Entangled Particles

Mobile Barcodes coming to US (via Dupont packaging)

This could be the tipping point for mobile barcodes in the US.

A joint agreement has been announced between Modavox , DuPont , Scanbuy , Graphic Packaging International , and Augme Mobile .

What seems significant is the participation of packaging manufacturers including Dupont through their division of DuPont Ethylene Copolymers which produces the plastic material and artwork that ships with a great number of manufactured good.

Mobile barcodes will never get adopted until their is consensus on the format. And that can only happen with a big partner to push things through (that's what happened in Japan).

Via

iPod vs original Walkman

What happens when you swap a 13-year-old's iPod for the original Walkman?

It took me three days to figure out that there was another side to the tape. That was not the only naive mistake that I made; I mistook the metal/normal switch on the Walkman for a genre-specific equaliser, but later I discovered that it was in fact used to switch between two different types of cassette.

Another notable feature that the iPod has and the Walkman doesn't is "shuffle", where the player selects random tracks to play. Its a function that, on the face of it, the Walkman lacks. But I managed to create an impromptu shuffle feature simply by holding down "rewind" and releasing it randomly - effective, if a little laboured.

From the BBC.

US mobile data usage up 51% (Comscore)

Comscore reports that mobile data usage is up 51% over the past year. They have it broken down by Browser, SMS, and Downloadable Apps. 

Subscribers Accessing Local Mobile Content* by Access Method, Three-Month Average

		March '08		March '09		% Change
Any access method		21.5		32.5		51%
Browser		15.4		20.7		34%
SMS		6.8		11.7		72%
App downloaded to phone		6.2		11.3		83%

* Local content defined as searching for information on maps, movies, business directories or restaurants

(US Mobile Subscribers Age 13+)

Source:  Comscore

Number of iPhone subscribers is 6.4 million

Some good stats on iPhone from Nielson.  They don't seem to mention the source, so I guess it could be either surveys or Telephia bill-scraping.

Here are the numbers:

As of April 2009, the number of iPhone users in the U.S. was 6.4 million (up from 2.1 million a year prior).

Forty-percent of iPhone subscribers have household incomes of $100,000 or more, compared with 19% for all subscribers.

Age ranges of iPhone subscribers:

13-17  5%

18-24 13%

25-34 29%

35-54 36%

55+ 17%

And they report that 75% of iPhone subscribers download apps.

That last number is surprising.  Does that mean the other 25% don't have iTunes accounts?  Are they not interested in apps?  Or are do they have jailbroken devices?

Update:  I forgot to mention the iPod Touch.  AdMob estimates that there were 22.5 million iPhone and iPod Touch devices in the US (75% of 30 million) in March 2009.  If both Neilson and Admob are correct (and you disregard the 3 month time gap), that would mean 16.1 million iPod Touch devices in the US.

Estimate for AT&T Prepaid Subscribers

Came across a good post from Wireless POV that breaks down the number of AT&T subscribers by type (which AT&T doesn't publish in their quarterly financial statements).  It's a guess, but seems pretty educated.

AT&T subscribers (Q4 2008):
60 million postpaid
5.7 million prepaid
11.6 million reseller subs (Tracfone)
= 77 million total

Same methodology should work for other carriers, assuming their resellers have published numbers.

iPhone and Android make up 50% of Google's smartphone traffic worldwide

Here's some very good data published by Vic Gundotra, Vice President of Engineering for Google’s mobile and developer products.

The best quote (and graph):

The availability of a modern web browser explains why iPhone and Android users — just 13% of the high-end market — represent nearly 50% of Google’s smartphone traffic worldwide.

Via TechCrunchIT

Wireless carrier financial results

Here are US carrier financial reports on wireless revenue, subscribers, churn, and ARPU.  The numbers were collected by GigaOm but I re-sorted to show a side by side comparison.

No big surprises here.  AT&T and Verizon are fairly evenly matched in market share, though AT&T is acquiring new subs faster.  Sprint continues to fail.  T-Mobile growing nicely, but remains the underdog.  Annoyingly each carrier reports prepaid/postpaid differently, so it's a hard to compare churn and ARPU.

Will be very interesting to see how the recession impacts these numbers.  Will prepaid gain rapidly resulting in a lower ARPU?  What impact will flat rate voice/data plans have?

Wireless revenue:
AT&T    $11.5 billion
Verizon    $11.1 billion
Sprint    $6.56 billion
T-Mobile    $4.9 billion

Wireless income:
AT&T    $2.7 billion
Verizon    $3.57 billion
Sprint    (loss of $1.28 billion)
T-Mobile    $.483 billion

Data revenue:
AT&T    $3.1 billion
Verizon    $3.2 billion
Sprint    N/A
T-Mobile    $.9 billion

Total subscribers:
AT&T    77 million
Verizon    72.1 million
Sprint    49.3 million
T-Mobile    32.8 million

Subscriber additions:
AT&T    800k prepaid / 1.3 million postpaid
Verizon    1.2 million prepaid and postpaid
Sprint    (loss of 314k prepaid and 1.1 million postpaid)
T-Mobile    355k prepaid / 266k postpaid

Churn:
AT&T    postpaid 1.2% / prepaid N/A
Verizon    1.35% blended / postpaid 1.05%
Sprint    postpaid 2.16% / prepaid 8.2%
T-Mobile    3.3% blended

ARPU:
AT&T    postpaid $59.59 / prepaid N/A
Verizon    $51.72 blended
Sprint    postpaid $56  / prepaid $30
T-Mobile    postpaid $54 / prepaid $23

Mobile Market Declines by 12.6% (breaking down the IDC report)

Lots of speculation recently on how the economic troubles are impacting the mobile phone industry.  IDC reports on how handset sales are getting hit with a 12.6% worldwide decline in Q4 of 2008.

What will be the downstream impact on data consumption?  Since consumers with new phones are the most active in using data, there will be some downward pressure there.  On the other hand, smart phones as a percentage of sales are rising (by double digits in Q4), so there should be enough of an increase to counteract falling handset sales.

Here are the numbers on smart phones for the year 2008:

• North America:  70.1%
• EMEA (Europe, Middle, East Africa):  25.0%

(wow, NA is blowing away EMEA)

And here are IDC's numbers for the Big 5 in Q4 2008 (in millions):

Vendor	Q408 Unit Shipments	Q408 Market Share	Q407 Unit Shipments	Q407 Market Share	4Q08/4Q07 Change
1. Nokia	113.1	39.1%	133.5	40.4%	-15.0%
2. Samsung	52.8	18.3%	46.3	14.0%	14.1%
3. LG Electronics	25.7	8.9%	23.7	7.2%	8.4%
4. Sony Ericsson	24.2	8.4%	30.8	9.3%	-21.4%
5. Motorola	19.2	6.6%	40.9	12.4%	-53.0%
Others	54.0	18.7%	55.6	16.8%	-2.9%
Total	289.0	100.0%	330.8	100.0%	-12.6%

Sprint Open Location Platform and uLocate

Network-based location is here!

Through the Sprint Open Location Platform, network-based location has been made available through WHERE by uLocate, 1 of 2 initial aggregators.  Here's the Sprint press release and the uLocate post.

This service is related to Sprint's previous Business Mobility Framework (BMF), but includes much broader access for third party developers.

In 2008, we saw location arrive on smart-phones (Apple iPhone, Google Android G1, and Blackberries powered by GPS/CellID/Wifi).  In 2009, it would not be surprising if we see some further announcements from other carriers besides Sprint.   After nearly 10 years of hype in location-based services, the year of LBS can be said to be finally arriving.

AT&T joins the cloud

Everyone is talking about Cloud Computing recently, and so it's good to see AT&T enter the game.  Would be especially nice if they can integrate into the offering for mobile developers.  It's not easy maintaining SLAs for carrier agreements, especially for smaller developers.