Samsung battles Nokia in smartphones

Samsung is counting on snazzy new products, innovative marketing and vaulting ambition to close the gap on rival Nokia in this lucrative segment.

You might consider him cocky or overly ambitious. But Ranjit Yadav, Samsung India country head of mobile and IT makes no bones of his company’s ambition: “We want to be the number one smart phone player in the country. Our target is to grab 40 per cent market share by the end of this year”.

Sony Ericsson Xperia neo: Review

Sony Ericsson has a lot riding on the Xperio neo, which arrived in Australia late last month. It’s the company’s most recent top-of-the-line handset, with a focus on an all-round great performance.

Design

Sony Ericsson has invested a lot of time in making the Xperia neo as sleek and modern-looking as possible. Colour-wise, and the neo comes with a (very) dark blue metallic tint, that in most light really comes across as being black. Interestingly, Sony has opted to make the standard Android back, home and menu buttons at the bottom of the front of the device physical — they’re not touch-sensitive like on most other Android phones coming out at the moment. Depending on your preference, you’ll either love them or hate them, but they match the style of the phone and the chrome look is suitable with the dark blue backing.

Nokia, still a market leader

According to the latest quarterly report issued by research firm IDC (International Data Corporation), the global mobile phone market grew by 11.3% year over year, as in second quarter of 2011 were delivered, worldwide, 365.4 million units – compared with 328.4 million units shipped in the second quarter of 2010.

But the figures were below predictions of the company, aimed at an increase of 13.3% for Q2 – lower than the growth of 16.8% recorded in 2011.

Nokia Remains World's First Maker of Smartphones

The worldwide mobile phone market grew 11.3% year over year in the second quarter of 2011, despite a weaker feature phone market, which declined for the first time since Q3 2009. Nokia Corp. remained the top maker of mobile phone despite of major losses of the market of smartphones.

According to the International Data Corp. (IDC), vendors shipped 365.4 million units in Q2 2011 compared to 328.4 million units in the second quarter of 2010. The 11.3% growth was lower than IDC's forecast of 13.3% for the quarter and was also below the 16.8% growth in Q1 2011.