

"But keep in mind that the iPhone was released nearly a year ago, so for an ¡®old' phone it didn't do that badly."

Consumers waiting for the expected release of the iPhone 5 in the fall may have also contributed to Apple's disappointing earnings report, Geller said.

The Juniper report estimated 132.9 million smartphones shipped in the second quarter, up from 105.2 million a year ago.

iPhone 5 Rumors Could Hurt Apple, But Benefit Verizon, ATandT

By: Michelle Maisto

NEWS ANALYSIS: Verizon Wireless and AT&T posted surprisingly strong second-quarter earnings, given that rumors of an upcoming iPhone 5 likely delayed some iPhone sales. While those missed sales hurt Apple, they seem to have benefited the carriers.

Smartphone and tablet usage is up, Americans are burning through more data than ever, and the wireless carriers, which have invested billions of dollars to get to this point, are beginning to enjoy the results.

They're also enjoying what the Apple iPhone has helped to create, even in absentia.

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AT&T this quarter announced its "best-ever wireless margins," a $1 billion wireless data revenue increase from a year ago, and sales of 5.1 million smartphones. Wireless service revenues increased 4.3 percent, to $14.8 billion, and its postpaid ARPU--or, average revenue per user--grew to $64.93.

Verizon Wireless' wireless service revenues increased 7.3 percent year-over-year, to $15.8 billion. It sold 5.9 million smartphones during the quarter, 3.2 million LTE devices, and raised its ARPU to a three-year high of $56.13.

Even the long-struggling Sprint, while posting a net operating loss of $629 million, largely related to its closure of the Nextel iDEN network, grew its net operating revenues to $8.8 billion from $8.3 billion a year ago, and noted that the improvement was "primarily due to higher wireless service revenues." It also increased its ARPU by $4.31--the largest such year-over-year increase on record for the U.S. wireless industry.

Further encouraging data use, in recent weeks Verizon Wireless and AT&T each announced plans in which multiple devices can draw from a single data allotment, making it more likely for users to purchase or activate 3G- and 4G-enabled tablets, instead of relying on WiFi or delaying a tablet purchase.

Also working to the benefit of the carriers during the quarter were rumors of the upcoming iPhone 5. While Apple partly attributed these rumors--which presumably caused consumers to delay new iPhone purchases--to a fiscal performance that broke records but nonetheless came in under Wall Street's expectations--the dip in iPhone sales had the opposite effect on the carriers. With fewer iPhones sold, they paid out fewer subsidies, leaving them with more dollars.

"Mobile operators have really been focusing on developing more diversified device portfolios, and are trying to make sure that they're not too dependent on any single vendor's products, particularly the iPhone," Ken Hyers, a senior analyst with Technology Business Research (TBR) told eWEEK.

"I think the results from this past quarter show that they are succeeding, as more consumers look beyond the iPhone to other smartphones," Hyers continued. "Comscore today reported that 62 percent of first-time smartphone buyers chose an Android device. I see this trend holding, as consumers look for easy-to-use smartphones that often come with significant discounts from operators. Android devices are quite appealing to operators because even when they are heavily subsidized, the cost to operators is still less than the cost to an operator of a subsidized iPhone."

Pund-IT principal analyst Charles King, while unconvinced that iPhone 5 expectations explain away the "dent" in Apple's sales, agrees that the carriers have moved past the days when the iPhone could make or break a quarter for the carriers.

"Whereas the tablet market is mostly about the iPad just now, Apple is just one more player in smartphones," King told eWEEK. "Plus, the market for those devices seems to be growing much faster than even the most optimistic expectations for the iPhone 5. Bottom line--the global demand for powerful smartphones is acting like a classic ¡®rising tide' that benefits most every wireless vendor and [service provider]."

TBR's Hyers believes the carriers will later this year put significant marketing resources into the Microsoft-running Nokia Lumia line, so great is their desire for a third platform and brands beyond the iPhone.

That said, he added, "I'm sure that all of the operators are looking forward to the iPhone 5 and the huge spike in sales that will inevitably result when it comes out."

New Showyou App is the Best Way to Find Video on Your iPhone

By Brad Spirrison

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Showyou, already our favorite iOS application for video discovery, today debuts a fully revamped iPhone app that separates the service from the pack of worthy competitors.

If you haven't used Showyou before, the app in many (but not all) ways is like a Flipboard for videos. Showyou showcases videos shared by members of your social graph (most prominently Facebook, Twitter and users you follow within the app), as well as from a growing list of professional providers ranging from Charlie Rose to The Onion to The Bleacher Report.

Both the iPad version -- which launched in April and received a significant update earlier this year -- and the iPhone app divide discovery into four channels: Popular, Following, Twitter and Facebook.

But if you think the interface and backend algorithms for both apps would be relatively similar, think again.

iPhone app no longer a "second class citizen"

Up until this year, the team behind Showyou has focused exclusively on its iPad application. While this helped earn the company accolades, including an AppStore Rewind shout out from Apple last year, the iPhone app up until now was never anything special.

"It was clear that we really needed to do a proper version of the app," said Mark Hall, CEO of Showyou's parent company Remixation.

Most notably, the back-end technology that showcases apps in each Showyou channel more heavily weights social signals. So rather than seeing the most recent app shared by a Facebook friend or somebody you follow from Twitter front and center, the new algorithm takes into consideration the number of times it has been shared or cited over a period of time, and surfaces the most popular videos to the top. Further, the app neatly displays the network each video is shared from, along with a stream of associated comments.

"We take social activity from all of those heterogeneous sources to show the best 15 or 20 videos at any point of time," Hall said.

And not all of the changes are on the inside. While the iPad app takes advantage of larger screen size to showcase a sprawling but playful interface, the new iPhone app is more top-down in terms of how it surfaces videos. What the iPhone version loses in serendipity it gains in efficiency. In fact, if you have an iPhone 4 or 4S, the Showyou iPhone app is arguably a better remote control interface for Apple TV display mirroring than its iPad counterpart. Showyou is also our favorite app to watch on Apple TV via AirPlay Mirroring.

Unlike Flipboard, none of the videos on Showyou are editorially curated.

Other new or reconfigured features in the iPhone app include the ability to share videos with connected Showyou users and iPhone contacts with one tap, as well as a "Thanks" gesture to acknowledge the receipt of a cool video without having to write a pithy comment to show appreciation.

One popular feature shared by iPhone and iPad apps are push notifications. The difference and advantage of the iPhone app here is that users are much more likely to have that device with them, letting them see and view clips shared with them right away and in the moment.

Android next?

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Hall said that his team is working on creating a universal Android application, but the focus currently is on the two iOS apps, as well as a desktop version of Showyou that came out earlier this year. While Showyou is available for the Kindle Fire, Hall acknowledged that the company might de-list that version.

"Kindle is a bit of a misfire of a platform for apps like ours," he said.

Remixation, which is based in San Francisco, has raised at least $2 million to date. The company's lead investor is True Ventures. While the small team is not yet focused on monetization, Hall said he plans to explore advertising as well as commercial models around the delivery of paid content later this year.

AT&T Should Renew Its iPhone Vows

The earnings figures speak for themselves

By Evan Niu

Remind me again why AT&T was shifting so much marketing attention away from Apple's iPhone in favor of Nokia's Lumia 900? Oh yes, that's right. It's because wireless carriers generally loathe innovation and push whatever exclusive devices they can get their hands on for the sake of differentiation.

The market has voted

Ma Bell's earnings speak for themselves, though: Consumers still just want the iPhone. The company sold 3.7 million iPhones during the second quarter, nearly three-quarters of the total 5.1 million smartphones sold. AT&T continues to outpace red rival Verizon in iPhone sales, as Big Red put up 2.7 million iPhone activations recently.

That means the remaining 1.4 million smartphones sold on AT&T last quarter are split between Google Android handsets and Microsoft Windows Phone devices. The Lumia 900 is AT&T's current exclusivity play, which also just got its price dropped to $50 on contract amid the lack of upgradeability for the devices to Windows Phone 8.

To an extent, AT&T is interested in shifting consumer focus away from the iPhone, which is now available on all three largest carriers. It would prefer to get subscribers onto an exclusive device for customer lock-in, but clearly the iPhone continues to sell itself.

Back to basics

Total revenue came in at $31.6 billion for the second quarter, resulting in net income of $3.9 billion, or $0.66 per share. Operating cash flow was $9.7 billion, of which $4.5 billion was spent on capital expenditures. That leaves roughly $5.1 billion in free cash flow.

AT&T also repurchased 75.8 million shares for $2.5 billion during the quarter, and still has more than 150 million shares authorized under the repurchase program.

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The company also achieved its highest-ever wireless margins and best churn figures. Postpaid churn fell to 0.97%, a healthy improvement from the 1.15% a year ago. Overall churn also decreased to 1.18%. AT&T saw 1.3 million net wireless additions, of which 320,000 were in the lucrative postpaid segment. The carrier now has 43 million smartphone subscribers.

Wireless service sales rose to $14.8 billion, while data revenue increased by nearly 19% to $6.4 billion. Wireless operating expenses were flat from a year ago, allowing margins operating margins to expand to 30.3%, a meaningful gain relative to the 26.9% a year ago.

Postpaid subscriber average revenue per user, or ARPU, jumped to $64.93, which Ma Bell calls "the highest in the industry." This is the 14th consecutive quarter that the carrier has posted year-over-year increases in its postpaid ARPU segment. Postpaid data ARPU jumped 14.1% to $28.04.

Smartphones continue to steal the show, representing 77% of postpaid device sales. Within AT&T's overall postpaid subscriber base, smartphone penetration has now reached 62%, or 43.1 million users. That's up from roughly 50%, or 34.1 million, a year ago. Smartphone users have doubled the ARPU of nonsmartphone users as well as significantly lowered churn levels.

Keepin' on

The wireline business remained healthy, if not exciting. Total revenue was $14.9 billion, down slightly. Voice revenue continues to fall, but that was somewhat offset by growth in other business service segments. AT&T said it has returned to enterprise revenue growth after more than four years of declines. Business data sales also grew as companies migrated from older data products to more modern offerings.

AT&T U-verse subscribers now stand at 6.8 million, with residential customer revenue of $5.5 billion. Again, we see a trend of ditching older technologies like voice in favor of data service. ARPU for U-verse triple-play subscribers came in at $170.

Check or bet

Smartphones are the strongest aspect of the business right now, helping boost wireless subscriber ARPU and keeping subscribers on board. With the Lumia 900 exclusive card, AT&T is simply playing the hand it's been dealt. Still, users clearly still just want the iPhone.

Apple is one of few phone makers that can override carrier demands and call the shots, which is why its growth story isn't over. Sign up for The Motley Fool's brand new premium Apple research service to read more.

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