FRAMINGHAM, Mass.  – The worldwide mobile phone market grew 4% year over year in the seasonally slow first quarter of 2013 (1Q13) as smartphones outshipped feature phones for the first time. According to the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker, vendors shipped a total of 418.6 million mobile phones in 1Q13 compared to 402.4 million units in the first quarter of 2012 and 483.2 million units in the fourth quarter of 2012.

In the worldwide smartphone market, vendors shipped 216.2 million units in 1Q13, which marked the first time more than half (51.6%) the total phone shipments in a quarter were smartphones. The market grew 41.6% compared to the 152.7 million units shipped in 1Q12, but 5.1% lower than the 227.8 million units shipped in 4Q12.

http://bit.ly/181Hone

Los Angeles Times

Get ready for the Facebook phone.

The company is close to unveiling a smartphone whose software keeps the social network front and center. It is part of an overall strategy to advance Facebook’s ambitions to dominate on mobile devices the way it has on desktop computers. Facebook Inc. has scheduled a news conference Thursday at its Menlo Park, Calif., headquarters to show off an HTC smartphone that operates on software called Facebook Home. The social network’s News Feed, messaging, photo uploading and other features will be integrated into the phone, according to reports.

It will be the biggest step yet to re-engineer Facebook into a mobile company. Like Amazon.com Inc., Apple Inc., Google Inc. and Microsoft Corp. before it, Facebook is putting a device into people’s hands designed to tether them to the service.

Facebook is under heavy pressure to capture — and keep — the attention of users who are spending more time than ever on mobile devices so that it can cash in on mobile advertising. And that has forced the giant social network to attempt the most dramatic transformation in its history. It has deployed hundreds of engineers on coding mobile projects. It rolled out new mobile advertising formats and new mobile apps such as Poke, and overhauled its iPhone and Android apps. Facebook also stepped up its focus on Android, which in recent years has surpassed the iPhone to become the No. 1 operating system for smartphones around the world.

At the end of last year, the number of active daily users accessing Facebook on a mobile device exceeded the number logging on from desktop computers for the first time. More than 650 million of its more than 1 billion users check Facebook from mobile devices — and that number is growing fastest in big markets such as the U.S.

“Facebook’s goal is to get its stuff in front of as many people as possible,” IDC analyst Karsten Weide said. The HTC phone is powered by a modified version of Google’s Android mobile software. If successful, the HTC phone could be the first of many, analysts said. “This is a way to get the distribution that they would have gotten through their own smartphone by partnering with somebody else,” Weide said.

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Wall Street Journal

BARCELONA—Here are two stories that sum up the state of the phone industry as revealed at last week’s Mobile World Congress, the annual gathering of the mobile phone business. Firstly, what was the buzz of the show?

It wasn’t a top-end, LTE-enabled, quad-core processor smartphone—it was the Nokia NOK1V.HE +1.60% 105, a €15 phone. Its most notable feature—apart from its price—is its 35-day standby time. The second comes from the experiences of The Wall Street Journal. To save the blushes of one particular handset maker we won’t name the company, but it took us 12 takes to shoot a video review of one of its products. In the end we failed. Why? It took three takes only to discover we had filmed the wrong phone. It then took another nine to try to review the correct one. Every time we tried there was some button that was pushed by mistake, or we hit the wrong thing on the screen and it didn’t do what we thought it would. In the end we gave up. What do the two stories tell us? That real consumer benefits, like a monthlong standby, are valued by consumers. They also show that one phone looks a lot like an other and that adding extra functions to a device isn’t always the path to a good user experience.

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BizReport

When it comes to the mobile space, an important line is being drawn in the ether: that of influence by not necessarily conversion. New data out from L2 Think Tank indicates that mobiles are using increasingly using their devices – only not for purchasing Meanwhile, a new study out from ReRez Research on behalf of Symantec shows how quickly – or not – many brands are adopting the mobile space. According to the results:

• 66% say the benefits of mobile outweigh the risks 

• For ‘Innovator’ businesses – those adopting mobile early – 28% use Android devices, 26% use iOS devices

• Three-quarters of Innovators have company polices for the use of ‘work’ smartphones/tablets

• Innovators have shown 44% revenue growth and 34% profit growth\

• ‘Traditionals’ – those adopting mobile more slowly – have shown 30% revenue growth and 23% profit growth 

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Motley Fool

Investors may be underestimating what the power of compounding can do for Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL ) . If Apple can just sustain its current market share in the coming years, the power of compounding will drive unit volume growth for its iDevices through the roof. According to IDC, Apple is expected to grow its iPhone unit volume by 18.8% a year, roughly in line with the smartphone industry. At that pace, in three years’ time, Apple’s iPhone unit shipments will have increased by 68% since the end of 2012. On the tablet side, it’s expected that Apple will ship 20.9% more iPads per year until 2016, equating to a 77% increase from today’s levels. Are investors missing something so enormous it’s difficult to see? Or could it be that IDC’s estimates are completely off the mark and shouldn’t be trusted?

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IDC Press Release

FRAMINGHAM, Mass. – The explosion of smartphone and tablet adoption will impact printing, scanning, document management, and print volumes in surprising ways over the next five years. According to a new International Data Corporation (IDC) survey of 800 unique respondents, smartphone and tablet users – whom the survey found to be younger, more likely male, have higher incomes, and increasingly hectic travel schedules – are surprisingly more likely than non-users to drive print. Smartphone and tablet users are more likely than non-users to print 16 of 20 business applications from their PCs.

The share of users printing from their smartphones and tablets will increase dramatically if users have their way, and the need to enable print and educate users how to print is clear. The percentage of users who printed from their mobile devices increased dramatically in 2012, and the percentage of those who do not print, and do not want to print, will decline from almost 50% in 2012 to just 25% in 2015 according to respondents. However, a large percentage of smartphone and tablet users do not know how to print from their devices, and a large share say their company has not yet enabled mobile printing.

http://bit.ly/XVRm0H

NY Times

The much-discussed arrival on Wednesday of the all-new BlackBerrysmartphone and operating system,  which have been deemed crucial to the future of its parent company, will be accompanied by a huge marketing campaign that is being described as the largest in the company’s history.

The campaign, with a budget estimated at more than $200 million, will include work from six agencies and the first-ever Super Bowl commercial for the BlackBerry brand, which is to appear during Super Bowl XLVII on Sunday.

In addition to the Super Bowl spot, there will be other television commercials, print and online ads, promotions, public relations efforts, events, a partnership with arts and cultural figures like Alicia Keys, a presence in social media and elaborate digital demonstrations in real time of the new offerings.

The spending will be the most ever for the company “by a long shot,” said Frank Boulben, chief marketing officer at the parent company, which on Wednesday changed its name from Research In Motion to BlackBerry, part of a corporate-wide re-branding.

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CNN Money

FORTUNE — To understand how Samsung — yes, Samsung — became America’s No. 1 mobile phonemaker and thorn in Apple’s side, it’s helpful to rewind to last fall. On a mid-September morning, Apple (AAPL) CEO Tim Cook stepped onto a stage in San Francisco to unveil the iPhone 5. Several hundred miles away, in a Wolfgang Puck restaurant in Los Angeles, a group of marketing executives from Samsung Electronics followed real-time reactions to Cook’s remarks. They huddled around tables mounted with laptops and TV screens, carefully tracking each new feature and monitoring the gush of online comments on the new device via blogs and social media sites. As the data flowed in, writers from the company’s advertising agency, who were also camped out in the restaurant turned war room, scrambled to craft a response.

Two hours later, when Cook stepped off the stage, the Samsung group was already drafting a series of print, digital, and TV ads. The following week — as the iPhone 5 went on sale — the company aired a TV ad mocking Apple “fanboys” queuing up for the new phone. (“The headphone jack is going to be on the bottom!”) The 90-second commercial went on to become the most popular tech ad of 2012, garnering more than 70 million views online. More important, in the weeks following the launch of Apple’s iPhone 5, Samsung sold a record-breaking number of its own signature smartphone, the Galaxy S III. “We knew this was going to be a big moment in time, when consumers are really paying attention,” says Todd Pendleton, chief marketing officer of Samsung’s U.S.-based mobile division. “We wanted to take that opportunity and all that energy and make it Samsung’s moment.”

No doubt about it, Samsung is having a moment. In recent years the South Korean company has taken the mobile world — the U.S. included — by storm. Last year it overtook longtime leader Nokia to become the No. 1 player in cellphones, with 29% market share worldwide. In smartphones, those high-end devices with advanced computing power, Samsung is also No. 1 globally and in a dead heat with Apple in the U.S.: Most analysts show Apple with a slight edge in smartphone sales, while one outfit, ABI Research, says Samsung’s share of smartphone shipments topped 33%, compared with Apple’s 30%. (To be sure, Apple sells one device, the iPhone, while Samsung offers 25 unique smartphones in the U.S.) “Samsung is on fire,” says John Legere, CEO of mobile operator T-Mobile USA.

Mashable

The Surface was supposed to be Microsoft’s real answer to the iPad — a Windows-based tablet that would satisfy both casual users and digital workers. Now it looks like it’s appealing to neither.

UBS analyst Brent Thill estimates Microsoft has sold only 1 million Surface RT tablets,reported by Business Insider. He had previously estimated 2 million. To put those figures in perspective, Apple is estimated to sell in the neighborhood of 20 million iPads for the same period.

This is far from the first sign that the Surface isn’t doing very well. A month ago, brokerage firm Detwiler Fenton said Microsoft wouldn’t even break a million units, estimating sales for the quarter at 600,000 units maximum. However, that was before Microsoft expanded retail distribution of the Surface early, which likely led to better numbers.

In addition, last week Samsung said it was pulling back plans to release its own tablet based on Windows RT — the same operating system running on the Surface — citing customer ignorance about the pared-down version of Windows made to run on ARM-based devices. Cost was also a factor.

“We didn’t necessarily attain the price point that we hoped to attain,” Samsung senior vice president Mike Abary told CNET.

Looking at web usage, a study conducted by Chikita Insights just before the holidays found the Microsoft Surface accounted for just 0.22 ad impressions for every 100 impressions from an iPad. Finally, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said in an interview last November that sales were “modest” (although Microsoft later said Ballmer was talking about supply and distribution of the Surface, not sales).

If the Surface RT is doing poorly, Microsoft’s hopes in the tablet space could be resurrected by the Surface Pro, a slightly larger version of the device that runs Windows 8 Pro. Microsoft has previously said the Pro version would launch three months after the Surface RT, or about the end of January.

Why do you think the Surface is struggling, and do you think the Surface Pro will turn things around? Let us know in the comments.

SEE ALSO: The Problem With Windows 8