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Meet the world’s top 20 mobile carriers: Asia on the rise

Kevin Fitchard — Thu, 04 Oct 2012 15:44:59 +0000

Wireless Intelligence has compiled its annual ranking of global carriers by number of mobile connections, and not much has changed from last year’s list. China Mobile still dominates the list with nearly 700 million subscribers, and the composition of the remaining 19 is roughly the same, according to the analysis arm of the GSM Association. If there is an underlying trend visible, though, it’s that Asian operators are gradually displacing normally dominant Western operators.

Vodafone and Latin America’s America Móvil kept second and third rankings, but India’s Bharti Airtel replaced Telefónica at No. 4, and it’s within spitting distanced of breaking into the top 3. Asian operators China Unicom, China Telecom, Indonesia’s Telkomsel and India’s Idea Cellular all rose in the rankings. Meanwhile, Verizon Wireless, AT&T, T-Mobile-owner Deutsche Telekom, and Russia’s VimpelCom and Sistema groups all fell in the chart.

Every single one of these carriers saw its customer base grow, but in general Asian operators saw much faster growth. That makes sense since many Asian countries are still far from reaching the mobile saturation levels of the west.

The big exception was France Telecom, which fell off the list completely last year but returned in the No. 12 slot. Though on paper FT’s total global subscribers by 57 percent, that performance has more to do with Wireless Intelligence’s methodology than any spectacular performance by FT’s Orange properties. WI only counts connections if a carrier group owns a majority stake in an operator (for instance Verizon’s subscribers don’t count toward Vodafone’s total). FT recently upped its ownership in several operators over 50 percent, which accounts for the huge subscriber boost.

It’s also important to note that connections don’t always translates into revenues. Verizon and AT&T rank 16^th and 18^th in total connections respectively, but they’re Nos. 2 and 3 in total revenues. In terms of revenues, Verizon is larger than its parent Vodafone, even though Vodafone has more than three times as many customers. As Wireless Intelligence points out, North American operators have a particular knack for making more money on each connection.

Photo courtesy of Shutterstock user Kittisak

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Is it time to retire the 5-star rating system?

Colleen Taylor — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 00:41:43 +0000

Thanks to the rating systems in place on such popular websites as Netflix, Amazon and eBay, many people have become comfortable evaluating things in absolute terms: a two-star restaurant, a B movie and so on. But new research out of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology says that this approach to ranking things is fundamentally flawed.

Recommendation systems should instead ask users to compare products in pairs, not as stand-alone items, says Devavrat Shah, a professor at MIT’s Laboratory of Information and Decisions Systems.

According to Shah, the kind of star rating systems that are the status quo on the web today are flawed because, well, humans are flawed. “If my mood is bad today, I might give four stars, but tomorrow I’d give five stars. But if you ask me to compare two movies, most likely I will remain true to that for a while,” Shah says in an article published this week on MIT’s news site. “Your three stars might be my five stars, or vice versa. For that reason, I strongly believe that comparison is the right way to capture this.”

In a series of recently published academic papers, Shah, along with students Ammar Ammar and Srikanth Jagabathula, as well as MIT Sloan School of Management professor Vivek Farias, demonstrated that stitching “pairwise rankings” together into a master list is a more accurate representation of customer sentiment than relying on customers to rate things by themselves on a typical five-star scale. According to the MIT researchers, they have formulated algorithms that have proven to accurately predict shoppers’ preferences with 20 percent greater accuracy than the kinds of formulas most often in use today. They have built a website, Celect.com, to show off their theories in practice.

The success of using a more complicated algorithmic approach for recommendation engines has been proven by Apple’s iTunes software, and in particular, its Genius song selection feature. An Apple engineer disclosed last year that Genius uses much more than just the star ratings system to power its personalized song recommendation engine. In fact, iTunes use a complex combination of big data analytics and aggregated personal information to customize content for users.

Of course, finding programmers is tough as it is, and not all web companies can afford to hire Apple-caliber software engineers or MIT Ph.D.s to formulate their recommendation engines. Also, users on sites such as Yelp have become very confident in their roles as armchair critics, adding and subtracting stars from reviews for highly specific reasons. But then again, classic websites such as HotorNot.com — and even Facebook predecessor FaceMash.com — have shown that one-to-one comparisons can be fun, too. According to the folks at MIT, if comparison engines can make the leap from fun pastime into the big leagues of e-commerce, recommendation systems could get even more spookily accurate.

Image from the cover art of The Complete Works of The Critic DVD set, found on Amazon.com

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What Apple’s App Store Changes Mean for Users

Darrell Etherington — Tue, 19 Apr 2011 18:20:48 +0000

Apple appears to be changing up the criteria for how apps are ranked in the App Store, and seems to be blocking content that tries to “game” or artificially alter rankings by offering users in-game credits or other virtual rewards for installing other apps. The changes will make the App Store a better place, especially for shoppers.

The new App Store rankings now account for things like frequency of use and ratings, according to a report Monday. That appears to be the case because popular, frequently used apps like Facebook, Pandora Radio and Skype experienced significant ranking bumps late last week. That means that apps that people use most, and enjoy most, will be surfaced more effectively in the App Store, versus ones that just get more downloads. Many apps are downloaded and then promptly deleted or seldom used after that, which is not what users new to the platform are looking for when they first open the App Store.

Localmind developer Lenny Rachitsky suggests that the new ranking system, if it really is predicated upon app use and ratings, will be good for developers, which will in turn make for a much better experience for all iOS users:

The discovery experience in the App Store has historically been a rough experience. You either shoot up the rankings and make your own gravy, or you are selected from on-high to be featured. The more opportunity Apple gives to apps to gain exposure and to catch on, the better for everyone. Especially if that push up the rankings is based on engagement, which is the key metric in determining the quality of an app.

Better rankings will have a positive effect on user experience, as should blocking apps that offer pay-per-install reward systems. Such campaigns not only artificially boost the App Store rankings of apps whose quality doesn’t necessarily back up their position, they also directly interfere with the user experience of the App Store itself. Says Rachitsky:

Apple is looking to block anything that circumvents the model they’ve created. They saw what happened on the Facebook platform and the trouble they had forcing everyone over to Facebook Credits after-the-fact. In the end this should lead to a better user experience, something Apple takes extremely seriously, as anything that separates the user from their money will flow through a unified Apple process. No doubt this will hurt companies like Tapjoy that count on the existing model, but they had to know this was possible from the start.

The end result? Apps that are surfaced for iOS shoppers will be better designed and more useful to consumers than those that have occupied top spots in the past. That doesn’t necessarily mean users won’t encounter poorly made apps or that all of Apple’s app discovery issues are resolved. In fact, good titles with a small devoted following will still have trouble getting recognition, perhaps even more so if bigger name apps like Facebook and the others mentioned above zoom to the top. But it does mean that users new to the platform will be far less likely to have a negative first experience with the App Store. And first impressions are going to become much more important as the Android Market continues to catch up to the App Store in terms of reach, selling power and software library size.

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iPad 2 Tops Consumer Reports Tablet Ratings

Darrell Etherington — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 13:19:57 +0000

Consumer Reports has released its rundown of the top 10 tablets, and while it says there’s some competition brewing, Apple still wins in terms of both quality and price. The iPad also has a leg up on competitors that are yet to be released, and Consumer Reports does a good job of pointing to little details that illustrate why that is.

The iPad took four of the top five spots on Consumer Reports’ ratings chart. The 32 GB iPad 2 with Wi-Fi + 3G topped the list with an overall score of 84, and the 32 GB iPad 2 Wi-Fi took second. Original model 32 GB iPads with 3G and Wi-Fi-only took third and fifth, respectively. The Motorola Xoom was the only non-Apple tablet in the top five, with a fourth-place ranking.

The top five, plus the Samsung Galaxy Tab, which came in sixth, earned Consumer Reports‘ “Buy” recommendation. The remaining devices on the list, which included, in order of ranking, the ViewSonic ViewPad 7, the Archos 101 Internet Tablet, the Dell Streak and the Archos 70 Internet Tablet, all ranked quite a bit lower than the top six.

What makes Apple stand out? According to Consumer Reports, it comes from a number of small advantages all adding up to one big lead. The tablet report is right in pointing out most tablets nowadays are virtually identical these days. Most provide capacitive touchscreens, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, front-facing webcams and GPS. But Apple is still winning on price when you look at features and storage capacity, and it edges out the competition in terms of quality, too.

Consumer Reports found that even the original iPad had the best screen of all tablets tested, including a better viewing angle than its competitors and excellent color. The screen design also works to Apple’s advantage, as the more square screen ratio allows for either a taller on-screen keyboard, or more content visible above said keyboard, and a less cramped portrait viewing mode.

Finally, Consumer Reports warns against some of the disadvantages of other competitors not covered in the rankings. The HP Slate 500, loses points for using Windows 7, while the upcoming BlackBerry Playbook is knocked because it will ship without native email support, and will require a tethered BlackBerry smartphone for 3G connectivity. RIM has announced a WiMax version, but it won’t support 3G fallback when leaving 4G coverage areas.

The results aren’t surprising, but Consumer Reports does do a good job of unearthing some of the more subtle advantages the iPad has over its current competition, especially when it comes to average everyday use scenarios.

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Apple Moves Into Fourth in Global Mobile Phone Sales

Josh MacDonald — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 14:30:11 +0000

Jumping past Research in Motion, Apple has entered the top five in global mobile phone sales, trailing only Nokia, Samsung, and LG. Number four may not count for much in the realm of professional sports, but it means a lot in the technology business.

Last week, TheAppleBlog discussed Apple’s climb to number two in the global smartphone battle. In a report released yesterday by research firm IDC, we learned Apple is moving up the ladder in the broader cellphone category worldwide, too.

Kevin Restivo, senior research analyst with IDC, says “The entrance of Apple to the top 5 vendor ranking underscores the increased importance of smartphones to the overall market. Moreover, the mobile phone makers that are delivering popular smartphone models are among the fastest growing firms…Vendors that aren’t developing a strong portfolio of smartphones will be challenged to maintain and grow market share in the future.”

Don’t forget that Apple has only been manufacturing phones since 2007 and, in that time, has achieved market dominance with only one or two models on sale at once. With the iPhone’s release in 17 different countries in the past quarter alone, it’s set to push that progress even further. Nokia still has a huge lead, but it is eroding.

According to IDC, Nokia dropped over 4 percentage points to 32.4 percent market-share, and LG electronics missed its shipment goal by double digits. Samsung is the only company ahead of Apple that experienced growth during the quarter.

Reception issues that spurred a product-wide free case program not only weren’t enough to slow down iPhone 4 sales, but seem to be a minor blip looked at from the vantage point of today. Apple continues to be the leader of the pack in design and product growth, despite occasional flaws and constant challenges from other strong contenders.

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Despite Growth, Apple Slips a Spot in U.S. Computer Sales Rankings

Darrell Etherington — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 16:21:32 +0000

Two separate studies have been released ranking sales of computers in the U.S., and both agree that Apple has fallen one place compared to results from the same quarter last year. In both studies, one of which comes from research firm IDC and one of which comes from Gartner, Apple placed fourth in Q4 2008 results, and had dropped to fifth during the Q4 2009 period.

IDC found that Mac sales in the U.S. had climbed by 31 percent compared to last year, but that despite that strong growth, sales hadn’t kept up with increases in the industry at large. Cheap Windows machines helped create a banner year for the PC side of things. Gartner came up with slightly less impressive numbers for Apple during the quarter, with a growth rate of 23 percent.

That’s quite a difference, and represents a 40,000 machine gap between the figures found by the two companies. It’s a large enough gap to affect whether Apple falls under or above the average gain among all companies listed in the rankings. By comparison, PC makers HP and Toshiba had incredibly strong years, growing sales by 45 percent and 71 percent respectively.

In a quote from Computerworld, Gartner analyst Mikako Kitagawa explains what Apple’s doing wrong to miss out on the promising industry numbers, and its a tune we’ve all heard before:

The U.S. market last quarter continued to be very price driven. If a company is not in the low-priced market, it’s absolutely difficult for it to increase market share. And Apple did not do as well as others in share because of its prices.

Netbooks and cheap laptops are flying off the shelves, in other words. That being the case, the growth numbers might not mean as much to Apple as they might otherwise. If companies like Toshiba and HP are making their gains on the backs of underpowered machines of questionable build quality, and ones that might also have lower profit margins than Apple’s line, then it might not be growth that Cupertino is interested in. I maintain that we’ve yet to see the fallout of selling so many cheap machines so quickly. Wait a couple years till they start showing significant failure rates, then we’ll see how long-term growth is affected.

The general recovery of the PC industry is good news for Apple, though, even if it didn’t reap as many of the direct benefits as some of its rivals. The bottom line is that people are once again willing to spend money on consumer electronics, and computing devices specifically. The climate is a much better one in which to introduce a tablet than it has been in recent memory.

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Apple Advances in Greenpeace Charts

Darrell Etherington — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 17:08:55 +0000

Once per quarter, international environmental advocacy agency Greenpeace releases its Guide to Greener Electronics, which ranks gadget and computer makers on their efforts to be more ecologically minded. Last time around, Apple had managed only a ninth place finish in October of last year. For this inaugural 2010 survey, it jumps four spots to fifth overall.

Apple’s score didn’t increase that much, going from 4.9 to 5.1, but some of its competitors did very poorly over the period covered by the rankings, according to Greenpeace’s analysis. What Apple did manage to do was to actually act in a way that was much more environmentally friendly than previous attempts, despite actually moving backwards in its attempts to educate the public about its ecological efforts.

According to Greenpeace’s detailed evaluation, the redesign of the environmental information portion of Apple’s website actually provides less information than before, which counts against it according to the rating criteria the organization has established:

Apple loses a point for providing even less information (on its updated web-pages) about its supply chain communications than before. This criterion evaluates disclosure of information flow in the supply chain. Apple also loses a point for minimal information about its future toxic chemical phase-out plans, reducing its communication on this subject on its updated web-pages.

In terms of practical steps taken to lessen the impact of its actual products on the environment, though, Apple did very well:

Apple does best on the toxic chemicals criteria, where it scores most of its points. It scores substantially less on waste and energy. In this evaluation, Apple wins and loses some points on toxic chemicals, but gains on energy. All Apple products are now free of PVC and BFRs, with the exception of PVC-free power cords in countries where their safety certification process is still ongoing.

The four companies ahead of Apple on the ratings scale are Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Toshiba and Philips. That means that Apple is second among computer makers overall. Nintendo, Microsoft and Lenovo occupy the three bottom spots on the chart, with Microsoft slipping this year for a failure to support strong chemicals legislation. Apple is the only company to have earned four stars in Greenpeace’s new supplemental ratings chart regarding the elimination of harmful chemicals.

Every time these rankings are released, people tend to take issue with Greenpeace’s methods and motivations, and generally naysay the value of the guide. It may be true that Greenpeace has a very clear political aim, but I really don’t think provoking some sense of accountability in consumer-facing electronics companies is really a bad thing, even if you disagree with the methodology involved.

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Apple iPhone Tops Mobile Phone Industry in the U.S.

Darrell Etherington — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 18:00:55 +0000

If you live in the U.S. and own a mobile phone, it’s most likely an iPhone, according to a new study conducted by Nielsen. From January through October of this year, Apple’s little wonder device was the most popular phone in the country.

It beat the BlackBerry 8300 (Curve), which came in at No. 2. BlackBerry’s cumulative share still exceeds the iPhone’s, however, as the touchscreen Storm and entry-level Pearl also placed quite high on the list. Coming in at No. 3 was Motorola’s RAZR V3, despite its considerable age and lack of smartphone features.

By the numbers, the iPhone 3G took 4 percent of cell-phone ownership in the U.S. (it’s unclear how previous models and the 3GS fit into this breakdown), while the Curve had 3.7 percent. The gap was wider between the second- and third-place finishers, with the RAZR taking only 2.3 percent. Meanwhile LG had a strong showing, with four handsets appearing in the top 10, and a cumulative market share of 6.4 percent.

As to web activity on cell phones, Google topped the list of sites accessed via a mobile device, and competitor Yahoo came in second with its Yahoo Mail site. Gmail came in third, and YouTube won out in terms of destinations for mobile video, making it a very solid year for Google in terms of the mobile web.

Notably, no Android devices made the top 10 list of popular devices, but Motorola’s Droid arrived late to the game. Expect to see it, or possibly the Nexus One, somewhere on this list in 2010.

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BlackBerry Curve Outsells iPhone 3GS in Second Quarter

Darrell Etherington — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 18:00:08 +0000

According to a report by FierceWireless based on data gathered by industry analysts IDC, the iPhone 3GS sold strongly in the second quarter of 2009, but not as strongly as the BlackBerry Curve, RIM’s mid-range smartphone offering. According to its analysis, which is based on industry insider interviews, and information from parts manufacturers and distributors, since no company releases firm sales numbers, BlackBerry beat out Apple during the 3GS launch quarter.

As VentureBeat points out, the numbers don’t necessarily reflect actual consumer purchases (sell-through), only really how many units were bought by telcos and retailers (sell-in), and even then the figures are educated guesses, not solid facts. Still, the ranking does tell a story for Apple: a story of success.

Keen readers will note that the report covers second quarter 2009, during which the iPhone 3GS was only available for 12 days through one major U.S. carrier, while the BlackBerry Curve had been on offer throughout the quarter, from no less than all four of the major U.S. carriers, plus many other smaller providers. Also note that the “Curve” moniker applies to a wide selection of handsets, including the 83XX legacy line that many providers offer deep contract discounts on.

Bottom line? The 3GS is already a huge success, despite its relative youth. The rest of the list includes veterans like the Pearl, Storm, Bold, and Android G1, all of which have been around for a while and are much more competitively priced. The iPhone 3G comes in at number four, a fairly strong showing, especially since that puts Apple in two of the top five positions. Unless RIM has something special up its sleeve, expect to see the 3GS pull far ahead in the third quarter.

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Apple Climbs to Middle of the Pack in Fortune Global 500 List

Darrell Etherington — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 21:00:08 +0000

Once a year, Fortune releases its ranking of the top 500 global companies, and in recent years Apple has usually managed to nab a spot. This year, it rose to almost exactly the middle of the field at 253, up from 337 last year. The ratings are based on gross revenue, so it isn’t surprising to find larger PC manufacturers like Hewlett-Packard (32) and Dell (115) ranked significantly higher, despite the fact that Apple enjoys healthier profit margins.

Rankings are based on performance over the course of the last year, so the new list represents results for 2008. Apple first made the cut of the Global 500 list only two years ago for 2006, when they placed near the very bottom, at 492. Considering the short time frame, that’s actually a fairly impressive 2-year gain.

Take into account, though, that collective earnings for the list taken as a whole declined 85 percent this past year, which marks the most significant loss since Fortune began compiling it. Apple, Quanta, and HP were the only computer manufacturers on the list to post gains, with Apple outpacing all with a 38 percent boost in overall profits.

The results show that, if nothing else, Apple has been especially resistant to the effects of a down global economy thus far. Their success with the iPhone 3GS, coupled with the recent popularity of the newly upgraded 13-inch MacBook Pro, suggests that that resilience will continue through the summer and probably into the holiday season, especially if the rumored iMac price cuts come through as predicted.

The Fortune Global 500 is not to be confused with the Fortune 500, which only ranks American companies. When that list was released earlier this year in April, Apple had broken the top 100 for the first time since Steve Jobs’ return to the company in 1994. It reached number 71 on that list.

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