Author: Tero Kuittinen

The end of unlimited BBM could erode BlackBerry’s standing in emerging markets

South Africa has been one of BlackBerry’s (BBRY) key markets globally and the Canadian vendor has held more than 50% of the smartphone market there for years. As the BlackBerry Z10 now rolls out in South Africa, the country will be a key testing ground for a potentially controversial development. Local mobile operators will no longer offer unlimited BlackBerry Messenger service after May 31st, just three months after the Z10 debuts in South Africa.

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February 22, 2013
The insane pricing of the new HTC One

HTC’s (2498) new One will be priced higher than the 16GB iPhone 5 in the United Kingdom. That is what makes the HTC One pricing strategy nutty. Vodafone is offering a 24-month plan for the HTC One with 600 minutes and 600 MB for £33 per month. You can get the same exact plan for the iPhone 5… except you have to pay £100 upfront sum for the One while the iPhone 5 comes free with the plan. Orange is offering a 24-month HTC One deal with unlimited voice and 1GB of data for £36 — the same as the 16 GB iPhone 5. Except that again, you have to pay £100 for the HTC’s new flagship phone and you get the iPhone 5 for free.

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February 21, 2013
BlackBerry and Nokia struggle with radically shrinking maps

Perhaps the most fascinating feature of Google Trends is the Regional Interest map, which shows relative search volumes across the world. For current key models from both BlackBerry (BBRY) and Nokia (NOK), it’s a grim reminder of how much their bases have narrowed. A Google Trends search for “BlackBerry Z10” and “Lumia 620” is particularly illuminating. These are the most important models for their respective vendors in February. Both phones launched over the past month and both have index levels that are roughly in the same ballpark, with the Z10 at 30 and the Lumia 620 at 18. Over the past 90 days, the BlackBerry Z10 showed search volume strength in its traditional strongholds of Nigeria (49), South Africa (40), Canada (45), Indonesia (25) and India (22). But alarmingly, the United States (7), Brazil (1), Spain (5) and Germany (7) looked ice cold in comparison.

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February 21, 2013
Interest in BlackBerry 10 surges while iPhone loyalty slips

The latest YouGov report on smartphone brand perception and purchase intent is out, and this one is a keeper. According to the data, the proportion of BlackBerry owners planning to purchase a new BlackBerry (BBRY) within six months has rocketed from 18% to 43% since the spring of 2012. Over the same time period, the same number for iPhone owners has slipped from 92% to 85% while the number for Samsung (005930) Galaxy owners has ticked up from 46% to 53%. The interesting part here is how close the BlackBerry purchasing intent level is now to Galaxy’s level. One could argue that the iPhone slippage was unavoidable in the period after the iPhone 5 launch and before the rumor mill on the new models kicks into high gear.

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February 13, 2013
Rovio’s games are losing revenue generation power rapidly

The most famous mobile app franchise in the world has generated more than 1 billion downloads over the past three years — yet it currently has no games in the United States top 50 revenue chart for either the iPhone or iPad. On Wednesday, Angry Birds Star Wars dropped to No. 66 on the App Annie iPhone app revenue chart. This happened just three months after the game launched with massive download volumes and an avalanche of media coverage. Angry Birds Star Wars spent just two months in the top 20 iPhone revenue chart despite generating 50 million downloads in just 35 days.

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February 13, 2013
Why the Lumia 620 is so important to Nokia: Windows Phone is hammering the iPhone in India

The latest Nielsen survey confirms one of the major smartphone trends of 2012: That the Windows Phone operating system showed remarkable strength in India even before the new wave of Nokia (NOK) and HTC (2498) models launched in January. According to Nielsen, Windows Phone grabbed 8% of India’s smartphone market last autumn, far ahead of BlackBerry (BBRY) at 3% and iPhone at 1%.

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February 8, 2013