Although Google’s Android operating system remained the top smartphone platform, Apple once again gained market share, according to ComScore’s March 2013 Mobile Subscriber Market Share report. Also, the Android OS and Apple’s iOS combined for 91 percent of the U.S. smartphone user base of 136.7 million.

During the three month period from the end of December 2012 to the end of March 2013, the smartphone market penetration was up 9 percent to 58 percent, translating to 136.7 million users owning smartphones, with 71.1 million users who own Android smartphones and 53.5 million who own iPhones.

The Reston, Va.-based analytics firm reported that Apple claimed the No. 1 spot as the top smartphone original equipment manufacture (OEM) with 39 percent — up 2.7 percent — of the U.S. smartphone OEM market share. Samsung nabbed the No. 2 position with a 21.7 percent market share, up 0.7 percent. Keep in mind that it won’t be another month or two before Samsung’s market share sees an effect from the recently launch Samsung Galaxy S4. Rounding out the bottom of the top smartphone OEMs chart was HTC with a 9 percent market share, Motorola with 8.5 percent and LG with 6.8 percent.

As per usual, the Android OS was the top smartphone platform with 52 percent market share, down 1.4 percent. Apple’s platform share rose once again, increasing 2.7 percent to 39 percent. BlackBerry came in at No. 3 with 5.2 percent share, falling 1.2 percent. Microsoft’s Windows Phone OS increased 0.1 percent to 3.0 percent and Accenture’s Symbian OS dropped 0.1 percent to 0.5 percent.

Once again, Apple increased its lead as the top original equipment manufacturer, while Google’s platform market share fell for a second month in a row, according to ComScore’s February 2013 Mobile Subscriber Market Share report.

Among the top smartphone OEMs, Apple held a 38.9 percent share of the U.S. mobile market, up 3.9 percent during a three-month period from November 2012 to February 2013. Samsung held down the No. 2 spot with a 21.3 percent market share, up 1 percent. With the imminent release of the Samsung Galaxy S4, the South Korean company’s market share could increase further in the coming months. HTC’s OEM market share dropped by 1.7 percent to 9.3 percent, but the launch of its HTC First handset on April 12, the first smartphone with Facebook Home baked into a device’s operating system, could turn around the company’s market share in the future. Motorola as well as LG saw its market share drop to 8.4 percent and 6.8 percent, respectively.

According to the analytics firm, 133.7 million U.S. citizens own smartphones, which translates to a mobile market penetration of 57 percent, up 8 percent since the three month average period ending February 2013.

Platform-wise, Google’s market share among the top smartphone platforms inches even closer to falling below 50 percent, dropping 2 percent from November 2012 to February 2013 to 51.7 percent. Apple, on the other hand, is closing the gap on Google, increasing its market share by 3.9 percent to 38.9 percent. BlackBerry, which probably hasn’t felt the full effect of the BlackBerry 10 OS and BlackBerry Z10 device releases yet, saw its market share fall 1.9 percent to 5.4 precent. Microsoft added 0.2 percent to its marketshare from 3 percent in November 2012 to 3.2 percent in February 2013. Lastly, Symbian’s market share remained stagnant at 0.5 percent.

Glympse is an iOS, Android, Windows Phone and BlackBerry app from the company of the same name. The app originally launched back in 2009, but has undergone numerous major revisions since then — revisions which have allowed it to survive in the crowded marketplace even as other location-based mobile-social apps either withered and died or found themselves acquired and merged into other services. The current version of Glympse, which is a free download on all platforms, is currently enjoying a feature spot in the New & Noteworthy section of Apple’s iOS App Store. This review is based on the iOS version, tested on an iPhone 4S.

One of the reasons Glympse has survived so long is its fundamental rethinking of how location-based apps can and should work. Rather than creating a proprietary social network for users to share their location with friends using the service and other networks connected to it, Glympse is not reliant on any sort of traditional social functionality and does not have its own attached social network in the traditional sense. Rather, it is an app intended to allow users to quickly and easily share their current location and/or estimated time of arrival at a specific destination — and to be able to do this in a cross-platform manner that is not reliant on other people having the app installed, or on people having a compatible device.

(more…)

Apple continues to increase its lead as the top smartphone manufacturer over the South Korean-based conglomerate Samsung, according to ComScore’s latest Mobile Subscriber Market Share report.

Apple’s market share among the top smartphone manufactures increased 3.5 percent to 37.8 percent from Oct. 2012 to Jan. 2013. No. 2 ranked Samsung also grew its market share by 1.9 percent from 19.5 percent to 21.4 percent over the the three-month period. Taiwan-based HTC’s smartphone OEM market share declined 1.7 percent to 9.7 percent, Motorola fell 1.4 percent to 8.6 percent and LG slightly increased its share by 0.3 percent to 7.0 percent.

Smartphone market penetration was up 7 percent since October 2012, which now stands at 55 percent, translating to 129.4 million people in the U.S. owning smartphones. Google’s Android platform continued to hold more than 50 percent of the smartphone platform market share, although it’s share was down 1.3 percent from 53.6 percent of handsets running Android to 52.3 percent of handsets. Apple’s iOS platform showed the most growth, adding 3.5 percent to its market share from 34.3 percent to 37.8 percent. BlackBerry saw its market share decline 1.9 percent to 5.9 percent. Microsoft’s market share came in second to last, with a marginal decrease of 0.1 percent to 3.1 percent, and Symbian also fell 0.1 percent for a 0.5 percent share of handsets running Accenture’s operating system.

Although Apple remained the top smartphone OEM, Samsung showed the most growth, moving the needle 2.3 percent for a 21 percent share of the smartphone OEM market, according to ComScore’s new Mobile Subscriber Market Share report.

The Reston, Va.-based analytics company reported that Apple once again took the top spot among smartphone OEMs, with a 36.3 percent share of the U.S. smartphone market, up two percent from Sept. 2012. Samsung, which ranked second, showed the most growth, up 2.3 percent to 21 percent. Taiwan-based HTC’s smartphone OEM market share dropped 1.8 percent to 10.2 percent. Microsoft was the other OEM to show a drop, falling 0.7 percent to 9.1 percent. Finally, LG grew 0.5 percent, grabbing a 7.1 percent share of the smartphone OEM market.

The U.S. continued to show no signs of slowing down when it came to smartphone ownership, with 125.9 million people owning smartphones, up five percentfrom Sept. 2012 to Dec. 2012. As expected, more than half of those handsets people own in the U.S. ran Google’s Android platform. Android phones racked up 53.4 percent of the smartphone market share, up 0.9 percent. To no one’s surprise, Apple was the second leading smartphone platform, showing a 2 percent increase in market share to 36.3 percent. BlackBerry, which recently lifted the lid off BlackBerry 10 and changed its name from RIM to BlackBerry, saw a 2 percent decline in its platform market share to 6.5 percent. Lastly, Microsoft’s market share fell 0.7 percent and Symbian remained the same with a 0.6 percent share.

Research In Motion (RIM) hosted a BlackBerry 10 community Port-A-Thon last Friday, resulting in 15,000 app submissions in 37.5 hours, which was confirmed in a tweet by RIM VP of developer relations Alec Saunders.

RIM incentivized developers for the event, doling out $100 for every app submitted and approved to BlackBerry App World. RIM also placed developers who had submitted more than five approved apps into a drawing for a BlackBerry 10 Dev Alpha device.

RIM has a long way to go before they can compete with the top two platforms — Google and Apple. According to ComScore, RIM dropped another one percent (7.3 percent) among the top smartphone platforms, but remained in third place, behind Google and Apple. Three of the big four U.S. wireless carriers — Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile — confirmed to Reuters on Jan. 9 that they will offer BlackBerry 10 devices to their customers. Sprint later told The Verge that they too will carry BlackBerry 10 handsets.

RIM’s stock was up 10.25 percent at $14.95 a share at the close of today on Nasdaq.

RIM will hold a launch event in New York City for BlackBerry 10 on Jan. 30.

Samsung is once again the top mobile original equipment manufacture (OEM), with a 26.9 percent market share, a positive swing of 1.2 percent, says ComScore.

According to the company’s latest Mobile Subscriber Market Share report, Apple held down the No. 2 spot for the second consecutive time since claiming the spot from LG in ComScore’s last report, with a 18.5 percent market share, up 1.4 percent. The bottom three spots of the top five were rounded out by LG with 17.5 percent share, Motorola with 10.4 percent and HTC with 5.9 percent.

123.3 million people in the U.S. owned smartphones, which translates to a six percent gain in U.S. mobile market penetration, moving the needle from 51.9 percent to 53 percent since the end of August.

Google Android also remained the top smartphone platform, accounting for 53.7 of the market, up 1.1 percent. Behind the Seoul-headquartered corporation is Apple, which grabbed 35 percent, up 0.7 percent. RIM continues to lose traction, with a 1.0 percent loss, but not as big as last month’s drop of 1.7 percent. Microsoft came in fourth with a 0.6 percent loss and Symbian with a 0.2 percent loss.

ComScore surveyed more than 30,000 mobile subscribers in the U.S. during a three-month period from the end of August 2012 to the end of November 2012.

Once again Apple’s iOS is the most lucrative platform on Opera’s mobile ad platform, with an average eCPM (effective cost per thousand impressions) of $1.64, according to the web browser maker’s Q3 2012 State of Mobile Advertising report.

The Oslo, Norway-headquartered company’s mobile ad platform, which touts itself as world’s leading mobile ad platform, serves more than 10,000 mobile sties and apps and delivers more than 40 billion ad impressions per month.

Platforms below iOS’s eCPM of $1.64, which was 25 percent more than the worldwide average of $1.31 eCPM, was RIM at $1.06, Android at $0.88 and Nokia’s Symbian OS at $0.37.

In terms of traffic and revenue, iOS devices accounted for 46.37 percent of total ad traffic and 58.40 percent of revenue. Android made up 25.66 percent of traffic for Opera and 16.79 percent of revenue, which are traffic and revenue percentages that are far fewer than that of Apple’s suite of iOS devices. Microsoft’s Windows Phone devices, which were shoehorned into “Other,” represented 20.04 percent of traffic and 19.67 percent of revenue, with an eCPM of $1.28.

At the Masters of Monetization session at this week’s Appnation event in San Francisco, Mahi De Silva, executive vice president, consumer mobile for Opera, said despite there being more Android devices than iOS in the ecosystem, people use more apps on iOS than Android. He added that advertisers want an audience they can reach and it’s easier to integrate ads on iOS versus Android, so advertisers tend to favor iOS.

The iPad remained the most lucrative Apple device ($3.96 eCPM in Q2 2012), averaging $4.42 eCPM, which is more than double the eCPM of the iPhone at $1.48 and more than triple the eCPM of the iPod Touch at $0.82.

“If you look at some of the big media companies, on iPad they are getting CPMs they never saw on the desktop because of the rich-media experience on the device,” said De Silva at Appnation.

Between mobile apps and web, apps grabbed the two-thirds majority of advertising dollars, generating 73 percent of revenue for Opera. The remainder of ad revenue came from mobile web.

Publisher category-wise, the business, finance and investing category generated the most revenue per impression compared to other publisher categories while the sports category displayed the most growth.

Opera took a closer look at the U.K., one of its best performing regions, in this report. Surprisingly, BlackBerry traffic in the U.K. is almost four times higher than BlackBerry traffic in the U.S., with 14 percent of total traffic in the U.K. coming from RIM devices compared to 4.40 percent in the U.S. Also, publisher categories the U.K. favored include the arts and entertainment and the health, fitness and self help categories.

Publishers using Opera’s mobile ad platform include Pandora, Shazam, and CBS, and some advertisers include Samsung, Walmart and American Express.

Data for this report was collected from Opera’s subsidiaries including AdMarvel, Mobile Theory, and 4th Screen Advertising, three mobile advertising companies it purchased for upward of $100 million in total.

Opera says it remains on track to generate more than $400 million for mobile publishers in 2012, which is a large increase over 2011 when it generated $240 million.

For the first time, Apple ranked second on ComScore’s top mobile OEMs chart, with 17.8 percent marketshare — up 1.5 percent — according to the company’s latest Mobile Subscriber Market Share report.

From July to October 2012, the Reston, Va.-based analytics company reported that Samsung remained the No. 1 OEM, with a 26.3 percent market share, up 0.7 percent since July. LG, which previously held the second spot, dropped to the No. 3 OEM, with a 17.6 percent share of the market. The bottom two smartphone manufacturers were Motorola at 11 percent and HTC at six percent.

Up by 6 percent, 121.3 million people in the U.S. owned smartphones, resulting in 51.9 percent mobile market penetration during the three month period from July to October. On the platform side, Android held its crown as the top platform, with 53.6 percent of the smartphone market share, a gain of 1.4 percent since July. Apple came in second once again with 34.3 percent, with a 0.9 percent share increase. RIM came in third with 7.8 percent market share. Microsoft and Symbian made up the final two spots with 3.2 percent and 0.6 percent, respectively.

Chartboost sees iPhone 5 bump advertising costs — Cross promotion network Chartboost saw a 13 percent rise in the average price per user for its CPI campaigns during the iPhone 5’s launch weekend, the company reports. Prices peaked on Sunday, Sept. 23 with CPI costs rising 21.1 percent week-over-week.

RIM loses $235 million in Q2 — Beleaguered BlackBerry maker RIM has beat analyst expectations, posting a $235 million loss on $2.9 billion in sales. The company’s shares were up on the news, and are now trading at $7.44 — a significant increase over last week’s sub-$7 prices.

Red Robot Lab’s Life is Crime sees 4.3 million downloads in first year — Red Robot Labs has released a variety of interesting user statistics about its location-based game Life is Crime to celebrate the game’s one year anniversary. Most notable are the game’s download statistics — the title has seen 4.3 million downloads total, 2 million on Android and 2.3 million on iOS. The full infographic can be found here.

Navfree notches up over 10 million users – British company Navfree has announced its free, self-titled navigation app now has more than 10 million users. The app is available for both iOS and Android in over 30 countries. The company also reports its users make more than 1 million journeys ever day with its app.

Mobile-social games dominate at TGS — Mobile games and smartphone titles ruled this year’s Tokyo Game Show reports Tech in Asia. The blog counted 265 titles for smartphones on display, 100 tablet titles and 142 feature phone titles. Meanwhile the PS3, 3DS, PSP, Vita, Xbox and Wii had a grand total of 174 titles combined.

Future makes $8 million on iPad magazines – Magazine publisher Future has sold more than $8 million worth of digital magazines since Apple launched newsstand in Oct. 2011 according to Paid Content.

Zynga and American Express team for charity in Words with Friends — Zynga and American Express have launched the Words with Friends celebrity challenge featuring Kristen Bell, Jonah Hill, Snoop Lion, Edward Norton and other celebs. Players can join celebrity teams to help earn money for charity.

Google is working on a Maps app — In an unsurprising, but welcome piece of news, Google has confirmed to the New York Times it is working on a maps application for iPhone and iPad. The company is hoping to launch the app by the end of the year.

Kiip heads to Japan – Real life rewards service Kiip is headed to Asia. The company announced this week that Japan’s Digital Garage was one of the strategic investors in the company’s $11 million round of Series B funding. Kiip will launch in Japan in 2013.

Temple Run hits the table — Imangi Studio’s hit mobile game Temple Run will soon be a board game. The company is working with Spin Master Games, and the final product will be called Temple Run Danger Chase. The game will be out Oct. 1.

Disney turns on the cross-promotion stream in Where’s My Water — Disney is promoting the upcoming Tim Burton movie Frankenweenie in its mobile game Where’s My Water. The 10 Days of Frankenweenie promotion will see players get new Frankenweenie-themed levels for free. So far the Where’s My Water franchise has racked up more than 100 million downloads.

Toca Boca passes 15 million downloads — Swedish developer Toca Boca’s series of child-friendly apps have now been downloaded more than 15 million times reports The AppSide. The company revealed the figure in a job posting.

Barnes & Noble shows off HD Nooks — Barnes & Noble won’t be left behind in the HD tablet race it seems. The company has revealed two new products – a 7” Nook HD and a 9” Nook HD+ reports All Things D. The devices will cost between $199 and $299 and will come with anywhere from 8 to 32GB of storage. Both devices will run a modified version of the Android operating system.

[Launch] YoYo Games launches B.A.S.E. Jumper — YoYo Games has released its newest game B.A.S.E. Jumper in the iTunes App Store, the Amazon App Store, Facebook, Chrome, Google Play and other app stores. It was developed using the company’s GameMaker: Studio program.

[Launch] FIFA 13 hits iOS, sets EA sales record – EA’s popular FIFA series is back on iOS. The latest incarnation, FIFA 13 was available on iOS three days before the console version was available and is now EA’s fastest selling mobile title. EA did not disclose sales figures for the chart-topping title, but did reveal FIFA 13′s launch days sales were 62 percent higher than FIFA 12′s.

[Launch] Hoolai launches first English game — Well known Chinese mobile game company Hoolai has launched its first English language game, Rise of Olympia on iOS. The game is part of the GREE network.

[Launch] Cartoon Wars Blade launches — South Korea’s Gamevil is expanding on the success of its Cartoon Wars title with Cartoon Wars Blade, an action RPG set in the same universe as the popular tower defense title.

[Funding] Duck Duck Moose raises $7 million Series A – Educational app developer Duck Duck Moose has raised $7 million in Series A funding from Sequoia Capital and Lightspeed Venture Partners.