Business

A report by research firm Strategy Analytics shows that Samsung has surpassed Nokia to become the largest handset vendor in the world in terms of volume. In a quarter that saw a small three percent rise in mobile phone sales, Samsung captured 25 percent of the market. In the meantime, the struggling Finnish manufacturer Nokia's shipments decreased by 24 percent due to declining sales in emerging markets. Despite strong sales of their Lumia line of Windows Phone handsets, Nokia recorded a substantial Q1 loss of 3%, prompting Moody's to cut their debt rating to the lowest possible investment level.

Neil Mawston, Executive Director at Strategy Analytics, said, "Nokia's global handset shipments declined a huge 24 percent annually to 82.7 million units in Q1 2012. Volumes were squeezed at both ends, as low-end feature phone shipments in emerging markets stalled and high-end Microsoft Lumia smartphones were unable to offset the rapid decline of Nokia's legacy Symbian business. Nokia was the world's largest handset vendor between 1998 and 2011, for 14 years, before finally yielding top position to rival Samsung this quarter."

Fueled by strong sales in the United States and Japan, Apple nearly doubled its worldwide shipments from 18.6 million to 35.1 million. They are expected to grow even more in the second quarter, though the launch of Samsung's new flagship Galaxy S3 will likely slow Apple down a bit. Though things are currently rough for Nokia in the grand scheme, the Lumia 900 is selling like hotcakes.   With recent rumors of Verizon finally embracing Windows Phone, could we see a quick turnaround for the one-time king of the handset heap?

Source: Strategy Analytics; Via: MarketWatch

Today, credit-rating agency Moody's, cut Nokia Oyj's debt rating to the lowest investment-grade level.  This comes on the heels of Nokia's announcement last week that they would be posting a 3 percent loss this quarter and would likely see a loss in Q2 as well.  Citing deteriorating sales of low-end phones, Moody's dropped Nokia's debt rating one step, to Baa3, with a negative outlook, which means that the rating could be lowered even further, if things don't pick up for the Finnish manufacturer.  Moody's decision affects an estimated $5.2 billion in debt and puts their rating more in line with those of Standard & Poor and Fitch, who were much quicker to lower their ratings.

“Moody’s believes that the structural change facing Nokia’s Mobile Phones segment may not be easy to address, such as the market share gains recorded by makers of very low-end phones or new promotions by Chinese carriers,” Moody’s analyst Wolfgang Draack said in the statement.

The change in Nokia's rating has obviously affected the company's stock.  Shares have been trading down 2.4% in Helsinki and credit-default swaps jumped to a record-high 516, up from 354 at the beginning of April.

In a press release that was put out soon after the Moody's announcement, Nokia Executive Vice President and CFO, Timo Ihamuotila, said that “Nokia is quickly taking action. Nokia will continue to increase its focus on lowering the company's cost structure, improving cash flow and maintaining a strong financial position.”  Nokia also tried to reassure people by noting that Nokia has approximately 4.9 billion Euros ($6.4 billion) in cash reserves.

Nokia's Lumia line of Windows Phone devices is selling well, especially the wildly popular Lumia 900, which has seen strong sales.  Stephen Elop, CEO of Nokia, has said that he and his mates continues "to increase the clock speed of the company."  Nokia is slated to break ground on a new factory in Vietnam, which is expected to start churning out low-end phones in 2013, a year behind schedule due to stalled negotiations with the Vietnamese government. 

Source: Moody's, Nokia; Via: Bloomberg

Cloud-based help desk provider Zendesk has released a version of their mobile app for WP7, complete with live tiles and Mango support.  Zendesk is a service that allows companies to host, log and track support tickets, be it for IT, customer service, or internal business.  With the mobile app, support representatives easily view and modify their tickets, as well as respond to them.  Simply download the app and log in to your account.  The full feature list is as follows:

• Access all your support ticket views
• View and update comments, CCs, tags, and ticket fields
• Apply predefined responses, or macros, to tickets with frequently asked questions
• View all support ticket events and notifications
• Pin ticket views and specific tickets to the start screen as Live Tiles for easy access
• Easily bookmark a ticket for future reference
• Search support tickets
• Upload and view attachments on tickets
• Take a photo and attach it to a ticket

If you use Zendesk already you can get the mobile app for free here.  Not a user yet?  Sign up for a 30-day trial.

For the first time ever, annual spending on mobile advertising is expected to exceed $1 billion in the United States.  Market research firm eMarketer predicts that the total will reach somewhere around $1.23 billion by the end of the year, nearly double 2010's mark of $743 million.  EMarketer credits the immense growth to increased confidence in the medium, which has been bolstered by more bang for their investment buck in the fast-growing mobile market.  With 38% of consumers using smartphones to access the internet at least once per month, it's no wonder.

EMarketer used three kinds of advertising for their calculation: display ads, search ads and message-based ads.  While spending on display advertising (rich media, banners) saw a big jump from $202 million to $376 million, it is video ads that skyrocketed 100% from $28 million to $56 million.  Messaging-based ads, which make up the largest chunk of the bunch, actually saw the smallest increase in spending, from $327 million to $443 million.

$1 billion dollars is just the tip of the iceberg.  According to eMarketer's forecast, that number will nearly quadruple in the next four years to $4.4 billion in 2015.  The numbers are staggering.

Source: eMarketer; Via: Moconews

When Alex Madrigal, writer for The Atlantic, saw a report that said people play 200 million minutes of Angry Birds on smartphones every day, he decided to try to figure out what affect that had on business productivity.  Using the same methodology that consulting firms like Challenger, Gray, and Christmas use to find the affect such things as fantasy football and March Madness have on business costs, he put the admittedly unscientific numbers to work.  The results are staggering.

According to his humorous calculations, people playing Angry Birds at work costs American businesses over $1.5 billion in lost wages.  He estimates that 5% of the total minutes played are Americans at work and multiplied it by the annual salary of the average smartphone user.  Even though there are quite a few liberties taken with devising the numbers, as someone who is guilty of this infraction at work myself, I totally believe that Madrigal's not too far off.  But ask yourself this, if these people weren't busy playing Angry Birds, would they actually be spending that time working?  I don't think so.

Source: The Atlantic; Via: Business Insider

Syncfusion has announced the release of their Essential User Interface Edition for Windows Phone 7, which provides enterprise developers the tools to create rich mobile applications and help drive business innovation. Pretty neat to help bring WP7 into the business sector for employers to take advantage of available services and mobile Office in employee pockets.

The tools allows one to:

• Create common and advanced charts: 28 different chart types supported
• Build executive dashboards for tracking key performance indicators
• Increase the depth of user interaction via an editor package that allows text boxes to validate input along with other functions
• Insert compelling buttons into applications
• Display maps using industry-standard ESRI shape files
• Create and distribute maps without external map providers (no fees and faster applications)

You can check out Essential User Interface Edition for WP7 here and download a 30 day trial.

Via: BusinessWire

It started with an open letter from financial analyst Adnaan Ahmad, addressed to CEOs Steve Ballmer (Microsoft) and Stephen Elop (Nokia), explaining the mutual benefits that could arise from the two tech titans teaming up.  What came next was a flurry of rumors that it might happen and show of confidence from stock traders.  In the days since Ahmad posted his letter, Nokia's stock prices have risen more than 4%, a sign that those in the market may be trying to show a vote of confidence in Ahmad's wishful thinking.

Though these rumors have been bubbling ever since Elop left his post at Microsoft to take over as Nokia's CEO, Elop said last week that the phone maker might "create and/or join other ecosystems," lending further credence to possibility.  Spokesmen from both companies have refused to comment on the validity of the rumors, but there is speculation from those in the know that Elop is going to announce the news during an upcoming speech on February 11.

Be it true or not, Nokia needs to do something soon.  They have been steadily declining in market share, and according to some recent analytics, have already lost the number one spot to Android. 

Source: New York Times; Via: Seattle Pi Blogs (Nick Eaton)

Flashback 2008...

MaryJo Foley of ZDNet is continuing her Microsoft "code name of the day" contest, which seems really kind of fun and a neat way to gather info. Well, today's entry is "Rouge."

Rouge? Pink?  Sound related?  She thinks so. Using info that she's gathered she states: 

Best guess on what it is: Microsoft’s business-focused premium mobile services

Meaning/context of the codename: Rouge sounds like the business-side complement to Pink, Microsoft’s forthcoming family of consumer-focused premium mobile services.

Basically, Rouge was meant to beef up Microsoft's "... family of Office Communications Server, its corporate instant-messaging/VOIP/conferencing product."

Call us crazy, but that sounds like the sort of thing we heard described to us about Seven Business Edition, with real-time document editing between multiple sources.

So is there a code-name for the supposed Media Edition?  What do you get when you combine Pink and Rouge?  How about Project Awesome.

[via ZDNet]