Android handsets beat iPhone in Japan

Handsets running Google Inc’s Android software captured 57 per cent of Japan’s smartphone market last fiscal year, cutting the share of Apple Inc’s iPhone, MM Research Institute Ltd. said.

Shipments of Android phones rose to 4.91 million units in the year ended March 31, Tokyo-based MM Research said in a statement. That compares with sales of 250,000 units, or 11 per cent of the market, a year earlier when devices running Google’s software started to be widely available in Japan.

Apple shipped 3.23 million iPhones in Japan in the last fiscal year, accounting for 38 per cent of the nation’s smartphone market, the report said. The company, whose mobile phones are offered exclusively by Softbank Corp in Japan, shipped 1.69 million of the devices for a 72 per cent share a year earlier, according to the report.

India registers triple-digit smart phone growth

A Canalys report revealed that Asia Pacific (APAC) became the largest smart phone market region, with y-o-y growth of 98 per cent to 3.73 crore units, putting it ahead of Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) for the first time since Q3 2007. On a country basis, mainland China, South Korea, and India delivered strong volumes and registered triple-digit growth.

Also, according to Canalys' worldwide country-level smart phone market data for Q1 2011, Android led the market for the second quarter running, and, with 3.57 crore units shipped, increased its share to 35 per cent.

Overall, worldwide smart phone shipments grew 83 per cent to 10.10 crore units. Though its market share shrank from 39 per cent a year ago to 24 per cent in Q1 2011, Nokia held onto its worldwide leadership position with 2.42 crore units shipped—a 13 per cent year-on-year rise—despite the current realignment of its platform strategy, staying ahead of RIM in EMEA and Apple in APAC. APAC became the largest region for Nokia, accounting for 53 per cent of its overall shipments, overtaking EMEA by more than 30 lakh units.

Rumor: iPhone 4 Launch in India on May 12

Last month, two Indian Mobile Operators - Airtel and Aircel promised to introduce Apple iPhone 4 "in coming months" for India. As per the recent rumors from "insider sources", Indians can expect to see iPhone 4 in Black as well as White colors on May 12. There's no official confirmation on this information and hence we take this information with a grain of salt.

Officially, Airtel and Aircel would be introducing  iPhone 4 for India which would be available as both carrier locked and unlocked, hopefully. Apparently, Airtel has starting registration for iPhone 4. So far, from the details what we could infer from a Twitter update by user named Sunny Chahal. Further he added that the information was limited only to GSM handsets and no word was out on CDMA version of iPhone 4.

We contacted Apple spokesperson about the same and await official word on this update

Bing to sing in Blackberrys

Microsoft Corp’s Bing will be the default search engine and map application on Research In Motion Ltd’s BlackBerry smartphones, a boon for the software maker as it seeks expand in mobile devices and catch up with Google Inc.

Bing will be “deeply integrated” into the devices, creating “unique experiences for millions of BlackBerry customers,” Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer said Monday in an unbilled appearance at the annual BlackBerry World trade show in Orlando, Florida. He said the partnership will be ready in time for the holiday shopping season later this year.

Microsoft is trying to challenge Google, whose share of the US search market is more than four times larger than that of Bing. The RIM partnership also advances Microsoft’s efforts to expand in mobile devices, a campaign that includes a pact with Nokia Oyj, the world’s largest mobile-phone maker by unit sales.

Samsung Galaxy S II or Apple iPhone 5: What’s On Your Wish List?

The mobile phone market is simmering nicely with many different handsets surfacing from different manufacturers such as the HTC Sensation, a mystery phone from Motorola and of course the release of the Apple iPhone 4 in white. Now we are seeing a massive rise in popularity of two other highly anticipated handsets.

We are looking at the Samsung Galaxy S II and the Apple iPhone 5 and we want to know, which of these handsets are on your wish list? The Galaxy S II has some pretty impressive specifications with an 8 megapixel rear facing camera, a 2 megapixel front-facing one and a dual-core processor running at 1.2GHz being amongst them. Are the specs alone going to be able to topple the hype of the iPhone 5?

Apple generally lead the market like they have with the iPad 2 and they plan to with the new updated iMac’s but the iPhone 5 is entering in completely different circumstances. Android handsets continue to rise in popularity and we expect that to make a serious dent in the sales that we see of the iPhone 5 which is due in September.

Early reports say that it will have an upgraded camera, upgrades all round and notably the inclusion of the A5 chip similar to that in the iPad 2. We just want to make it clear that Apple generally don’t let on any details of their devices and pretty much everything we believe about their forthcoming handset is pretty much built on speculation and expectancies. Still we are pretty sure it’s coming, we are also wondering if it will be released in white or if we will have to wait another 10 months from its release date for that!