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January 27, 2012

Amazon said earlier this morning that it has dropped the price of the Samsung Galaxy Nexus smartphone, Google's flagship Android 4.0 phone, to just $99 on its Amazon Wireless store.

The decision is seen by some wireless industry analysts as a desperate move to fight off growing competition from Apple's immensely popular iPhone. But there is a small catch though. The low price (about half that of similar online deals from places like Letstalk.com) is only available to new Verizon Wireless customers and naturally requires a new contract with the wireless carrier.

That means that if you're already locked into a Verizon contract, you can still upgrade from your Droid 2.

For existing Verizon customers looking to upgrade, Amazon charges $259 for the Galaxy Nexus. Not such a great deal, but better than what you'll pay if you're the type who wants to have your Ice Cream Sandwich and travel with it, too.

An unlocked Galaxy Nexus from Amazon gets only a $70 discount, bringing the price down to $729-- still a pretty expensive proposition.

If you're looking to jump to Verizon and are in the market for a top-of-the-line Android phone, this deal might be for you.

In other mobile news

AT&T Mobility this morning delivered its fourth quarter financial results, saying that it witnessed a huge growth in mobile broadband sales and smartphone activations, with Apple's iPhone accounting for about 81 percent of all devices sold and activated by the wireless carrier.

Overall, AT&T sold no less than 9.4 million smartphones in its last quarter, with the iPhone contributing 7.6 million of that total. Despite the big increase in iPhone activations, it was also a record quarter for Android activations as well.

In comparison, Verizon activated 2.3 million 4G devices and 4.3 million iPhones, doubling from the third quarter’s 2 million, but even then AT&T still sold about 77 percent more iPhones than Verizon in the last quarter.

This simply means that AT&T’s sales growth between the third and fourth quarters was 181 percent, with Verizon Wireless posting impressive numbers as well of 115.2 percent.

An average of about 70 percent of all smartphones sold by the U.S.' two largest wireless carriers were iPhones. It’s no wonder that Apple posted sales of 37 million iPhones this week.

AT&T’s smartphone activations grew by 60 percent year over year, with consolidated revenues of $32.5 billion, up $1.1 billion, or 3.6 percent, versus the year-earlier period.

But nevertheless, the company still posted a fourth-quarter loss of $6.7 billion, down from a profit of $1.1 billion a year ago.

The writedown was attributed to the failed merger with T-Mobile USA, in which AT&T had to pay T-Mob a large breakup fee if the deal was rejected by U.S. regulators.

The FCC nixed the planned takeover after Congress cited numerous concerns that the merger would create a duopoly, would reduce competition, raise prices and would offer consumers less choice.

AT&T had to pay $4 billion to T-Mobile's parent company Deutsche Telekom after the deal was rejected by the FCC.

We now look forward to seeing how Sprint fared in the last quarter, given that the iPhone 4S is the first Apple device it has sold. If AT&T and Verizon are anything to go by, Sprint may well see impressive numbers as well.

In other mobile news

Late yesterday, Motorola said it has filed another half dozen patent infringements against Apple, this time in Florida. Apple's iCloud is accused of infringing two of them, while all six lawsuits are applied to the iPhone 4S.

Motorola is asking for no less than the usual ban on all iPhone sales, plus the immediate shutting down of Apple's iCloud service, together with the usual monetary damages.

The objectives of each side in the bigger battle aren't entirely the same. Apple wants to see Android totally destroyed, or at least severely wounded, while Google wants Apple to leave it alone and, perhaps, pay some royalties, but that's not the priority here.

By acquiring Motorola's mobile handset division last year, Google is drawing itself into the fight, making a final showdown between the two companies inevitable.

It will be interesting to see what the outcome of these six lawsuits is, and how the Court will react to this. One thing is for sure, it isn't the first time that those two companies are fighting, and it sure won't be the last.

In other mobile news

Nokia announced yesterday that it sold its 1.5 billionth Nokia Series 40 phone in San Paulo, Brazil. The smartphone, an Asha model 303, was sold to 21-year-old Mayara Rodrigues, who wants to use the device to keep in touch with friends and family through social networks, the handset maker said.

The Asha 303 device boasts a touch screen and Qwerty keyboard and comes preinstalled with Angry Birds Lite. The mobile handset is a far cry from the first Series 40 phone Nokia launched back in 1999.

Called the Nokia 7110, the device had a spring-loaded cover over a standard numeric keypad. "Send" and "End" buttons above the keypad were just below two input buttons to interact with the device's software.

The software came with a Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) browser and messaging features. Nokia is expected to release its quarterly earnings tomorrow.

This announcement might be designed to offer a glimmer of hope to shareholders who watch, with envy, as Apple posted huge results yesterday.

Apple sold a record-breaking 37.04 million iPhones globally during the fourth quarter. Even with 1.5 billion Series 40 phones sold, there's no denying Nokia is losing its grip on the mobile market.

In 2010, Nokia sold 450 million mobile handsets worldwide. But after announcing a steep shipment decline last year, the company said it would no longer provide sales forecasts. Nokia's earnings call tomorrow, however, is expected to shed more light on how many phones it shipped in 2011.

If Nokia can't turn things around, it might become the second-place handset seller this year, just behind Samsung. Earlier this month, Samsung CEO Choi Sung said he believes his company's sales will outpace Nokia's in 2012, reaching 374 million units.

Nokia, meanwhile, is hoping that its transition to Windows Phone 7 will help jump-start its ailing business. Bloomberg yesterday reported that 1.3 million Nokia Lumia handsets with Windows Phone had shipped through the end of 2011.

However, as Nokia's sales in San Paulo shows, the company has a strong presence globally. The company said today that each day, 1.3 billion people worldwide use a Nokia device.

In other mobile news

Apple just had a blowout first quarter and the company posted its results yesterday.

If purchases of the Amazon Kindle Fire tablet took a small bite into iPad sales during the busy holiday season, Apple CEO Tim Cook sure didn't see it, and said that the Kindle Fire barely made a small dent in iPad sales.

"I looked at the numbers, particularly in the U.S. and on a weekly basis, after Amazon launched its Kindle Fire tablet, and in my view there wasn't an obvious effect on the iPad sales numbers," Cook told analysts and reporters during an earnings call after Apple announced its impressive first-quarter financial results yesterday.

When one analyst asked him if he had heard the speculation that some customers had looked at the $199 Fire, found it wanting, then moved up the cost ladder to the $499-to-$829 iPad, Cook said that, yes, he had heard that theory, but he discounted it.

"Whether that's happening on a very, very large basis, I don't know," he said. "Again, my own view is – looking at our data in the U.S., there was no obvious change."

But if Apple's iPad didn't tempt prospective purchasers away from lower-priced tablets, it did have an effect on the sales of another of Apple's offerings-- the Mac computer. And some wireless industry analysts had already expected that.

"To a certain degree, there was a bit of cannibalization of the Mac by the iPad," Cook admitted, although with 5.2 million Macs sold during the quarter, representing a 26 percent increase over the year-ago quarter, that effect was hardly fatal to Apple's Mac OS X units.

Cook then added that Apple still believes that if anyone is suffering from the iPad's success, it's PC manufacturers. "And there's many more of them to cannibalize," he said, "and so we love that trend. We think it's great for Apple."

To be sure, the iPad is making more and more inroads into traditionally strong Mac markets. For instance, in K-12 education circles, Cook said that Apple sold twice as many iPads as Mac computers, although he didn't provide any time frame.

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Source: Amazon.

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