When new CEO Thorsten Henis took the reins at Research In Motion, he immediately pointed to the smartphone vendor’s marketing strategy as an area the company needed to focus on if it hoped to regain share in key markets like the United States. The wheels on RIM’s recent marketing efforts had already been set in motion, however, and early reports suggest that the increased volume of familiar BlackBerry ads aren’t having the impact RIM was hoping for. Read on for more. (more…)

Apple’s iPhone is the most profitable product offered by the most valuable company in the world. With only three iPhone models in its lineup, the Cupertino-based technology giant shipped more smartphones last quarter than any other vendor in the world. Carriers that sell Apple’s sought-after smartphone enjoy huge activation figures each quarter as a result, but activations and unit sales don’t necessarily paint a complete picture. In fact, according to some industry watchers, carriers hate t...

The record sales managed by both Apple and Samsung during the holiday quarter last year sent smartphone market growth soaring in late 2011. Market research firm IDC on Monday released data from a new report that suggests smartphone shipments grew 54.7% in the fourth quarter last year. Driven by Apple’s iPhone 4S and Samsung’s Galaxy S II handsets, vendors shipped 157.8 million smartphones globally last quarter according to IDC. ”By the end of the quarter, one out of every three mobiles phon...

Smartphone shipments overtook client PC shipments for the first time in 2011, according to new data from market research firm Canalys. Vendors shipped a total of 158.5 million smartphones in the fourth quarter, representing a 57% increase compared to the 101.2 million units shipped in the same quarter a year earlier. Shipments for the full year of 2011 rose 63% to 487.7 million units, up from 299.7 million shipped in 2010. The PC market only grew 15% to 414.6 million units in 2011, which included an astonis...

Apple pulled ahead of HP in the fourth quarter to become the largest player in the client PC market, a new report suggested Monday. The Cupertino-based company shipped more than 15 million iPads and 5 million Mac computers last quarter, and those figures represented 17% of all PCs shipped around the world during the fourth quarter. The report, which comes from market research firm Canalys, said PC shipments grew 16% annually to reach 120 million during the quarter, and the firm’s categorization of ̶...

Global mobile phone shipments grew 14% annually to shatter the previous shipment record in 2011. Market research firm Strategy Analytics estimates that 1.6 billion cell phones were shipped last year, representing more than one-fifth of the world’s total population, which surpassed 7 billion in late October last year according to the Population Reference Bureau. An earlier report from the GSMA estimated that there are now more than 6 billion total mobile connections worldwide. Read on for more. (more&#...

Apple is once again the top smartphone vendor in the world by shipment volume according to a report released late Thursday. Market research firm Strategy Analytics noted that total fourth-quarter smartphone shipments grew 54% year-over-year in 2011 to hit 155 million units. After losing the No.1 spot to Samsung in the third quarter last year, Apple once again shipped more smartphones than any other company in the December quarter, earning it 24% of the global market. Read on for more. (more…)

Motorola Mobility on Thursday announced the company’s results for the fourth quarter last year. The vendor managed $3.4 billion in revenue but posted a net loss of $80 million, or $0.27 per share. Motorola posted a profit of $0.27 per share in the same quarter a year earlier. For the full year, the company’s revenue totaled $13.1 billion, up 14% compared to 2010, and it reported a net loss was $0.84 per share compared to a loss of $0.29 per share in 2010. Motorola shipped 10.5 million mobile devic...

Apple sold more iPads in the fourth calendar quarter than it has ever sold before in a single three-month period, but the 15.4 million tablets it managed to move weren’t enough to keep Google from gaining ground. Market research firm strategy analytics on Thursday released its tablet estimates for the three months ended December 2011, and Google’s Android partners seemingly managed to triple tablet shipments during the holiday quarter last year. Read on for more. (more…)

Apple’s monster holiday quarter is the talk of the tech world, with the technology giant having just reported the second most profitable quarter ever among U.S. companies. The company’s $13.06 billion in fiscal first-quarter profit on revenue that surpassed $46 billion is staggering, and iPhone shipments that surpassed 37 million units played a huge role in Apple’s record-setting quarter. While market share is a statistic many deem unimportant, another impressive entry in Apple’s lau...

“Disappointing” though it may have been to some, the iPhone 4S propelled what is now confirmed to have been the most profitable quarter any technology company has ever recorded. Apple on Wednesday reported record earnings for the December quarter, revealing a profit of $13.06 billion on revenue that surpassed $46 billion. Among technology companies, Apple’s fiscal first quarter represents the most profitable quarter ever recorded. Only one U.S. company has ever posted a more profitable quar...

Following a rare miss in the fourth quarter, Apple on Tuesday reported record earnings in the fiscal first quarter that crushed expectations. Wall Street’s consensus pointed to earnings of $10.06 per share on revenue of $39 billion, and Apple came in way above expectations with revenue of $46.33 and earnings of $13.87 per share. Following the record-breaking launch of Apple’s iPhone 4S, a number of analysts were expecting iPhone shipments to come in at 40 million units or more for the December qu...

Following what Amazon reported to have been a huge holiday season for the company’s debut tablet, demand for the Kindle Fire has slowed according to new claims. Citing unnamed sources from within Amazon’s component supply chain, DigiTimes on Friday stated that Amazon’s tablet orders with original device manufacturers have been cut in half from roughly 6 million tablets in the fourth quarter last year to 3 million units this quarter. The Kindle Fire had a hot holiday season so a drop-off in o...

Acer chairman JT Wang on Thursday reaffirmed the company’s dedication to the new “ultrabook” market, further distancing his company from the low-margin netbooks that have dominated its PC lineup in the past. Following the success of Acer’s first-generation ultrabook — the Aspire S3 reportedly shipped between 250,000 and 300,000 units during its first quarter of availability — Acer plans to launch new ultrabook models in both the second and third quarters this year. According to Dig...