1）Strategy Analytics最近报告预测，三星在2013年智能手机销量将达2.9亿部，高于2012年预期的2.15亿部，三星在2013年智能手机市场份额将达33%，超过去年时的31%。与此同时，苹果2013年智能手机销量将达1.8亿部，比去年销量增长三分之一，其所占市场份额将达21%。

iPhone mini(from nextpowerup.com)

Strategy Analytics认为苹果未来可能会推出“iPhone Mini”，但未必是在今年发布该产品。

由于南美、中国以及亚洲、西欧等主要预计2013年全球智能手机市场增长速度将有所减缓，出货量将达8.75亿部，增幅为27%（去年为41%）。

2）据insidemobileapps报道，谷歌最近更新数据显示，Android jelly Bean（4.1及4.2版本）在Android设备中的普及率已超过10%（10.2%），而市场规模最大的Gingerbread所占份额却首次降至47.6%，降幅为3%。

android version(from Google)

Ice Cream Sandwich则呈上升趋势，从原先的27.5%增长至29.1%；Froyo版本的占有率则降至9%，下降1.3个百分点。

除此之外，Honeycomb占比1.5%，Eclair占比2.4%，Donut占比0.2%。

3）The Sociable最新数据显示，Google Play应用数量其实已在2012年10月份赶上iOS App Store，总数已达70万，现在统计Google Play应用数量已达80万，增长速度超过了iOS App Store。

google-play-apps-projection(from phonearena.com)

在此之前，Distimo曾在12月底发布数据指出，Google Play应用收益增长速度比苹果App Store快两倍。

4）Kantar Worldpanel最新数据表明，苹果在2012年底已占据53.3%的美国智能手机市场份额，而在上一季度苹果所占份额仅为35.8%，iPhone 5是其市场份额攀升的主要动力（游戏邦注：其调查样本为26万美国用户，时间是2012年9月至11月）。

iphone 5(from vecteezy.com)

在11月份中购买iPhone的用户中，40%属于新智能手机购买者。有27%购买iPhone的用户，之前选择的是其他智能手机平台。

5）据gamezebo报道，《Age of Empires Online》开发商Gas Powered Games最近通过公司博客表示，公司已无力继续为该游戏制作高质量的新内容，但开发团队仍将维持游戏运营，持续推出修复补丁，竞赛及PvP挑战等活动。

age-of-empires-online(from digitaltrends.com)

6）据venturebeat报道，Zynga最近数据表明，《FarmVille 2》月活跃用户已超过4240万，其中有17名玩家来自梵蒂冈，9名玩家位于总人口仅为1万544的太平洋小岛图瓦卢。

《FarmVille 2》发布于去年9月份，目前用户数量虽然尚未达到《FarmVille》全盛时期的8300万MAU的水平，但增长数量仍然十分明显。

FarmVille 2(from kotaku.com)

7）据games.com报道，Kabam日前宣布将于1月31日关闭旗下僵尸题材游戏《Thirst of Night》，届时将关闭这款游戏所有服务器。

thirst-of-night-city(from games)

玩家现在已不可再购买该游戏货币，而已购买货币的玩家将可把这些货币用于其他Kabam游戏。

据insidesocialgames报道，这款游戏从未在Facebook上线，仅在Google+和Pokki、Download.com露面了一段时间，尽管目前尚不知这款游戏具体活跃用户数据，但可以估计其玩家数量低于5000人。

8）据games.com报道，由部分《使命召唤》前开发者成立的工作室U4iA Games最近向Facebook推出硬核射击游戏《Offensive Combat》，据该工作室所称，这款游戏此前已有5万活跃用户，登陆Facebook更有助于扩大玩家规模。

offensive combat(from games)

U4iA联合创始人及首席执行官Dusty Welch表示，Facebook是一个让玩家与好友进行无缝隙互动的平台，这款第一人称射击游戏提供了技能树、武器自定义系统以及9个可玩地图，玩家可以邀请好友参与游戏并赢取额外的游戏钱币。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转载，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

1）Strategy Analytics: Samsung To Extend Lead Over Apple’s iPhone In 2013, And Take 33% Of Global Smartphone Market

Natasha Lomas

Samsung will increase its lead over Apple in the smartphone space this year, according to analyst Strategy Analytics. Speaking to Reuters, the analyst said it expects the Korean electronics giant to achieve 35 per cent year-on-year growth in smartphones in 2013, fulled by its broad portfolio of handsets. This is slightly higher than the 33 per cent growth it’s projecting for Apple.

“We expect Samsung to slightly extend its lead over Apple this year because of its larger multitier product portfolio,” Neil Mawston, executive director at Strategy Analytics, told Reuters in an email.

Strategy Analytics expects Samsung to sell 290 million smartphones this year, up from a projected 215 million in 2012, to give Samsung a third (33 per cent) of the 2013 smartphone market, up from last year’s estimated 31 per cent. Meanwhile, Apple’s smartphone sales are projected to total 180 million this year, up a third on last year’s sales — giving Apple just over a fifth (21 per cent) of the market, versus last year’s 20 per cent.

There is one factor that could mitigate Samsung’s lead over Apple, according to the analyst, and that’s if Apple releases a so-called ‘iPhone mini’ to compete with Samsung portfolio lower down the device price range. A cheaper iPhone has been rumoured for years but the fabled iPhone Mini remains fictional for now — although Reuters notes the rumour of Apple making a smaller and cheaper iPhone to target China and India was most recently revived again on Wednesday, by a Topeka Capital Markets researcher.

Strategy Analytics’ Mawston said it believes Apple will need to launch an iPhone Mini in the near future but probably won’t launch one this year. ”We think Apple will have to launch an ‘iPhone Mini’ at some point over the next three years to address the hundreds of millions of prepaid users worldwide that cannot afford the current iPhone,” he told Reuters.

“The iPhone 5 is growing fast and profitably right now, so there is little incentive for Apple to launch an ‘iPhone Mini’ this year. We expect the iPhone Mini to be more likely next year, in 2014 when … Apple will be forced to discover fresh growth streams.”

The analyst is projecting global smartphone market growth will slow in 2013 from its very rapid rate of expansion last year, with shipments projected to rise 27 per cent to 875 million this year, slowing from last year’s 41 per cent growth. Strategy Analytics said this is due to growth easing in “many key markets” such as North America, China, the developed economies of Asia, and Western Europe.（source：techcrunch）

2）Android Jelly Bean passes the 10% mark, Gingerbread falls below 50%

Scott Reyburn

Google updated its developer dashboard today with the latest breakdown of Android platforms. Android Jelly Bean (version 4.1 and 4.2 combined) has surpassed the 10 percent mark, with a 10.2 percent market share of the Android platform. Android Gingerbread, the definitive leader among the various versions of the Android platform, fell below 50 percent for the first time, coming in at 47.6 percent share, down 3 percent.

A more recent version of Android, Ice Cream Sandwich, is on the rise, moving 1.6 percentage points from 27.5 percent to 29.1 percent. An even older version than Gingerbread, Froyo, also saw a dip in its share, which now has a 9.0 percent share, down 1.3 percent.

As for the rest of the Android versions, 1.5 percent of users are on Honeycomb, 2.4 percent on Eclair and 0.2 percent on Donut.

Keep in mind that Android 5.0 Key Lime Pie is scheduled to release by sometime this year, so even though Jelly Bean is on the rise, a new version of Android looms.

Google collected data for its developer dashboard from Android devices that have accessed Google Play within a 14-day period, which ended on Jan. 3 for the latest update.（source：insidemobileapps）

3）Google Play will hit a million apps in June (probably sooner than the iOS app store)

John Koetsier

I think we’re well past the time when number of apps is the defining factor of a mobile ecosystem, at least if you’re Apple or Google. Perhaps not so much if you’re Windows Phone or RIM.

But it’s still an occasional cause for genteel indirect Google-Apple pissing contests in dueling press releases. And if the number is high enough, it’s still an indicator for smartphone owners that almost any app they might actually want will actually be available. Even though most probably realize that with hundreds of thousands of apps on the major app stores, many are derivative crap.

That said, Google Play looks like it will pass the million-app mark in June, according to new data from The Sociable, which plotted all the officially available numbers and “used a process of polynomial regression” to estimate the date:

Google actually caught up with Apple in October — or got close enough that the distinction became academic — with 700,000 apps. The Sociable estimates that Google Play now has 800,000 apps and is growing faster than the iOS app store.

That makes sense, tying in with Distimo’s numbers released in late December that suggested that Google Play was growing revenues twice as fast as Apple’s app store. And with the fact that while it took eight months for Google Play to go from 200,000 to 400,000 apps, it took only slightly longer to get from 400,000 to its current 800,000 — meaning that Google is almost maintaining its rate of growth despite the massive increase in absolute numbers.

All of which may not matter very much to smartphone owners. But it is an indication of Android’s continued growth, if not in the U.S., at least globally.（source：venturebeat）

4）Old phones and new users are key reasons Apple topped 53% U.S. smartphone market share

John Koetsier

Apple was the leading smartphone platform with 53.3 percent share in the U.S. in late 2012.  According to Kantar Worldpanel data scheduled to be released on Monday, a big reason is Apple’s older phones and its capability to reach new users.

Sure, the iPhone 5 is a big part of Apple’s jump from 35.8 percent market share in the previous quarter, but not the only part.

“The iPhone 5 has been successful this period; however, we also see that Apple’s older models – the iPhone 4S and 4 — have also contributed to the growing share of iOS,” Kantar analyst Mary-Ann Parlato said in a statement. “This is particularly the case for first-time smartphone iPhone buyers where we see the older models still selling well amongs this group.”

In fact, of those who bought an iPhone in the month of November, 40 percent were new smartphone buyers. That’s significant, because it was only early last year that smartphone sales passed 50 percent and only in September that ownership passed 50 percent, both of which mean that there are still plenty of feature phone users out there, even in a supposedly mature American mobile market, who will be upgrading to smartphones over the next year.

Apple also did well with competing mobile operating system providers: 27 percent of iPhone buyers upgraded from another smartphone platform.

Apple can thank carriers for a large part of the massive jump, as AT&T’s share of iOS sales went up from 62.3 percent to 71.8 percent in the quarter, while its percentage of Android sales decreased from 25.9 percent to 22.1 percent. Verizon’s share of iOS also went from 40.7 percent to 55 percent, while its Android sales dropped below half to 43.1 percent.

RIM dropped almost 6 percent, while Windows Phone showed a slight improvement to move into third place in the smartphone wars.

While this data is U.S.-only and does not reflect international sales where Android is much stronger, it does follow huge quarters by Android, particularly in the July, August, and September period, when it captured 75 percent global market share.

Kantar’s panel data is generated by more than 260,000 consumer research interviews on a year basis in the U.S. alone, and it covers a somewhat nonstandard three-month quarter from September to November.（source：venturebeat）

5）Age of Empires Online ceasing development, switching over to “support” phase

By Dant Rambo

I hate giving bad news right before the weekend, but I’m afraid I have no choice: Age of Empires Online, a relatively new free-to-play RTS, will no longer be receiving new content. But there’s a bit of good news, as well! Developer Gas Powered Games intends to keep supporting the game with bug fixes, contests, PvP tournaments, and more. See? Always a bright side.

Now don’t go around blaming yourself or posting melancholy Facebook statuses. Age of Empires Online’s blog has made it clear that it’s not you, it’s them. They can’t afford to continue producing the kind of high-quality content they were pushing out in the past, and thus we all must bid adieu to the notion of new civilizations or features. There will be a “small amount” of as-of-now unannounced content coming out in the next few weeks, but that will be the end of it.

It’s always a bummer to see this happen to a game, but Gas Powered Games and the powers that be are making a concerted effort to do right by their players. Age of Empires Online isn’t going away, and neither are any purchases that people made while playing. So keep on with your real-time strategizing, and don’t be shy about contacting the developers about bugs you encounter.（source：gamezebo）

6）FarmVille 2 has 17 players in the Vatican and other ‘big data’ trivia

Dean Takahashi

Struggling social-game giant Zynga has more than 42.4 million monthly active players for FarmVille 2, and that means it can dig out all sorts of interesting details about those people playing the online social game on Facebook and Zynga.com.

The surprising facts from Zynga’s findings include: 17 players are in the Vatican City. Maybe the Pope is playing? FarmVille 2 launched in September. While it isn’t as popular at this point in its life cycle as the original FarmVille was at its peak (around 83 million monthly active users), the numbers of people playing it is still impressive.

Zynga also says it has nine players in Tuvalu, a remote island nation with a population of 10,544. About players harvest 350 million crops every day and plant more than 8,000 every second.

Enough virtual fertilizer has been produced to cover 24 million acres of farmland. Zynga says its Water.org charitable campaign in FarmVille 2 set a record for player donations from any Zynga game in 2012. My favorite stat: 17,876 people received a lifetime supply of clean water in real life, thanks to the donations.（source：venturebeat）

7）Kabam ends Thirst of Night’s modest reign of blood on January 31

by Joe Osborne

The first social game shut down announcement of the year is courtesy of Kabam, creator of Dragons of Atlantis and other core-focused strategy social games. The developer announced that one of its older games, Thirst of Night, will be no more come Jan. 31. All of the vampire-themed strategy game’s servers will be shut down on that Thursday.

According to an FAQ detailing the shut down, all payment systems for Thirst of Night have been turned off, meaning players can no longer buy the game’s hard currency, Rubies. And for those players that have unspent Rubies, Kabam has offered to transfer the last six months worth of unspent Ruby purchases (up to $5,000) to one of the developer’s other games.

Thirst of Night was never hosted on Facebook, but was available on Google+ for a time as well as Pokki and on Download.com, according to Inside Social Games. While it’s not possible to track exactly how many monthly or daily players Thirst of Night had just before this announcement, it’s safe to say it had less than 5,000 in either category, considering its least popular games have just tens of thousands of monthly players and are still kicking.

In 2013, cutting the fat will become (sadly) an even more popular trend for social game makers. As the powers consolidate and this corner of the industry grows more hit-driven than ever, developers will feel the pressure to focus on supporting their best performers and creating more games like them. Man, growing up sucks.（source：games）

8）Offensive Combat unleashes its FPS firepower on the land of FarmVille

by Joe Osborne

Some of the minds behind Call of Duty have done the unthinkable: brought a hardcore shooter game to Facebook. Known as U4iA Games, the developer’s debut game, Offensive Combat, is now available on the social network for all to play. The studio claims that Offensive Combat already has 500,000 active players, and a presence on Facebook could only boost that number.

“There’s no better platform than Facebook to seamlessly connect with your friends and play our game. We have already seen six-fold active user growth in a limited test over the holidays,” U4iA Games co-founder and CEO Dusty Welch said in a release. “Hundreds of millions of gamers are clamoring for competitive gaming action they can play with all of their friends, and Offensive Combat is delivering that experience.”

The first-person shooter offers what U4iA says is a “fine-tuned, eSport-level FPS game” complete with skill tree and weapon customization systems to prepare for battle on nine playable maps. And for a limited time, players can invite their friends and both will score extra in-game coins. This is one of the first core-focused games to hit Facebook in 2013. Let the deluge begin.（source：games）