Strategy Analytics has completed the last quarter’s quarter smartphone statistics and there is a couple of surprises. First, the number of phones sold in October-December was 8.8 percent less than a year earlier. And secondly, that Apple was again the biggest smartphone maker at the end of the year.

Apple managed to sell 77.3 million iPhones in October-December, which is about one million phones less than last year. At the same time, Samsung’s handset dropped more than three million units. In the Christmas season, iPhone picked up much better than the Samsung Galaxy models.

In the full year statistics, Samsung was clearly one of the 317.5 million handsets sold. Apple’s reading for the whole year was 215.8 million. The market shares of the companies were thus recorded at 21.1 and 14.3 per cent.

Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=7500&via=n&datum=2018-02-02_15:13:36&mottagare=31202

China’s smartphone market is no longer growing after it witnessed its first annual decline in shipments during 2017, according to new figures released today.

The writing was on the wall with a market decline first noted in Q2 but this is the first time a drop has been sustained over a twelve-month period.

Apple hasn’t been been particularly transparent about the iPhone X’s numbers, in part because it’s a bit of a tricky new model. For starters, it’s a $999 phone. It’s also positioned against another premium iPhone model — which got a healthy jump-start on the pricier model.

That said, Canalys’ latest smartphone state of the union shows pretty healthy sales for the pricey new handset, putting it at 29 million units shipped in the fourth quarter of last year. That makes it the “world’s best-shipping smartphone model over the holiday season,” according to the analysts’ numbers.

HMD Global, a manufacturer of smart phones from the Nokia brand, has lost its share capital. Ossi Korpela , the Nordic Business Director of HMD, does not agree to comment on the company’s financial situation, but notes that there is a “great year” behind it.

HMD Global started its operations in May 2016. The company’s first 14-month financial year was heavily loss-making, with a turnover of some EUR 14.8 million, a loss of about EUR 9.8 million.

According to the financial statements for 2016, the parent company had a residual equity of approximately EUR 6.1 million. Since equity is now consumed, the loss for the fiscal year 2017 is at least the same, probably more.

Businesses typically prepare for the losses of several years at the beginning.

Loss of share capital is, in his view, quite normal with start-ups. After the loss of share capital, the company may continue to operate.

In 2016, HMD’s turnover was only about one month. According to Felt, this year’s turnover was probably “at least EUR 200 million”.

HMD made 12 announcements in 12 months. He promises that activities will be developed especially in the Nordic countries and new models will be published in the future.

Source: https://www.tivi.fi/Kaikki_uutiset/nokia-brandilla-ratsastava-hmd-global-menetti-osakepaaomansa-huikea-vuosi-6697843

Google Play hit record 19 billion+ downloads in Q4 2017, its highest quarter ever
https://techcrunch.com/2018/01/25/google-play-hit-record-19-billion-downloads-in-q4-2017-its-highest-quarter-ever/

Apple previews iOS 11.3
https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2018/01/apple-previews-ios-11-3/

By now, it should be apparent that the Essential Phone hasn’t sold in the numbers that Andy Rubin and co. had thought it would. Having started at an MSRP of $699, the PH-1 dropped to $499 just two months after release (and to $650 CAD in Canada). On top of that, there have been numerous opportunities to get the phone for even more cheaply, including through a $200 friends-and-family discount and an incredible Cyber Monday Amazon deal. After all this, it looks like Essential has only sold around 50,000 units of the PH-1, if install figures from the Play Store of the Essential Camera are to be trusted. That’s not very impressive.

The Essential Camera app hit 50,000 downloads within the past few days. Last we heard about Essential sales figures of any sort, it was back in late September when a research firm estimated a measly 5,000 units had been sold within the month after release.

You might be wondering how we could come to the conclusion that the download figures for this app could lead to production figures. Well, the Essential Phone is the only phone that is capable of downloading the Essential Camera app via the Play Store, hence the assumption. The

there were four reasons that the install figure could be even more inflated than actual sales figures:

Devices being resold and signed into by other accounts (this is probably the most common situation).
Developers using multiple accounts to test their apps out (more common than you might think).
Custom ROMs like LineageOS for other devices allowing non-Pixel devices to trick the Play Store.
Modders tweaking their build.props to get the Play Store to recognize their device as a Pixel (similar to above).

there’s virtually no chance that the 50k number is actually lower than the total number of PH-1s in consumer hands.

As for other pre-installed Essential apps on the Play Store, both Essential Resources and Essential Services are still sitting at the 10k-50k range.

Hopefully the new, lower MSRP of $499 and more discounts drive sales upwards, as more competition is better in this space.

Tim Cook says users will be able to turn off iPhone battery performance throttling in future iOS update
https://9to5mac.com/2018/01/17/turn-off-iphone-battery-performance-throttling/

he says that this forthcoming update will give users the option to disable performance throttling if they would rather be at risk of unexpected shutdowns but maintain full CPU and GPU performance.

In its public apology letter on Apple.com regarding the iPhone slowdown debacle, Apple described the update in the following way:

Early in 2018, we will issue an iOS software update with new features that give users more visibility into the health of their iPhone’s battery, so they can see for themselves if its condition is affecting performance.

This implied an enhancement of the Battery screen in iOS Settings to include more information about the iPhone’s battery health and whether users were being subjected to Apple’s advanced power management throttling.