In the opening weekend an analyst at Broadpoint AmTech Inc. estimated that about 100,000 Verizon Droid mobile phones were sold. This is an impressive number considering that there was not much time between the announcement and the launch date.
Now that a week of data has been collected, a mobile analytics firm called Flurry estimates that about 250,000 Droid mobile phones have been sold in the last week.
Flurry has access to every 2 out of 3 iPhone and Android handsets for collecting data. Based on the 250,000 unit sales estimation, the Droid can now be called “the fastest-selling Android phone to date.”
The iPhone 3G S sold about 1.6 million copies across 8 countries in the opening week. The Verizon Droid launched in one country.
Broadpoint AmTech Inc. analyst Mark McKechnie estimated that 100,000 Verizon Droid mobile phones were sold over the weekend. In terms of specifications the Verizon Droid was intended to challenge the iPhone. The iPhone remains as king when it comes to selling the most number of units on an opening weekend, but clearly the Droid has made an impact on mobile phone competition. At least more so than the Palm Pre when comparing opening weekend unit sales.
When the original iPhone first launched, it sold about 270,000 units on the opening weekend. However the original iPhone had a much higher cost. And then iPhone 3G and iPhone 3G S had about 1 million units sold on their respective opening weekends, thus creating the benchmark that many other mobile companies are striving for. The Palm Pre sold about 50,000 units on their opening weekend which was a record sales day for Sprint. If the Verizon Droid did end up selling 100,000 units in the opening weekend, then that means that about 50% of the company’s inventory has been bought.
What does this mean for the telecommunications market in general? What this means is that the iPhone has a small rival which may just help Verizon retain some of their customers from switching to AT&T. The Android Market will see an increase in sales too. It will be a fraction of the sales that Apple makes on the iTunes App Store, but we will definitely start hearing some developer success stories about how much they made from the Android Market in the near future.
In the third quarter of 2009, the smartphone mobile market soared like an eagle. About 290.5 million smartphones were sold in the quarter which is an increase of 5.6% from the year before. Between the five major telecommunications companies, all of them sold more phones in this quarter than the previous quarter. However Motorola slipped into 5th place behind Sony Ericsson this quarter. Samsung and LG broke new sales records this quarter too.
Samsung shipped over 60 million phones this quarter which is the highest they have ever done. Below is the break-down of the numbers provided by our friends over at UnwiredView:
* Nokia – 108.5 million units, 37.3% market share
* Samsung – 60.2 million units, 20.7% market share
* LG – 31.6 million units, 10.9% market share
* Sony Ericsson – 14.1 million units, 4.9% market share
* Motorola – 13.6 million units, 4.7% market share
* Others – 60.1 million units, 21.5% market share
Boy Genius Report gave the hands-on treatment on the Motorola Droid. Based on the screenshots I’ve seen, it looks very similar to an iPhone and the sliding QWERTY keyboard reminds me of a Sidekick. Below are some of the specs:
- Android 2.0 operating system (as predicted)
- Almost as thin as an iPhone 3G S and very thin QWERTY sliding keyboard
- Capacitive display
- The phone is made out of metal and rubber. The keyboard has a soft-touch rubberized finish.
- Each phone will have a desktop charger that comes with it. The charger turns the phone into a Multimedia Station by displaying the local weather and time.
AT&T has poached a lot of customers from Verizon Wireless because of the exclusive Apple iPhone contract. The iPhone, iPhone 3G, and iPhone 3G S have been the hottest smartphones selling on the market over the last few years. Motorola has also felt the pain of losing customers to the Apple iPhone too as their sales have decreased substantially. Given that Verizon and Motorola have both been feeling the pain, they teamed up with Google to launch a new smartphone called the Droid. The Droid is expected to arrive in late October or early November.
As the three companies are preparing to launch the Droid, a video has been released in order to get the hype going. The video knocks on all the features that the iPhone lacks such as the lack of a keyboard, background application capabilities, and a high resolution flash camera. The Droid commercial points out the lack of the features starting with the expression “iDon’t.” And everything “iDon’t,” Droid does. Based on how intense the video looks, I’d say Apple should be concerned. This video has a “we’re not messing around this time” vibe towards the end.
The Droid is expected to be powered by the TI OMAP3430 core which is also used by the Palm Pre and iPhone. The Verizon Droid will be using the Android v.2.0 operating system. Google expects at least 18 devices to be powered by Android by the end of 2009.
The Motorola CLIQ is powered by the Google Android operating system and has a heavy focus on social networking features. The device will be available on pre-order between October 19 and November 1. The cost is $200 and voice plans start at $30 per month. The data plan will cost an additional $25 per month. The company dubbed the CLIQ as the “first phone with social skills.”
Orange UK, a major telecommunications company is expected to get the Motorola DEXT in October. The DEXT is also known as the CLIQ in the U.S. For those who make a two year commitment with Orange in the UK, the Motorola DEXT will be free with at least a £34.26 per month ($56.43) contract.
Motorola announced that the CLIQ mobile phone will be available on T-Mobile by 4Q of this year, just in time for the holidays. Why some companies to choose to announce products that won’t be coming out for months, I have no idea. The CLIQ runs on the MOTOBLUR operating system based on an Android skin. In PR terms, Motorola is calling this phone, the “first phone with social skills.” The phone will be available in Winter White and Titanium colors. The CLIQ has a 3.1″ screen based on a 320×480 resolution. For quick downloads the phone has WiFi and a 3G connection. The phone has a built in 5 megapixel camera and it can shoot 24fps video. Across international waters, the phone will be known as the DEXT. The phone will be available on the following mobile networks: Orange, Telefonica, and American Movil.
It wasn’t too long ago that the Motorola i856 was clearing the FCC and now it is officially on a mobile network. The Motorola Debut i856 has a 1.3 megapixel camera, Bluetooth, 3.5 mm headphone jack. The keypad is a slider and there is an 8GB microSD expansion slot. Display is 2.2″ 176×220 TFT. The dimensions of the phone is 50×106.5×15mm; 2×4.2×0.6 inches. Weight is about 3 oz. The battery life handles about 3.5 hours of talk time and about 95 hours of standby.
Epson Imaging Devices has plead guilty to price fixing LCD screens that were sold to Motorola. As a result, the company will be paying $26 million for the conspiracy. Epson Imaging Devices is a subsidiary of Seiko Epson. Motorola used the LCD panels for their Razr mobile phone devices between 2005 and 2006.
During the time of the conspiracy, Epson was called Sanyo Epson Imaging Devices. The U.S. Department of Justice accused Epson for meeting with competitors and agreeing to set the prices of LCDs that were sold to Motorola.
This past December, LG made a similar confession to the U.S. DOJ. LG was sentenced to pay $400 million for price-fixing LCDs. Around the same time Sharp paid $120 million for the same charge. Sharp fixed the prices of LCDs that were sold to Apple, Motorola, and Dell.
About one month later, Chunghwa Picture Tubes plead guilty and was forced to pay $65 million. This past May, Hitachi paid $31 million for selling fixed-price LCDs to Dell.
The Motorola r765IS mobile phone can really take a beating. You can throw the phone in water or place it in a burning building, but it will still survive. The r765IS mobile phone was built to work in “high-noise, hazardous, chemical or gaseous environments” according to a Sprint press release.
The r765IS has been certified for Military Specification 810F requirements. This includes humidity, high and low temperatures, dust shock, vibration, salt fog, blowing rain, and vibration.
The r765IS also supports Nextel Direct Connect which attaches voicemail to e-mail as attachments, GPS navigatoin, and other emergency dialing features. What is the price of a phone that is nothing to mess with? About $2,000.
Motorola is customizing the Google Android mobile operating system in a similar that HTC has done in the past. The project is called “Blur.” Blur may even be the name of the final mobile operating system. The operating system will combine personal contacts and social networking websites into clean interfaces according to BGR.
Any device using Android devices will be able to upgrade to the same interfaces that Motorola develops in Blur. There is also going to be a device key that attaches to your social networking and e-mail usernames and passwords. This way content can be pushed to the device from the web. This could include Facebook updates, tweets from Twitter, and incoming GMail e-mail.
Above is the first picture that has leaked from Verizon’s newest upcoming phone, the Motorola Shules powered by the Google Android operating system. The keyboard slides and the screen appears to be 3.7″ with 480×854 display. The camera is 5 megapixel with autofocus and has a flash. The phone is expected to hit the U.S. shores in October.
Telecommunications company Motorola Inc. has released the financial figures for their second quarter. The company reported net income of $26 million. This is higher than a year ago in the same quarter when the company reported a $4 million net income. The reason why the company saw a profit increase was because of their aggressive cost cutting initiatives.
The revenue for the quarter was $5.5 billion which has dropped substantially compared to last year. Motorola reported $8.1 billion in revenues last year. Motorola co-CEO Sanjay Jha said that he believes the company will see a turnaround by this fall as the company launches several new products.
Motorola’s wireless device business saw revenue fall 45% to $1.8 billion. The operating loss this quarter was $253 million. Last year’s operating loss was $346 million.
The Motorola i856 with a simple keypad, 2.2″ display, 1.3 megapixel camera, Bluetooth 2.0 capabilities, microSD, and PTT support has been cleared through the FCC. Now it is going to make its way to the Integrated Digital Enhanced Network (iDEN), Motorola’s proprietary two-way radio system service. After that Boost Mobile customers will be able to start purchasing the phone for their network.
