In terms of challenges, as I mentioned on the March financial results conference call, RIM is going through a significant transformation as we move towards the BlackBerry 10 launch, and our financial performance will continue to be challenging for the next few quarters. The on-going competitive environment is impacting our business in the form of lower volumes and highly competitive pricing dynamics in the marketplace, and we expect our Q1 results to reflect this, and likely result in an operating loss for the quarter.

Google said on Saturday that Chinese authorities have approved its $12.5 billion purchase of Motorola Mobility Holdings, the last regulatory hurdle to a deal that would allow the world's No. 1 Internet search engine to develop its own line of smart phones…<p>A main condition of the deal is that the Android system remain free and open for five years, said a source who is familiar with the Chinese approval but not authorized to discuss it.

Roughly 50% of all the smartphones sold in the USA in Q1 2012 were iPhones. This is very different to the global picture:<p>

Android is outselling iPhone by more than 2:1 on a global basis. But in the USA, Apple is massively outselling Android. That has obvious implications for where (mainly US-based) developers should be placing their efforts.

Roughly a year ago when we summarized the state of smartphones at the Appnation conference, less than 40% of mobile subscribers in the U.S. had smartphones. Today, one in two mobile subscribers has a smartphone and that figure is moving steadily upwards.<p>

By most measures, it has been the year of the App once again, driven mostly by the rise of Android and iOS users who have more than doubled in a year and account for 88% of those who have downloaded an app in the past 30 days. In just a year, the average number of apps per smartphone has jumped 28%, from 32 apps to 41. Not only is the 2012 smartphone owner downloading more apps, they are increasingly spending more time using them vs. using the mobile web — about 10% more than last year.

Dell has stopped selling smartphones in the US as it tweaks its mobile strategy to focus more on emerging markets and higher-margin products.

Dell has nixed its last standing Venue and Venue Pro smartphones and no replacements have been announced. The smartphones had run their course, a Dell spokesman said.

"Mobility products have shorter lifecycles than laptops and desktops," he said.

Dell will introduce more mobile products in the US later this year, but the spokesman didn't say if smartphones will be among them.

When we asked our readers how satisfied they were with their smartphones overall, Apple and Microsoft customers both rated their phones an impressive 8.7 on our 0 (extremely dissatisfied) to 10 (extremely satisfied) scale. Android, on the other hand, only received a 7.9, the same rating it received in 2011. Apple's score improved from 8.4 last year; Windows Phone, which earned an Honorable Mention in 2011, improved 0.6 points. That's up from an 8.1, which is a big jump in satisfaction.

The supply of smartphones running on Android 4.0 will increase substantially starting the second quarter of 2012, with mid-range to high-end models coming from brand vendors including HTC, Samsung Electronics, and Sony Mobile Communications, while China-based handset makers may launch models based on Qualcomm's 7227a solution and MediaTek's MT6565 platform for the entry-level segment, according to industry sources.

Smartphones running on Android 4.0 account for only 2-3% of all Android phones in use currently, the sources indicated.

We've got the iPhone to thank. It set the pattern for the current smartphone paradigm because its design departed so radically from pretty much everything that had gone before--so much so that some people <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eywi0h_Y5_U" target="_blank">scoffed at the very idea</a> that it could be successful. It's sold so very well and has transformed the entire market to the extent that it's inspired all of these iPhone-esque designs (some of which Apple <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/apple/8460300/Apple-sues-Samsung-for-slavish-copying-of-iPhone-and-iPad.html" target="_blank">accuses of all but cloning</a> its ideas). </p><p>It's also the reason that MWC for this year and probably next will be very samey-samey, with all the innovation restricted to honing features like processor speed, screen technology for vividness, brightness, or pixel density, incorporating better camera technology, variations in the touch interface and the OS and the UI that controls how users interact with it. Phone CPUs will <a href="http://www.reghardware.com/2012/02/22/fujitsu_flaunts_nvidia_tegra_3_for_future_smartphones/" target="_blank">get more cores</a> (and marketing folks may try to spin this to an unknowing public as a benefit, much as during the megapixel wars when digital cameras were becoming popular). NFC and other sensors and interactive tweaks will be added. That's all innovative for sure, but it's hardly revolutionary – it won't take mobile phone tech in an amazing new direction.

The crucial question is whether the billion Android phones will have an effect on the opportunity for new entrants like Windows Phone and future BlackBerry variants as well as Bada and other Linux-based platforms.

The answer is that there will be well over 6bn mobile “connections” by the end of 2013. ITU reports that “By the end of 2010, there will be an estimated 5.3bn mobile cellular subscriptions worldwide, including 940m subscriptions to 3G services. It follows then that if this forecast is correct then by the end of 2013, Android will have about 17% penetration of the connections market.

Vodafone Group Plc, the world’s largest mobile operator, plans to use the Cebit technology trade show in Hanover next month to demonstrate its device-management suite as well as a SIM-card software that authenticates a phone’s user and encrypts data and messages, said Jan Geldmacher, who heads the carrier’s German enterprise unit. The encryption works better on Android devices than on iOS because Apple doesn’t let developers fine- tune the operating system for maximum security, he said.

“The security is a bit reduced if the manufacturer doesn’t let us access the system,” he said in an interview. “When I advise a customer and he wants to use an encryption mechanism from our Secure SIM card, and he asks me which phone he’d recommend, I’d say take an Android device.”

the speed with which Android handsets can be developed seems to be a key value of that operating system and one for which Microsoft does not have a good answer.  Nokia is now one year into its commitment to the Microsoft platform and it has a very limited portfolio to show for it (and limited sales as well.) As a result, Nokia’s Symbian business evaporated very rapidly. More rapidly than the company anticipated.

The dilemma for other vendors may well be how long will it take for them to develop a replacement for their Android portfolio in Windows Phone.

The opportunity cost of this switch is subtle and insidious but may be the root of why we don’t see a stampede toward Microsoft. Conversely, Android's contract-free, implement-at-will availability may be its greatest selling point.

Down 6% in 2011, that's where, according to the NPD Group

If it weren't for tablets and mobile phones, 2011 would have been a miserable year for the U.S. consumer electronics industry. Total U.S. retail sales for the year were $144 billion, down 1% from 2010, according to a report issued Monday by the NPD Group.

…some are arguing that Apple has single-handedly redefined the concept of a cellphone with the iPhone's giant touch-screen interface, making devices such as the BlackBerry Pearl, launched just last September, appear relatively clunky and outdated."Nobody does industrial design as well as Apple does it today," says Carmi Levy, senior vice-president of strategic consulting for AR Communications Inc. "But you can bet your next mortgage payment that RIM's engineers are already working on the next design that mimics and probably leapfrogs the iPhone. That's the name of the game."

[Co-CEO Jim] Balsillie IS the first to admit some will find the iPhone's look appealing, but he says he's doubtful the device will have much of an impact on RIM's overall sales. For one thing, he says, the iPhone will hold little appeal for RIM's core business market and its need for secure information technology systems, which RIM has been providing for years with its corporate BlackBerry email servers.

In other words, Google is going to start controlling Android more tightly by stealth: it will sell the best phones, with rapid, regular updates that its erstwhile-partners can’t match. Within a few years, I fully expect Motorola to have overtaken Samsung as the number one Android vendor. And, what’s more, I wouldn’t be surprised if Samsung hadn’t forked Android and ended up producing its own Samsung-only variant, with its own App Store.

ZTE is now targeting 80 Million handset volume in 2012 – and 100% smartphone volume growth. ZTE Blade became the second-best selling W-CDMA phone in China last summer and is now cruising towards 10 million units sold globally. The ZTE Skate is off to an even faster start. And ZTE is actually behind Huawei in China – these two combined are likely to hit 25% share of China’s handset market by summer. By elbowing out old champs like Motorola and LG in China, Huawei and ZTE are building production scale they can leverage to undercut rivals even more aggressively in the rest of the Asia.

It would not be surprising if Google opts to wind down Motorola’s handset operations sometime over the next two years and Sony bails out entirely.

Many markets only have room for two leading players - and in the technology platform world, many have only one. On the margins the niche players are little islands. No matter how impressive WP is, if the needle doesn't move, then it too becomes a marginal player. Ecosystems can perish more rapidly than they arise. If Windows Phone is to avoid the same fate as WebOS then the dynamic has to change.

But what might this be?

The amazing thing here is that AT&T actually employs bureaucrats who drive the product development of their suppliers. When AT&T wants to sell a new "differentiated" phone - that is, one with another stupid gimmick - they formally request that it be built by one of their manufacturers. Then, astonishingly, the phone makers actually comply with these ridiculous requests, and they build the phones. When you think about the implications of this process, you realize that AT&T's product managers are basically acting as phone designers by proxy.

For many handset vendors, the world has turned upside down. Nokia‘s $40 feature phones are vastly more profitable than Sony Ericsson‘s $200 Android models. This is not how the smartphone revolution was supposed to turn out.

The latest handset industry reports reveal a market still characterized by exceptional smartphone growth – and deep trouble for most vendors. Globally, smartphone volumes mushroomed by more than 50% YoY in 4Q11. Feature phone sales continued a gentle decline. But in 2012, volumes are still likely to be close to the billion unit mark. Most vendors fled this billion unit market 1-3 years ago, leaving it essentially to Nokia and a cluster of Asian white label firms.

The firm did not reveal exactly where in the business the jobs would go, and said the overseas cuts would be made “in accordance with the review of manufacturing operation”. However, its <a href="http://www.nec.co.jp/ir/en/pdf/library/120126/120126_01.pdf">financial forecast document</a> (PDF) reveals some clues.

It shows a Mobile Terminal Business in dire straits, with smartphone shipments revised down for the year from 6.5 million to 5 million units and delays to the expansion of its overseas business. The success of “foreign vendors' increasing market share in Japan” was also noted, no doubt a reference to the huge impact the iPhone has made in the land of the rising sun.

Japanese carrier KDDI has underscored some of the problems of Android by pushing ads into Android itself, customers have found for themselves. A bundled, unremovable app for the company's own app store, au one Market, pushes ads into the notification bar whether or not the app is running, Asiajin said. While there appears to be an opt-out clause, one subscriber reports that it's downplayed and has seen it appear twice with app updates.

Microsoft’s Windows Phone sales are so small right now that the company doesn’t feel compelled to report them as part of its quarterly financial results. But a new report from IHS iSuppli predicts that Microsoft will take the No. 2 slot in smartphone market share in 2015, edging out longtime rival Apple and its iPhone.

It’s not the first time an analyst has made this type of prediction. Both Gartner and IDC have made similar projections in the past. But the optimism from iSuppli is notable because it’s based on recent developments — particularly Microsoft’s partnership with Nokia.

"Samsung Electronics Co said on Tuesday it planned to merge its 'bada' mobile software with a platform backed by chipmaker Intel Corp in its latest push to diversify away from Google's Android.

"Samsung, which emerged as the world's biggest smartphone manufacturer on the back of booming Android models in the third quarter, joined forces with Intel last year to strengthen its mobile software push.

"In September two Linux software groups, one backed by Samsung, and another by Intel, agreed to jointly develop Tizen, a new operating system for cellphones and other devices, by merging their LiMo and Meego platforms in a bid to gain wider industry and consumer support."