Smartphones for the teeming masses

One of the key questions about where the demand opportunity for high-tech will be is about the adoption of smartphones: What will be their penetration?
One of the important considerations here is the price point:

• we're already seeing smartphones on the $99 value menu offered to consumers
• a key and closely related question is how much do these smartphones cost, to the network operators who market them, and to the vendors who build them

A news item from DigiTimes, which follows the ODM and EMS community in Taiwan and China closely suggests that prices may be falling faster than (some had) anticipated, heralding smartphones for the teeming masses, rather than just the technological elite.

Prices for Android-powered smartphones are declining at a pace faster than expected due to competition for orders from handset makers in Taiwan and China...
Huawei Technologies has pursued an aggressive pricing strategy to push sales of its Android phones, especially through telecom channels... China-based telecom equipment and handset maker is making a second customized Android-powered phone, the Pulse Mini, for T-Mobile, which will begin to market the model in the UK in April 2010 with an unlocked price [that] represents a reduction of over 54% compared to ... its predecessor, the Pulse, said the sources. Huawei began to ship the Pulse to T-Mobile in the fourth quarter of 2009.
Despite the threat from Huawei, most Taiwan handset makers insisted that they will continue to focus on medium- to high-end Android models to avoid fierce completion in the low-end segment.

Samsung gets smart...

It seems that Samsung has recognized the importance of the smartphone market - Samsung aims to triple smartphone sales in 2010 | Reuters - and now has ambitions to triple its shipments. While a target of 18 million smartphones sounds impressive, that doesn't make it a leader:

• Nokia's shipping about 21 million units a quarter
• Apple's shipping about 9 million

With Nokia's shipments comprising about 40% of the smartphone market, it's on track to be about 220 to 250 million units, depending on how fast it grows; that implies 7-8% market share for Samsung, split across the Android and WinMo platforms.

Musings on the meaning of life

XKCD: What if I want to spend my life restlessly producing?

Another alluring Android

For Sony Ericsson's forthcoming X10:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPw-yKyxAuU&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&hl=en&feature=player_embedded&fs=1]

The decline and demise of the PND

A long while ago, just about at the point at which most everyone was proclaiming the ascendancy of the PND, I challenged conventional wisdom and predicted its imminent decline and demise. iSuppli caught up recently.

Now, as David Pogue notes in the NY Times, Android 2.0 may have helped nail the lid on the coffin:

In addition to great speed, great audio and great cell signal, the Droid offers Android 2.0’s new navigation software. It’s as close to a suction-cup GPS unit as you can get on a cellphone, with spoken street names, color coding to indicate traffic, map icons (for parking, gas and so on), satellite view and even street photos of any address. Buy the $30 windshield bracket, which fires up the GPS automatically when you insert the Droid, and nobody will know you’re not running some $500 GPS unit.

The real mind blower/game changer? This software is free. All of it. I’m guessing there wasn’t much cheer at Garmin’s Halloween party this year.

Overall, the Droid, notwithstanding its lack of WiFi, seems to be a worthy contender:

the Droid wins on phone network, customizability, GPS navigation, speaker, physical keyboard, removable battery and openness (free operating system, mostly uncensored app store)

the iPhone wins on simplicity, refinement, thinness, design, Web browsing, music/video synching with your computer, accessory ecosystem and quality/quantity of the app store

Seems like Walt likes the Droid as well, albeit with some reservations:

I’ve been testing the Droid, and while it has some significant drawbacks, I regard it as a success overall. It’s the best super-smart phone Verizon offers, the best Motorola (MOT) phone I’ve tested and the best hardware so far to run Android.

The Droid is potentially a big win for Verizon, Motorola and Google

[Although] Android still isn’t as slick or fluid as the iPhone’s OS

[The Droid] is only a tad longer and thicker than the Apple product. But it’s 25% heavier, which makes it less comfortable to carry around in a pocket.

Unfortunately for lovers of physical keyboards, I found the one on the Droid to be pretty awful.

And it does have a cool new ad:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9fXYQjwR0w&hl=en&fs=1&]