A blog on the convergence of info-communications industries: communications, computing, electronics, entertainment, publications and education. Strategic, technological and financial analysis. English and French blog. Cette chronique traite de l’évolution des industries de l’information et des communications et couvre des aspects stratégiques, technologiques et financiers, comme l’économie du savoir et de l’innovation. L’auteur est Associé principal de Infocom Intelligence.

Showing posts with label Apple. Show all posts

Monday, March 05, 2012

Infographic on iPad 3

Here is an infographic on the iPad 3, about the motivations of Americans for buying the tablet. Study done by AYTM Research.

Source: AYTM Research

Source: http://aytm.com/blog/research-junction/ipad-3-infographic/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=ipad-3-infographic

Louis Rhéaume
Infocom Intelligence
louis@infocomintelligence.com
Twitter: @Infocomanalysis

Monday, February 20, 2012

Apple is becoming more important than ever in the S&P 500

With a stock price over $500, Apple is now becoming more important than ever in the composition of the US market index S&P 500.

Apple's share of the S&P 500, is 3.8%—more than Exxon Mobil's 3.3%, Microsoft's 1.9% and International Business Machines' 1.85%.

Source: http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB10001424052970204062704577223513581427728-lMyQjAxMTAyMDEwNTExNDUyWj.html

Louis Rhéaume
Infocom Intelligence
louis@infocomintelligence.com
Twitter: @InfocomAnalysis

Thursday, December 08, 2011

Apple most popular apps, music and movies of 2011

Apple just posted the 2011 edition of iTunes Rewind, its annual promotion of what it considers top picks at the iTunes Store, the App Store and the iBookstore. The content is divided into music, movies, TV shows, apps, books, and podcasts, and from there further broken up into subcategories.

In music Apple has chosen Adele as the artist of the year, for instance, and the Foo Fighters' Wasting Light as the album of the year.

The top iPhone pick is the photo sharing tool Instagram, while the top iPad app is the photo editor Snapseed. Some examples of movie and TV show winners are The Tree of Life for best indie film, and Breaking Bad for best TV drama.

TEDTalks has taken best video podcast, and the best audio podcast is NPR's Fresh Air. At the iBookstore, Téa Obreht's The Tiger's Wife has been selected as the top novel, with Michael Lewis' Boomerang coming in for best nonfiction. A special "best enhanced book" spot has been given to Caroline Kennedy's Jacqueline Kennedy, which integrates historic audio, photos, and video of the former First Lady.

Apple's lists are not necessarily the bestsellers. The top-selling iPhone app was Angry Birds for example, and the leading book was Kathryn Stockett's The Help.

Louis Rhéaume
Infocom Intelligence
louis@infocomintellignece.com
Twitter: @InfocomAnalysis

Wednesday, November 23, 2011

New article on Seeking Alpha: The battle of smartphones manufacturers

My new article "The battle of smartphones manufacturers" is now available on Seeking Alpha.

http://seekingalpha.com/article/309935-the-battle-of-smart-phones-manufacturers

Louis Rhéaume
Infocom Intelligence
louis@infocomintelligence.com
Twitter: @InfocomAnalysis

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Apple has 90% of the mobile revenues in applications

Google's mobile operating system, Android, has become the top platform in some countries, even eclipsing Apple's iOS. And this makes sense—after all, their are many, many more Android devices to choose from, including more budget options. But when it comes down to developers' earnings, there's no competition.

However, new data released by Piper Jaffray revealed that the Android platform has generated just 7% of the revenue that Apple's iOS has—a meagre $330 million compared to a staggering $4.9 billion. While an impressive 14% of iOS apps downloaded are paid, only 1% of downloaded Android apps are. I guess that's what happens when a platform's core demographic are those with tighter budgets. Apple boasts as much as 90% of the mobile marketshare in terms of app revenue.

Source: http://www.techvibes.com/blog/apple-owns-90-of-mobile-revenue-marketshare-ios-developers-make-14x-as-much-as-android-developers-2011-11-21

Louis Rhéaume
infocom Intelligence
louis@infocomintelligence.com
Twitter: @InfocomAnalysis

Saturday, November 12, 2011

The most popular music apps in the USA

here are the most popular music apps for android and iphone.

Source: http://gigaom.com/2011/11/11/tunein-radio-rises-to-the-top-among-streaming-music-apps/

Louis Rhéaume
Infocom Intelligence
louis@infocomintelligence.com
Twitter:@InfocomAnalysis

Wednesday, March 02, 2011

Forrester forecast an Apps market of $38 billion by 2015

With the exponential growth in the smartphone and tablet sales, applications should reach $38 billion by 2015. The market exists only since four years, with the launch of the iPhone. They are competing now with Google’s Android Market, Microsoft’s Apps Marketplace, BlackBerry’s App Place and HP’s Palm App Catalog. Apple’s iOS platform, offers apps for the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad, has around 350,000 apps. In 2010, mobile applications accounted for $1.7 billion in revenue globally. Mobile apps downloads jumped from 300 million in 2009 to 5 billion in 2010.

Apps are forecasted to become more ubiquitous like the GPS application on smartphones, or the new Near-field communication technology. By 2015, app sales for tablet devices alone are expected to reach $8.1 billion — way up from the roughly $300 million generated by tablet apps in 2010.

Forrester predict also that apps will push a new era of cloud computing, where content is stored online and accessible across multiple devices at any given time. Apple should lose important market share in apps in future years, but will still experience decent growth in apps revenues.

Louis Rhéaume
Infocom Intelligence
louis@infocomintelligence.com

Monday, January 31, 2011

The fastest growing communications innovations: What is next?

The technology adoption of some new communications innovations have increased exponentially in recent years. The following graph shows that while it took around 75 years to the fixed line to reach 50 million customers, it took only 12 years to the mobile phone, 5 years to the iPod, 4 years to the e-mail and only 3 years to the Skype’s VoIP software. It can be explained by the fact that several communications networks are already in place and new innovations can leverage existing infrastructure. Another reason is the fact that communications consumers are more “technology educated” than before. The fastest growing tech firm at the convergence of social networks, and mobile commerce is Groupon, which has reached 2 billion in revenue in two years of existence and the key mark of 50 million subscribers.

Source: debitel

A recent report by In-Stat indicates that smartphones are becoming the "standard" in mobile devices. Particularly the demand for advanced mobile handsets that contain significant processing power, robust memory, large screens and open operating systems will drive the sales of mobile manufacturers.

Their forecast is that unit shipments of smartphones will be nearly 850 million by 2015. Among the critical factors for the smartphone success, there are powerful browsers, a wide variety of apps, easy to navigate user interface, and a good keyboard or touchscreen. Furthermore, other intangible attributes, such as being "fashion object" and that "your friends or relatives have one" are also important.

In-Stat also predicts that the majority of U.S. handset shipments will be smartphones by 2012 while Android would maintain its momentum and will continue to be the leading OS. In-Stat suggests that by 2015, over two-thirds of smartphones will still be WCDMA-based, with LTE smartphones representing only a small minority of annual handset shipments, even in four years.

What other communications devices will reach the fastest 50 million users?

Tablets represent a challenger with the penetration in the business sector. According to Gartner, nearly 20 million tablets have been sold in 2010, and around 54.8 million will be in 2011 and it should reach 208 million in 2014. In addition to Apple iPads, tablets include those based on Android, RIM, WebOS and other such operating systems. It appears that Apple iPads and other tablets are cannibalizing e-readers, gaming devices, and mini-notebooks.

“Mini notebooks will suffer from the strongest cannibalization threat as media tablet average selling prices drop below $300 over the next 2 years,” says Carolina Milanesi, research vice president at Gartner. Gartner suggests that the North American market will account for 61% of the total market this year but that the percentage will fall to 43% in 2014 as tablets become more widely available across the world. More than half of tablets sold in 2010 supported WiFi.

It appears that Android tablets are gaining interesting market shares over iPad in the last quarter. They gained 22% of the Q4-2010 market. The iPad had 95% and decreased to 75%. Galaxy, Samsung’s tablet with Android is the main contender for the iPad. Strategy Analytics forecast that Apple’s iPad will decrease below 50% market share in the next 2 years.

Growth opportunities

· Firms which should heavily benefits from the growth of tablets are:

o online publishers (the ones who will bet on e-Books growth and sell directly to the public: i.e. Amazon)

o devices manufacturers (Apple, Samsung, RIM)

o technology suppliers (Tech SMEs, Publishing Technology plc [PTO.L])

Google just bought eBook Technologies 3 weeks ago. It provides an end-to-end electronic book platform offering a full range of eBook products and services. It includes electronic reading devices, an online bookstore where readers can buy eBooks, an online "bookshelf" that lets users store their purchased content, and software that converts content to the company's eBook format.

· Some experts suggest that new entrants in the tablet market should appear such as Amazon. If it is the case, Amazon would enjoy growth again as an online publisher and manufacturer, which it is already doing with the Kindle.

Louis Rhéaume
Infocom Intelligence
louis@infocomintelligence.com

Sunday, January 23, 2011

The most popular Apple apps

Here is a list of the most popular Apple apps:

All-Time Top Paid iPhone Apps

All-Time Top Free iPhone Apps

All-Time Top Paid iPad Apps

All-Time Top Free iPad Apps

Louis Rhéaume

Infocom Intelligence

louis@infocomintelligence.com

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

What is the potential of Research in Motion (RIM.TO)?

In mobile platforms all the hype actually is on Apple and Android (Google). Their market shares are rising quickly in the US. For the CEO of Apple Steve Jobs, ““We’ve now past RIM, and I don’t see them catching up to us in the near future.”

Balsillie co-CEO of RIM answered: ” The implication being that RIM practically invented the smartphone category and is not going anywhere.”

RIM has a different attitude toward web apps than Apple. There may be 300,000 apps for the iPhone and iPad, but according to RIM CEO, the only app you really need is the browser. “You don’t need an app for the Web,” he says, and that is equally true for the mobile Web. Blackberry is betting heavily on the Web, similarly to Google.

Positive aspects:

-New RIM mobile ad network : good potential.

-New potential of Playbook blackberry tablet; cheaper than the iPad, but 3 to 4 times faster than the iPad. It will be launch at the beginning of 2011 and support Flash applications.

-Potential in new emerging markets: RIM smartphones are better value with BB messenger : free real-time SMS and lower cost of smartphone. In Latin America and several part of the globe, the majority of users are prepaid users who can’t benefit from subsidies on the smartphone or from long-term contract.

-Mary Meeker: Smartphones Will Surpass PC Shipments In Two Years.

Negative aspects:

-RIM position on development of apps. For co-CEO Balsillie, people prefers mobile web to native apps. When the difference is un-significant it is true, but unfortunately it is not always the case. One big example: www.youtube.com on mobile doesn’t play all your videos. The free app plays videos of the day but you can’t search that you want in the library. The $2.99 native app let you play the videos of your choice.

-RIM is losing market share mainly in the US over Apple and Android.

Outlook

Even with global market share shrinking slightly the stock is cheap, so the short term potential is good. Will RIM be a major brand and mobile platform in 10 years? I’m not so sure in the US for the consumers sector but it will remain an important player in the business sector. However, the company has competitive advantages in the emerging markets. It offers a good ratio quality/price for these customers.

With a P/E ratio of 11.1, the stock seems cheap. The global smartphone market is growing quickly.

Apple P/E ratio is 19.91, less if you consider the $51 billion in cash and has the momentum, but the question is can it maintain its higher valuation in the medium and long term? I remember my economist teacher who said 14 years ago that in the tech sector, you can’t hold many tech stocks for the long term. You have to trade more often. 2 stock crashs later he had a good point.

Apple's mobile ecosystems growth are remarkable (you can see the second graph), but the valuation of the firm is actually taken that into account. RIM valuation is not taking completely into account all of these growth factors.

Louis Rhéaume

Louis@infocomintelligence.com

Infocom Intelligence

Sunday, November 07, 2010

Does Research in Motion (RIM) is still a contender in wireless?

It appears that RIM web usage is growing, which is not the case of Apple's iPhone OS web usage. In fact, Blackberry users have doubled their Web presence over the course of the past year.

The data is from Statcounter:

Although the chart clearly shows Android's rise in terms of Web usage, it surprisingly shows Blackberry's increased market share, too.

It appears that RIM should not be discarded as as serious contender in the corporate and consumer sector. However, increased Web usage only shows that RIM users are doing more mobile Web surfing, not necessarily that the platform as a whole is making a comeback, but the new Blackberry OS (version 6), available now on the Blackberry Torch, offers a much-improved Web browser based on the open-source WebKit technology, the same technology that's used on the iPhone and on Android. Thus, we can expect more Blackberry devices in the future, and Blackberry users' Web usage will certainly grow even more.

For developers targeting Blackberry users with mobile websites or services as opposed to native applications, this increase in browsing are good news. But if you're looking to get the most return on investment for your native applications, you still need to look at the raw numbers of native application users on the top mobile platforms. Android has the biggest momentum and most attractive ROI per app.

Louis Rhéaume

Infocom Intelligence

louis@infocomintelligence.com

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Are we entering in a second Internet stock market bubble?

Everybody knows the Internet bubble of 1998-2000. Valuations of most firms with a link with Internet got very high valuations and after lost a lot of value in 2000-2002. At that time a firm with the name .com was found sexy by acquirers and represented a great potential takeover target with the exchange of shares (which were only going up) instead of cash. After the crash, firms surrounding the Internet, which had a poor business model, lost most of the time 90-95% of their values, or went bankrupt. E-commerce mutual funds which had 200% return in one year and a half, like Altamira E-commerce fund lost 90% of their value in 2001-2002.

Time has changed and the web 2.0 has seen the emergence of new sexy players such as Youtube, sold to Google and Facebook, just to name a few. I just read that Facebook's value has triple in 2010 only. Social networks is the new sexy sector and now you can find a 4 years old firm like Zynga, which is a social video game firm, with a value higher than Electronic Arts, which is 28 years old firm in video game. Zynga is now valued on the secondary market at $5.27 billion on SharesPost, where Zynga employees can sell shares that they own in the private company. EA is worth $5.24 billion in public trading on the Nasdaq stock market. The SharesPost listings are thinly traded compared to EA’s stock, but it is perhaps the only real measure of the value of Zynga’s stock at any given moment. Several hope that Zynga will go public, but it hasn’t any plan yet.

I simply don't understand why people will pay real dollars to use virtual currency in virtual games. Zynga is expected to grab roughly a third of the $1.6 billion market for virtual goods in the U.S. in 2010, thanks to virtual goods sales. Zynga got the momentum when in the middle of 2009 they launched FarmVille, which is still the No. 1 game on Facebook with 57.4 million monthly active users. With such popular games, Zynga can cross-promote its titles and advertise them as well, allowing it to turn lots of its games into huge hits. In addition to FarmVille and Texas Hold Em Poker, FrontierVille, Mafia Wars, Cafe World, Treasure Isle and PetVille all have more than 10 million users. Overall, Zynga has 214.5 million users. CrowdStar has 54.2 million monthly active users, and EA is No. 3 at 44.7 million users. EA bought Playfish for $400 million in the fall of 2009, but is still behind Zynga in that area. However, EA’s online game revenue is at $750 million in the current fiscal year, or around 20 percent of overall revenue, is significantly bigger than Zynga’s online game revenue, which the only source of revenu of Zynga. The largest independent maker of video games is Activision Blizzard, which has titles such as World of Warcraft.

It appears that the market values Zynga as equal to EA in market share, so it is deeply discounting the rest of EA’s nearly $3 billion or so in traditional video game console and PC game revenues. It seems that Zynga is truly overvalued and in some sectors of the Internet, like the Web 2.0 we are in the presence of a second Internet bubble.

Another example of this is Apple, which has 83% of the market capitalization of Exxon Mobil. Apple has a P/E ratio of 20.8 and Exxon a low 12.8. It is true that Apple is one of the best innovator in the world and has created a dependency for its customers toward its proprietary platforms, such as iTunes and Apple Apps store. Apple is more a telecom firms and a content firms than it was before, as an hadware firm. The potential of its mobile advertising network is huge. The question is can Apple create on the long term 83% of the profits of a firm, such as Exxon Mobil? I explained in previous comments that the dependency of Internet mobile can create huge values. However, I have a certain doubt that it would represent a long-term oligopoly, such as gas with Exxon Mobil. We are much more dependent right now (and in the medium term) toward gas than toward Internet Mobile access and its ecosystem (apps, music, etc.). In a bubble it won't mean that P/E ratios will diminish in the short term, but in the medium and long term, there will be important depreciation of overvalued Internet stocks.

Louis Rhéaume
Infocom Intelligence
louis@infocomintelligence.com

Labels

Monday, March 05, 2012

Infographic on iPad 3

Monday, February 20, 2012

Apple is becoming more important than ever in the S&P 500

Thursday, December 08, 2011

Apple most popular apps, music and movies of 2011

Wednesday, November 23, 2011

New article on Seeking Alpha: The battle of smartphones manufacturers

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

top 10 Apple iOS video games

Apple has 90% of the mobile revenues in applications

Saturday, November 12, 2011

The most popular music apps in the USA

Wednesday, March 02, 2011

Forrester forecast an Apps market of $38 billion by 2015

Monday, January 31, 2011

The fastest growing communications innovations: What is next?

o technology suppliers (Tech SMEs, Publishing Technology plc [PTO.L])

Sunday, January 23, 2011

The most popular Apple apps

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

What is the potential of Research in Motion (RIM.TO)?

Sunday, November 07, 2010

Does Research in Motion (RIM) is still a contender in wireless?

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Are we entering in a second Internet stock market bubble?

Blog Archive

Infocom analysis

Liens

Real-time news