Android Mobile Is No. 1
— Android overtook Nokia for the top mobile market share in the fourth quarter of 2010, according to Canalys. Google’s operating system was used on 33.3 million units shipped in the quarter, up 615% year over year and just ahead of Nokia’s 31 million units. Apple managed 86% growth to 16.2 million units but ranked third while RIM’s 14.6 million units ranked the company fourth. Keep in mind these figures are for units shipped in the fourth quarter and does not represent Android’s share of total units in the marketplace.
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Canalsys warned that the mobile landscape will shift in 2011, however, because of Apple’s new Verizon iPhone. In addition, the firm believes Microsoft may bounce back in 2011 after Windows Phone 7 arrived too late in the fourth quarter to make an impact. Microsoft’s market share dropped to 3.1% to 3.9% in the quarter, according to Canalsys.
( Ars Technica)
Not a Bitter Pill: Android Tablet’s Market Share Up Ten-Fold
— Android’s market share of tablet shipments rose almost ten-fold to 22% in the fourth quarter of 2010, according to Strategy Analytics. In the third quarter, Android had just 2.3% of shipments. The difference can be attributed to the arrival of the Samsung Galaxy tablet computer. As Android made big gains, Apple’s share of shipments in the quarter dropped to 75% from 95%.
( Bloomberg)
Record Industry Stocks: The New Roller Coaster Ride
— Warner Music Group’s stock has been on a roller coaster ride since news broke last week the company has hired Goldman Sachs to explore a sale. Shares jumped nearly 30% to an intraday high of $6.12 on the 21st. Since then Warner shares have slowly sank down to a low of $5.15 on Monday the 31st. They were up nearly 4% to $5.42 on Tuesday. That slight increase came after news broke that Citi had taken over EMI in a debt-for-equity swap. All in all, it looks like the market can’t figure out what to make of the Warner-EMI-Citigroup triangle and has lost much of its optimism that a play for Warner will happen. Throw in the interest of private equity firm KKR and the picture becomes even more uncertain.
Ticketmaster’s Shopping Cart Goes Live
— Lost in the hubbub about MIDEM was Ticketmaster’s announcement, via its blog, that its new shopping cart has gone live at Ticketmaster.com and LiveNation.com. The post claims a number of improvements, such as “simpler steps for adding other options (parking, t-shirts, food, etc.) to your ticket.” The cart feature also gives buyers an easier way to compare ticket prices by adding tickets to the cart and comparing side by side.
The online shopping cart is an important part of the company’s future. The Ticketmaster and Live Nation merger held the promise of unlocking synergies that could not be captured when the promoter was separate from the ticket seller. Now that the companies are under one roof, additional items such as parking, T-shirts, recorded music and food & drink items can be added to the ticket purchase.
( Ticketology)
Survey Says: Facebook’s Entertainment Ads Perform Well
— Media and entertainment ads posted at Facebook are the second-best performing ads – behind only the tabloids and blogs category. This insight comes from Webtrends. Media and entertainment ads have a click-through rate of 0.154% and a cost-per-click of $0.25. Those figures compare very well to categories such as travel (0.086% and $0.36), restaurants (0.066% and $0.53) and telecommunications (0.029% and $0.82). Media and entertainment performs far better than the third category, e-commerce (0.089% and $0.31).
Even though media and entertainment ads perform relatively well, there are still some issues to advertising on Facebook. One problem is burnout. The same Webtrends study found that Facebook ads’ click-through rate drops by half in about two days. And click-through rates dropped (to 0.051% from 0.063%) while costs increased (to $0.49 from $0.27 per click-through) in 2010 – a typical pattern for display advertising, says Webtrends.
( WebTrends blog, Business Insider)
To Regulate or Not? Cyberlockers
— Will the U.K.’s Digital Economy Act be unable to tackle cyberlockers? U.K. lawmakers have asked Ofcom, the agency that regulates the UK’s communications industries, to review the sections of the Digital Economy Act that gives the government the power to ask ISPs to block access to websites that “facilitate” copyright infringement. “I have no problem with the principle of blocking access to websites used exclusively for facilitating illegal downloading of content,” said Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt. “But it is not clear whether the site blocking provisions in the Act could work in practice so I have asked Ofcom to address this question.”
Notice Hunt’s use of the word “exclusively.” That’s important. Cyberlockers and BitTorrent both have noninfringing uses. In any case, the record industry is ready to fight against cyberlockers and other means of illegally sharing content. “We will engage closely with Ofcom’s Review and make the case for an effective mechanism to deal with illegal non-P2P downloading,” the BPI said in a statement.