Gartner:Lenovo Takes Slight Lead Over HP for No. 1 Global Position

Fresh data released by Gartner revealed new changes/disruptions in the tech market this past week. 

Change Nr. 1: Lenovo overtook HP in worldwide PC shipments for the 1st time in history and grew its market share. The giant HP has lost leadership in this sector, it sold less than Lenovo, though by not too much. Indeed, HP and Lenovo are very close and it is interesting to watch how both companies will respond in the next quarter and in the following  year. If Lenovo maintains the momentum and manages to widen the gap and break ahead, than HP`s life will become even more difficult than  it already is. To cite Gartner, HP is currently restructuring its device business and its main concern is achieving market share whilst holding its margin. What can I say: apart from diversifying its market channels, Lenovo is winning ground on amongst other, margin. 

Change Nr. 2: the PC market continues to decline, its share being eaten up by the tablet and phablet range of products. Gartner estimates a decline of 8% in the third quarter of 2012 and attributes it in part to the arrival of Windows 8 which caused retailers to reduce their inventories in preparation for W8. On a different note, the PC decline is a trend in a fast moving market where more and more mobile devices are competing for the consumers` share of pocket. PC companies are being forced to stay relevant: how they are doing it will define who continues the race and who doesn`t. For detailed info click here.

PS: there is intense speculation on the web that Amazon might be "cooking" its own phone. Opinion: apart from it being a marketing tool and a tremendous data source for its  search algorithms,  I think the success of a future Amazon branded phone also lies in  how Non-Amazon, stand-alone and  innovative will it be... after all, we already have the Kindle.

What happened to HTC?

Can anyone tell me what happened to HTC? Last time I checked this brand was releasing killer products and was looking like a shining star on the mobile landscape and now it  reports drop of profits as much as 79% for this past quarter.

 The HTC case has all the characteristics of a success story: from a manufacturer for other brands to breaking through with innovative products under its own  brand, HTC climbed steadily and fast. The partnership with China Mobile, China`s biggest mobile operator, the overcoming of grandpa Nokia in market share and becoming the 3rd  biggest smartphone producer - achievements that many players in the mobile industry would only wish for.

But it looks like the momentum is slowly fading away. Maybe the company is still adjusting with its 2011 acquisitions, or maybe releasing new models with the Windows OS was not such a good idea considering its  popularity versus the Android OS.

It doesn`t seem to make sense: why would you switch to Windows when Android is so popular and growing and when you yourself shared this popularity by being one of the pioneers of the Android-based smartphones, as BBC puts it?

For current slowdown, critics cite the lack of what made HTC a force to reckon with in the first place: sharp innovation and design and new hit models to still the spot away from Apple and Samsung.

Others blame a weak mobile system with limited partners and channels to market. Whatever the cause is, it needs to be acted upon fast, if not, it would be a shame to witness such potential go to market obscurity and waste.


BBC News - HTC profits slide 79% as competition stiffens:

'via Blog this'

Innovation Needs To Lead Events

Today`s and , most probably, this week`s favourite quote comes from Paul Saffo`s article about ways to rescue Yahoo, published in The New York Times, and it goes like this:


"Ultimately, innovations need to lead events. Trouble begins the moment a company is forced to respond to events, and the greater the lag, the greater the potential for disaster." 

Paul is a forecaster who explores change and I stumbled upon him through twitter (he was tweeting about Nasa`s discovery of the first planet in the habitable zone of a solar system similar to ours, which was pretty interesting to further investigate).

Back to the quote: the fact that innovations need to lead events is proving ever more true today, when technological progress,  interconnectivity over networks and the growing influence of communities have raised the bar high, making competition fearsome, bloody and unforgiven. Paul is talking about Yahoo, but also look at RIM, the manufacture of Blackberry, the hit phone and the competitor to the iPhone only a couple of months ago. The innovation it brought to market, its USP, is quickly fading. No "new, cool stuff", no honey. Their tablet business looks to me as an example of following the events rather than dictating them, and the results are showing: the reality failing to match their growth and revenue forecasts. RIM needs to fix its organizational structure and sit down at the design table/screen and think about the next great thing it can bring in mobile.

This is an interesting time as well: you can not hide behind past laurels any more. The digital plus the crisis have thrown all of us out of our comfort zones: starting with the job market and how you approach your career to the rise and advance of the open, shared and increasingly participatory business models and non-traditional ways of leading and managing companies. Take the newspaper industry: the past years have witness the decline in advertising revenues in the Western world by approximately half! Old players that have been around for decades where thrown into a downward swirl reversed only by those who caught up rapidly with today`s change/consumer habits.

Some went digital or partly digital, some re-enforced their quality and usefulness while others went against market trends and forecasts proving that given the right formula, digital is by now means a threat. Still, most are following trends trying to respond, but few are setting them and we all know which one is better.

Innovations need to lead events. Today, we have all the tools, ever more than a couple of years ago, to break rules, create and  redefine conventions. In this aspect, it becomes quite simple.

7 Lessons Japan Can Teach Us About Mobile Marketing

Reaching a high level of complexity and adoption of mobile marketing like Japan’s in the short run is wishful thinking but the West should definitely investigate what it can learn from the East.  While not all success ingredients fit together, surely some strategies can prove themselves quite transferable.

So let’s take a look at what made Japan the poster child at mobile marketing. As much as I would want to understand Japanese to see for myself, I can’t, but fortunately others do. Christopher Billich from Infinita, a market intelligence and research company that acts as a liaison between Japan and the world on mobile marketing know-how, has shared his insights on the topic with mobithinking.

Out of his experience of the Japanese market, a couple of lessons emerge for us, the laggard West:

1.    Infrastructure upgrades

In Japan the 3G network penetration is impressively high.  This is a question of getting the fundamentals right. Even before talking about value added services, telecoms should get down to the basics. Factoring in collaboration with other carriers and government support can prove to be a killer formula.

2.    Flat-rate data plans that rule

The rapid adoption of mobile internet usage is, in Christopher’s opinion, due to Japan’s mobile operators’ flat-rate data plans. The idea is simple and not a new one: we all know how hard it is to resist temptation to over eat at an open buffet for example once you paid the flat price. Same goes for data usage.

3.    Homogeneous handset base

In Japan the carriers have a special relationship with the manufacturers in that they control what kind of devices appear on the market. Marketers are then faced with little fragmentation. This point is a bit more difficult to argue when it comes to the geographically fragmented Europe. Nevertheless, this strategy can go well within countries that are quick at implementing change and are hungry for gaining a national competitive edge.

4.    Mobile email over SMS or MMS

A consequence of a 3G wide coverage is the fact that considerably more data can be transmitted, allowing for the advent of the mobile mail that, in Japan, offers up to 10 000 characters, emoticons and attachment options. 

5.    Off-deck mobile sites

Right from the start of the micro browsing, Japanese mobile carriers have allowed for off-deck mobile sites that encouraged creation and sharing of non-proprietary sites and content, otherwise known for as an ‘’open garden’’ approach. Open source and crowd sourcing are the other two sister trends that telecoms should think of embracing. Keeping absolute control over their value chain means stagnation and the way to innovate implies giving up some of that control in favour for collaborations, scale and diversity of mobile services and revenue sharing agreements for instance. 

6.    Attractive content revenue sharing

What better way to encourage usability of devices and popularity of new software and services than rewarding the content providers generously. In Japan, operators will only retain 10 % of the revenue in stark comparison with up to 50% in some cases in the West. An attractive revenue sharing scheme will quickly translate into economies of scale involving mobile services as products which in itself can propel the telecoms` subscriber base and popularity considerably. 

7.    Telecom + private sector partnerships

Avoiding a dumb pipe fate has put telecoms on the burner as internet and the ubiquity of connected devices increasingly shape new directions for today`s economy.  Telecoms could fight back  by looking for new business models. One example is particularly encouraging: DoCoMo’s joint venture with McDonald’s over a loyalty program that primarily involved redeeming coupons at the fast food chain while ensuring a swift and adequate user experience. ‘’Kazasu Coupon’’ program has since become the darling of those who eat at McD`s. You can also check out an interesting article on the idea of telecoms becoming somewhat like media companies here. 

Reconsidering Moboline's strategy, part 2

How can one write  an entertaining, useful and interesting blog about mobile and the new digital age if one has almost none experience to it except the usual, online social chat? More than that, how can one sound like an expert on mobile strategies, when, although eager and evangelistic about it, one doesn't even have a decent mobile phone ha ha. 
Coming clean: I am very enthusiastic about all the mobilization going on around and I want to be a part of it, and for the past few weeks I have been considering and reconsidering how to use this blog to which I happened to find such a cute name, to bring me closer to all the digital and mobile hype in the industry. 
Any suggestions?
Then I thought to myself that I should just embrace my status quo, accept and make friends with it, and just share my learning experience with much more experienced readers in hope of advice and consideration; let them be the experts, and who knows, maybe one day, some other uninitiated apprentice (young, ambitious female to give it a profile ha ha)  will stumble upon this blog and find it a useful learning resource.


...so Lesson Nr1: If it doesn't work, don't push it ... go around it.