Last September, on the eve of our first Mobilize conference, John SanGiovanni, co-founder and VP of product design at Zumobi, talked to us about the coming era of the superphone. Eschewing the smartphone moniker, SanGiovanni noted how this new class of handsets — led by none other than the iPhone — was starting to become part of our everyday lives.
With vastly better performance, desktop-grade web browsing, and high-resolution displays, a new category is born. I call them “superphones,” and they are achieving tremendous traction with consumers and professionals alike…the next wave of true superphones promises to back up a device’s good looks with deeper platform technologies and more robust back-end services.
Fast-forward to today, and we are standing on the cusp of what will be the summer of the superphone. (For what makes a superphone, please refer to the accompanying table.) Here are some of the devices you can expect to see over the coming months:
These launches come as growth in the overall mobile market is starting to slow — drastically. According to Brian Modoff, an analyst with Deutsche Bank Securities, the increased demand in the first quarter and start of the second lulled people into thinking that the mobile market was back on track. Retailers and carriers restocked. Oops!
In our handset model, we are currently modeling 6% sequential growth, and our sense is that the Street is expecting somewhere in the range of 5% to 7% growth. However, we are seeing increasingly seeing signs that this may be too much to expect. The first dissenting note came from Nokia who on their earnings call said they expect flat to 2% growth. Since then other contacts have told us that a flat or modestly up quarter may be what we should expect, as one of our contacts put it, “Our order improvement is done.”…As we have noted in past reports, there is a difference between not getting worse and actually getting better. We think the industry inventory levels may have reached their new steady state, better than 4Q08 but still well below historic levels. (From DBS research report, dated May 31, 2009.)
In the superphone business, there are none as dominant as Apple and RIM. Their dominance is one of the reasons why they’re able to make a lot more money than their rivals — despite selling many fewer handsets.
As the iPhone entered the market and RIM entered the consumer sphere the profits of the rest of the vendors has declined dramatically. Looked at another way, Apple and RIM each claim a greater share of profits than any vendor except for Nokia and Samsung. (From DBS research report, dated May 31, 2009.)
That said, there is a lot of interest in Palm’s Pre. Same goes for Nokia’s N97. Will that be enough? Or will the iPhone/BlackBerry juggernaut continue to suck the oxygen out of the handset business and ensure that Apple and RIM keep their stranglehold on the superphone business? My bet is on the latter!
PS: If nothing else, the SuperPhones has created a demand for mobile apps, The New York Times says. Increased M&A of these mobile apps is up next, the Times says.
Why don’t phone makers & US phone carriers understand we want simplicity & speed? The iphone has a fast GUI and is easy for consumers to get media & entertainment. The blackberry makes it easy for business people to securely get access to email & intranet, but it’s slow GUI limits it’s usability to many normal consumers. You would think the carriers in the US would get the picture. Windows mobile is painfully NOT simple enough for the average consumer and the sheer number of bolt-on GUI enhancements should be a wakeup call that they need to fix it asap.
It’s obvious by what is popular that what the majority of the consumers want is a superphone that is fast, lets them browse the web WITH FLASH but without javascript lag issues, high resolution screen but good battery life & a well stocked app store that loads quickly (take note blackberry) & external storage (Take note iphone & pre). My vote is on android / htc to sooner or later get it right (give us 3.5 mm jacks HTC!).
5 years ago I had phones with the same capabilities as most of the phones on the market today. What real innovation is there in the last 5 years that the carriers didn’t either 1. Charge us way to much for or 2. Try to limit us from using?… (like Verizon crippling GPS & Bluetooth, or AT&T blocking sling player, or every 3G carrier trying to block tethering for years). What’s up with our crappy carriers?
[...] the iPhone came out two years ago, there weren’t really any strong competitors in the space until now , where a slew of great “superphones” are launching. The palm pre is getting rave [...]
i know that you are logated in california where at&t does not have as strong a network, but in other parts of the country, like the northeast where i live, at&t has as a network that is as fast or faster and more reliable than any of the other networks. both t-mobile and sprint are aweful, and verizon is good but has lost focus.
Is this PRO Research or an article?
We need better processors!
[...] But Not Development Published in June 8th, 2009 Posted by robdiana in Programming Om Malik wrote a post about the new mobile phones yesterday that made me realize something. We have not seen such radical change in the mobile space [...]
well, my son and i both got palm pre’s and we *love* them – zero issues for us, contrary to the interwebs rumor mill…
what i’d love to see is some “economics of smarthphone apps” research – perhaps on your paid content site? i’m just not sure that skilled devs are tracking growth and adoption of platforms and instead rely on gut instinct (e.g. iphone dominates) when embracing the sdk’s…it would be interesting to see notes about time to develop, complexity of development, issues in delivery (average time to approval/appearance in store/channel and a host of of other things)…a world of 99 cent apps isn’t that promising, and i suspect that many devs and tiny outfits will attempt to port to pre, android and related platforms before blackberry, but who knows…
i guess i just mean the trends within the ecosystem – not the manufacturers, but specifically all of the tools/partners/programs that enable delivery of apps, all the way through payment, app download hosting (amazon?) and so on…
there are certainly ten zillion ways to go about it – but NOBODY seems to be able to predict which platform will dominate, and since we already know that apps sell phones in the smartphone world, getting a handle on dev trends is IMHO a far better indicator of strength in market positioning…
just a thought ;)
[...] says:Smartphones are driving competition, innovation – and a demand for mobile apps.Clipped from gigaom.comThe Summer of the Superphonewe are standing on the cusp of what will be the summer of the [...]
Just bought the Pre this weekend. I was fourth in line.
The software is extremely promising. The keyboard is tiny and disappointing. But I think Palm is in a class that with the iPhone.
Hopefully there will be great Apps soon.
I find the term superphone ridiculous! Until the interface and display process moves beyond current limitations, there is no such animal. Particularly in the face of a mobile service provider industry that is actively looking for ways to stifle innovation or at least gouge consumers for service that lags behind the true mobile innovators in the rest of the world. Apple wants to lock users into the tightest DRM driven systemn around and many of its competitors are not much better. Until such time when a Superphone is truly developed, everyone else in the meantime is a wanna be on provider network that wants to overcharge for anything over their crap network.