1）据Gartner最近报告显示，今年第一季度全球手机销量达4.28亿部，智能手机占23%。诺基亚在该季度的手机销量达1.07亿部，几乎是三星、LG和苹果三者的总和。但诺基亚的市场份额已跌至1997年以来的最低点，三星、LG和RIM也出现连年下滑的倾向。

Top Five Mobile Phone Makers

只有苹果销量同比去年增长了两倍，第一季度的iPhone销量达1690万部，市场份额从2.3%增长至3.9%，目前已成为第四大手机设备供应商。如果每部iPhone的平均售价是650美元，那就不难判断苹果的确获利丰厚。

Smartphone Market Share by OS

谷歌Android操作系统是手机平台之战的最大赢家，在2009年其智能手机市场份额仅1.6%，但目前已超过三分之一。苹果iOS的智能手机市场份额也从之前的10.5%上升至16.8%，不过Symbian的表现最为不济，市场份额从原来的48%骤降至27%；黑莓也从20%降至13%，微软Windows Phone手机销售也并不乐观，第一季度销量仅160万部。Gartner预测人们对移动领域的关注焦点将转向应用程序和服务。

2）美国高通于去年10月推出Android版真实感SDK，支持开发商针对运行Snapdragon芯片组的设备开发高质量的内容，最近该公司又宣布将在今年7月推出免费的iOS版本，并表示今后还将把该技术延伸到更多手机平台（游戏邦注：这则消息由其奥地利子公司发布，并非来自美国高通总部）。

Alexandre-de-Rochefort

3）据路透社报道，法国游戏发行商Gameloft首席财务官Alexandre de Rochefort在最近的采访中声称，他认为Zynga身价涨到100亿美元是一种非正常情况，社交游戏领域已经出现泡沫。尽管上市可能让公司身价上涨50%，但他认为这种途径并非长久之计，“Zynga的典型用户就是40岁左右的中年家庭主妇，而Gameloft在过去11年中的传统用户却并非这类群体。”

4）由一群前苹果iAd高管创立的应用服务公司session M日前融资650万美元，该公司主要宗旨是为开发商提供获取用户、增加用户粘性的解决方案。其创始人包括首席执行官Lars Albright（游戏邦注：他是移动广告公司Quattro Wireless联合创始人，该公司在2010年被苹果收购）、首席采购官Mark Hermann和首席技术官Scott Weller。

5）谷歌日前推出了一个应用开发者运营项目指南网站guide to the appg alaxy，“指导任何一个平台的应用开发者运营项目，无论他们是否已推出第一款产品，或者已发布多款应用，都可以从中找到对自己有参考价值的建议”。该网站共有四项服务：推广、盈利、测量和评估，提供了一系列其他开发者的参考意见，该网站还特别针对采用了AdMob、Google Analytics的开发者提供了相关建议和服务。

globe

6）The Mobile World最新调查结果显示，全球已有13.2亿部固定电话，56亿部移动电话；而美国人口统计局的资料而表明，目前全球人口总数为69.15亿。虽然全球电话数量已经超过人口总数，但这并不意味着全球人口均普及通话服务，因为许多西方用户拥有两三部以上的电话设备。

The Mobile World首席分析师John Tysoe表示，从这个世纪开始，全球移动电话的数量就增长了十倍以上，移动电话与固定电话的比例是4：1。

Apple-logo

7）据Guardian报道，关于Lodsys公司状告小型开发商侵犯其应用内置付费功能专利权一事，苹果的立场尚不明确，但目前已介入调查该事件。由于苹果实力雄厚，许多开发商将希望寄托于此，希望苹果能够出面为他们主持公道，维护整个iOS生态圈的利益。

苹果的对策尚未出台，另一个专利权博客Foss Patents虽然也没有提供万全之策，但其博客主提醒开发商：如果他们屈从了Lodsys公司所提出的要求，向其支付0.575%营收作为专利权使用费，就很可能使事态进一步恶化——假如开发商低头妥协，那么Lodsys和其他公司日后还会得寸进迟，再度纠缠不清。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

1）Why It’s Now or Never for an iPhone Lite

By Charles Jade

Tweet According to Gartner, mobile phone sales for the first quarter totaled some 428 million devices, with just 23 percent being smartphones. With so much room to grow, there would appear to be room for many competitors, but an expansive market is still a finite one. That’s why market share also matters.

Nokia sold 107 million freaking phones last quarter, as many as the next three competitors combined. Nonetheless, Nokia’s market share reached its lowest point since 1997. Likewise, Samsung, LG, and RIM also saw declines in market share year over year.

Only Apple, selling 16.9 million iPhones during the quarter and doubling sales year over year, saw its market share increase, from 2.3 to 3.9 percent. That made Apple the fourth largest purveyor of mobile phones. Considering the average selling price for an iPhone is about $650, that’s great news for Cupertino.

The bad news is Android. In terms of operating system market share trends, Google’s Android has won the platform war. For the first quarter of 2009, Android was powering just 1.6 percent of smartphones sold. Just three years later, Android is now running on more than a third of devices sold.

Against the Android onslaught, only iOS has manged to increase smartphone market share over the last three years, from 10.5 to 16.8 percent. Everyone else has seen their share plunge, with Symbian seeing the biggest drop, from 48 to 27 percent. But other competitors are no better off. RIM, which saw BlackBerry OS fall from 20 to 13 percent, is transitioning to its QNX operating system, but not until 2012. Microsoft, which launched Windows Phone last year, has thus far seen weak sales, with just 1.6 million devices in the first quarter. However, Gartner suggests that the transition by Nokia from Symbian to the Windows Phone operating will increase momentum for the platform.

While that’s possible, Gartner also asserts there is a shift towards an “ecosystem focus,” making users of a platform’s apps and services less likely to switch. That’s why Google and its free Android have such an advantage now, with only one real competitor, Apple, and only at the high end; but it doesn’t have to be this way.（source:gigaom）

2）Qualcomm unveils iOS support for Augmented Reality SDK

by Keith Andrew

Though mainly an attempt to drive the take up of AR technology, the launch of Qualcomm’s Augmented Reality SDK on Android back in October was also a tacit attempt to increase demand for its

Snapdragon chipsets.

The reasoning was that developers utilising the SDK would create processor intensive apps, populating Android with content that Snapdragon-equipped devices would run best.

But there’s no such thinking behind launching the SDK on iOS, given Apple’s handsets are Snapdragon free.

Rolling out reality

Instead, the company says its launch is an attempt to further accelerate the uptake of AR apps.

“We realise it is a complex ecosystem with multiple operating systems,” said Qualcomm’s senior director of business development, Jay Wright.

“Developers need tools and technology that address that challenge.

“Android was a logical starting point because of developer momentum and Snapdragon penetration. Moving forward we will support additional operating systems.”

The SDK is set to officially launch for free in July – interestingly, reportedly through an Austrian subsidiary rather than direct from Qualcomm itself.（source:pocketgamer）

3）Gameloft and Zynga have mutually exclusive customers says CFO de Rochefort

by Jon Jordan

With the likes of Zynga and PopCap prepping for IPO, not to mention the larger pull of social tech companies such Facebook, Groupon and LinkedIn, it’s little surprise already floated games companies might feel a twinge of jealousy.

Or perhaps they’re just being rational, while the market suffers another bout of irrational exuberance.

“I am sorry but when Zynga is worth $10 billion, something is a bit strange. If this is not a bubble, I don’t know what is,” Gameloft’s CFO Alexandre de Rochefort is reported to have said, according to Reuters.

Who’s your customer?

Apparently some of its US shareholders have been advising the company, which floated on the French bourse over a decade ago, to list on the NASDAQ.

De Rochefort said that while the company might get a 50 percent market cap boost, he doubted how long this situation would last, not least because of some market fundamentals.

“Zynga has made it very clear that their typical client is a female, 40 years old, staying at home in the mid-West,” Gamasutra reports him as saying.

“Gameloft has not sold a single game to this kind of client in the last 11 years.”（source:pocketgamer）

4）iAd executive team form session M to ‘achieve higher engagement rates’

by Keith Andrew

Having had a hand in the development of iAd, a group of former Apple executives have formed a firm designed to help developers better reach out to their audiences.

Founded by CEO Lars Albright – who co-founded mobile ad firm Quattro Wireless, purchased by Apple in 2010 – a well as CPO Mark Hermann and CTO Scott Weller, session M has set itself the grand task of “changing the way people interact with content”.

Rules of engagement

“As the app ecosystem continues its explosive growth, developers are looking for new ways to achieve higher rates of engagement, and deliver even more rewarding experiences to their users,” Albright states in a post on the firm’s website.

“This is where session M steps in.”

The company, which recently closed a $6.5 million strong investment round led by Highland Capital Partners and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, is currently in the process of taking on staff to, in Albright’s words, “get in on the ground floor of something big”.（source:pocketgamer）

5）Google launches App Galaxy guide, advises studios how to turn apps into businesses

by Keith Andrew

Successful apps aren’t just measured in terms of the downloads they’re able to mop up.

As Rovio has proven, even the simplest of ideas can be transformed into a fully fledged businesses, growing to encapsulate brand that generate merchandise sales in the millions.

How you make the leap from an app that sells well to one that can fund the company entire, however, may not be clear for those new to the mobile business. This is where Google thinks it can lend a hand.

Lift-off

The firm has launched what it’s billing as a bible for how to turn top apps into full on businesses.

Dubbed the ‘Guide to the App Galaxy’, it’s designed to “help app developers, regardless of platform, build a business on mobile – whether they’ve just launched their first app or are looking for additional tips as they grow their portfolio”.

There are four main areas – Promote, Earn, Measure and Evaluate – with sensible advice and tips from other developers provided; although neither are rocket science.

Indeed, there’s a certain amount of self-interest with two main tips focusing on developers employing AdMob and Google Analytics.（source:pocketgamer）

6）More phones than people in the world

by Tim Green

6.920 billion connections; 6.915 billion people. Phones win. In your face, earth dwellers.

According to The Mobile World, there are now 1.32 billion fixed lines and 5.60 billion mobile. This compares with the US Census Bureau’s global population estimate of 6.915 billion.

Of course this doesn’t mean every earthling has a phone, just that there are enough pampered Westerners with two, three of more to take the total past the population milestone.

John Tysoe, principal analyst at The Mobile World, said: “Since the turn of the century, the world’s mobile phone base has grown more than tenfold, to the point where mobile connections outnumber fixed lines by four to one.

“While this figure does not imply 100 per cent universal phone access, that goal is coming closer. The industry continues to defy predictions that the rate of progress must slow”

He added that 2010 was the industry’s first trillion dollar year and produced more new customers than any previous year with 200m net additions in the final quarter alone.（source:mobile-ent）

7）Apple ‘actively investigating’ Lodsys in-app purchase patent claim

by Keith Andrew

The one rather major player who has publicly remained silent in response to Lodsys’ claim over the in-app purchase is Apple.

Though the firm’s position is officially unclear, the decision by Lodsys to name Apple as a registered licensee has provoked questions regarding just how much the company knew of the patent covering IAPs Lodsys claims to hold.

According to the Guardian, Apple is now in the process of “actively investigating” the matter, with the company’s legal department looking into the debacle after the serving of papers by Lodsys to what’s now a growing body of developers.

Going it alone?

Given the funds Apple has to hand, many of the affected studios may be looking to the platform holder to come to their rescue and defend the position of the iOS development community as a whole.

Apple aside, however, patent blog Foss Patents has served up what amounts to a guide as to what developers should do now in response to the threat of legal action by Lodsys.

Though blog author and intellectual property activist Florain Mueller doesn’t advocate one, solid solution, he does suggest that developers who capitulate and agree to the firm’s terms – 0.575 percent of all US IAP revenue, plus the possibility of “applicable past usage” – may exacerbate the situation further.

“Once Lodsys and others know that you paid for this patent, you’re even more likely to be contacted by Lodsys and other patent holders,” states Mueller.（source:pocketgamer）