Over 200 million smartphones shipped in Q4 2012, with Samsung shipping 1/3 of all smartphones

by Jared Peters on Jan 25th 2013, 9:14pm
tagged earnings, q4, Samsung, smartphones

Get ready for the most obvious statement of the year: smartphones are a big deal. Some of us want a concrete number behind that, though. Now that we’ve got all the major earnings reports for the year out of the way, we’ve got that concrete number. Over 200 million phones were shipped in Q4, and the annual total for smartphones in 2012 was 671 million. That’s a pretty huge number, and shows a 42% growth year-over-year. An interesting statistic out of that is that Samsung shipped 63 million smartphones in the last quarter, which accounts for about 30% of phones in that quarter. 1 out of every 3 phones sold over the holidays was a Samsung device. That’s something to be proud of if you’re Samsung.

source: Juniper Research

AT&T posts Q4 earnings, big profit backed by strong wireless growth

by Jared Peters on Jan 25th 2013, 10:35am
tagged 2012, AT&T, earnings, q4

AT&T’s posted their Q4 earnings, and they had a pretty impressive year. They posted a 3.9 billion dollar loss for Q4, but a 7.3 billion dollar profit for the fiscal year. Worthwhile tradeoff? I doubt you’ll hear AT&T complaining too much either way. They also activated 10.2 million smartphones last quarter, a number they’re claiming is “record setting.” AT&T’s biggest competitor, Verizon, only did 9.8 million smartphones, so that gives the claim quite a bit of credibility. Those 10.2 million smartphones accounted for 89% of AT&T’s total postpaid sales, as well. They’ve also added 1.1 million new customers, 780,000 of which were postpaid users. Overall, there’s room for improvement, but it wasn’t a bad year for AT&T by any stretch.

source: AT&T

Samsung rakes in huge on Q4 2012 earnings report

by Jared Peters on Jan 24th 2013, 9:31pm
tagged 2012, q4, Samsung

The start of the year means financial reports for many companies. Sometimes we’re a little surprised, sometimes things are about where they should be, and in Samsung’s case, they blew expectations out of the water. Samsung even outdid their own estimates. That’s how successful it was. The early reports had Samsung pulling in about 8 billion in profit for Q4, so everyone had pretty high expectations for the tech giant to begin with. At the end of the year, Samsung managed to bring in about 27.2 billion dollars in profit, and they did about 188.15 billion dollars in total revenue. Needless to say, a huge chunk of that came from Samsung’s smartphone division, with the record-breaking sales of the Galaxy S III pushing that. It’s safe to say that Samsung had a pretty successful year in 2012, and they’ll continue to keep that momentum in 2013. Hit the source if you want to read more of the gritty details about Samsung’s fiscal year.

source: Samsung

Verizon posts record breaking number of subscribers and LTE growth with a $4.23 billion loss in Q4

by Jared Peters on Jan 22nd 2013, 8:57pm
tagged q4, Verizon, wireless

Yep, you read that right. Despite having a record breaking 2.1 million subscribers for Big Red in Q4 2012, totaling over 98 million customers, Verizon posted a $4.23 billion loss. Now, losing a few billion dollars is never a good thing, of course, but Verizon is a postpaid wireless carrier, so most of their profit comes over the two-year contracts customers sign to purchase their heavily subsidized phones, so this is certainly not the end of the world for them. And the best part of this report is that we get a peek at smartphone trends. » Read the rest

Samsung reportedly earns $8.1 billion in Q4 profits

by Macky Evangelista on Jan 7th 2013, 3:41pm
tagged q4, Samsung

With reports of over 500 handsets sold every minute during Q4 of 2012, Samsung has reportedly earned a whopping $8.1 billion in total profits int hat time period. That number also includes the money they earned from flat screens it makes for other mobile devices such as Apple’s iPhone’s. This comes to no surprise as Samsung’s two top dogs during Q4 was their Galaxy S III and Galaxy Note 2. The Galaxy S III reportedly sold about 15 million units, a slight dip from 18 million the previous quarter but likely due to the fact that their Galaxy Note 2 sold a good 8 million putting the two combined at a whopping 23 million units. Lets also not forget that number doesn’t include Samsung’s other 35 smartphone/tablet variants that flooded the market.

Valued at close to $230 billion, Samsung shows no signs of slowing down as they plan on even having a better 2013. With already successful lines in their Galaxy S series, Note series and Tab series, the successors of each line are already hyped and expected to boast huge sales this coming summer/fall.

With 2012 being a monumental year for Samsung, do you think they’ll surpass expectations this year? With Galaxy S IV already the most anticipated device this year, I wouldn’t be surprised if Samsung tops last year.

source: Reuters

Smartphones outsell PCs for the first time in Q4 2010

by Jesse Bauer on Feb 9th 2011, 12:00pm
tagged 2010, HTC, IDC, Nokia, pc, pcs, q4, rim, sales, Samsung, smartphone, smartphones

You know it’s a monumental shift when something that has only been around a few years takes over something that’s been around for a couple decades. An article at ReadWriteWeb posted results of smartphone sales versus PC sales in Q4 of 2010. Smartphones sold 100.9 million OEM units in that quarter, while PCs sold 92.1 million OEM units. That marks the first time that smartphones beat out PCs.

What’s even more puzzling about the chart above is that Nokia shipped over 100 million units in 2010, while Research in Motion shipped 48.8. Don’t worry though, those numbers are sure to shift in 2011 after manufacturers like HTC and Samsung put the heat on for Android this year. Craziness.

[via BGR]

Android sold more handsets in Q4 2010 than Nokia’s Symbian

by Jesse Bauer on Jan 31st 2011, 9:28am
tagged 2010, Android, Canalys, data, figures, Google, leader, market share, marketshare, mobile OS, MobileOs, numbers, OS, q4, sales, share, smartphone, smartphones, statistics, stats, symbian

For the first time in 10 years, Nokia’s symbian platform was NOT the leader in handsets sales, as Google’s Android took the top spot for Q4 of 2010! Research firm Canalys said on Monday that 32.0 million Android phones were sold, while Symbian devices sold totaled 31 million. A large amount of those sales for Android phones comes from popular models from HTC, Samsung and LG, not surprisingly either, as we saw many new models from each of those manufacturers, and will continue to see many more as they ramp up after showing off new devices for 2011 after CES.

Will Nokia be able to regain their corner of the smartphone market? That remains to be seen. They have a new CEO, Stephen Elop, who plans to announce his new direction for Nokia on Feb. 11th 2011. Android on the other hand doesn’t seem to have much to worry about as it continually climbs the popularity ladder, and will keep climbing into 2011 with Gingerbread and Honeycomb releases.

[via Reuters, intomobile]

Motorola posts $80 million earnings for Q4 thanks to Android

by Mikka Burrell on Jan 27th 2011, 9:57pm
tagged Android, apple, atrix 4g, Droid Bionic, iphone 4, motorola, q4, verizon wireless, Xoom

Motorola posted a solid fourth quarter with $80 million in earnings, thanks to a killer Android lineup of Motorola devices that reinvented the company as a smartphone juggernaut. Motorola shipped 4.9 million smartphones in the fourth quarter alone; this included devices like the Droid Pro, Droid 2, Defy and Bravo.

“The improvement in our financial results last year, including profitability in the fourth quarter, is indicative of the progress we have made in delivering innovative smartphones and improving the Mobile Devices business,” said Sanjay Jha, chairman and chief executive officer of Motorola Mobility.

Although Motorola will face stiff competition with the release of the iPhone 4 on Verizon Wireless next month, the company has a lineup that certainly pleased CES goers this year, with devices like the Atrix 4G, Xoom, and Droid Bionic. With AT&T losing exclusivity with the iPhone 4, it’s plausible to assume that Motorola can consistently capitalize on Android devices on AT&T (especially with the dual-core Atrix 4G)

As always, we’ll just have to wait and see what happens in the Android world.

[via intomobile]