Herald Sun 26 June 2010
The mobile phone wars are hotting up with a new intensity of competition. The reason, of course, is the Apple iPhone. And the question is, has Steve Jobs given the sector a shot of adrenalin - or is he vampiring all of the blood for himself?
You see, last year because of the Greedy Financiers' Cataclysm (GFC) the mobile phone market took a sharp dip. The junk bond traders and barrow boys could no longer afford a new phone a week so sales and turnover declined.
But by this year it has recovered, globally up by 22 per cent in the first quarter, selling nearly 300 million units. The impetus has come from smart phones. After all, who wants to be seen with a dumb phone these days?
In the US it's still Blackberry in the lead with iPhone, the newcomer, hard on their heels. Already between them they have nearly 60 per cent of the market.
Here in Australia, Nokia is still the king. But market research analyst IDC predict that Apple will knock the Fin off its throne by Christmas.
The claim has some credence in the street. One phone store was asked, "Are the iPhones selling well?" Their reply, "We haven't been selling anything else all month." There is a definite swelling momentum at work here that could sweep all before it.
So I wondered, well the other companies aren't dummies, they're hardly going to pack up and go home, they must have some strategies up their sleeves. What's the plan?
Nokia were tight-lipped about Apple’s predicted triumph, but they did declare they have the lion's share of the smartphone market in Australia - without nominating a figure.
Their hopes are resting on the new model N8, to be released October-December. This has more bells and whistles than a theatre organ: 12MP camera, high definition video, web TV - and a big graphic screen just like the iPhone's. They have obviously been burning a lot of midnight oil in Helsinki.
The other big hitters are also slugging away. Google's Android operating system is fuelling new magic from the likes of HTC and Motorola, while Microsoft are about to launch their new Windows Phone 7; their current customers include Samsung and Palm.
Where iPhone has won big-time is in the apps race. Two years ago Blackberry had thousands of apps yet Apple had but a handful. Today Apple claim 150,000 apps while Blackberry App World has 15,000 at the most. What went wrong?
"Blackberry didn't focus on apps, Apple did," explained a BB observer. "Also, they don't do their own above the line advertising, just leave it to the carriers, and Apple swamped them." Not controlling your own advertising is like driving from the back of the truck.
This is where good marketing counts and as I've often said, there's no better marketer than Jobs. He has sold iPhone directly to the public, creating a sucking vortex that the resellers can't ignore.
"Resellers hate iPhone, they don't make money out of it," explained the observer. "Jobs put all their money into marketing and has given the guys in the middle nothing."
Nokia also took a swipe at Apple. "We're not a one size fits all company," sniffed a spokeswoman. "We're able to deliver a range of handsets across different price points to different customers."
As if to prove the point, Nokia recently released its Bicycle Charger Kit, like a bike light generator you plug your phone into. It’s aimed at the Third World, one of the biggest growth markets. In South America or darkest Africa, even if they don't have electricity, they can charge their phones as they ride to work. Try that with an iPhone.
No comments:
Post a Comment