IDC released (to one source only) preliminary figures for smartphones shipped for the second quarter of 2009.
Top Ten (Shipped) Smartphones in the U.S Q2. (Formerly Exclusive Information )according to IDC
- BlackBerry Curve
- iPhone 3G S
- BlackBerry Pearl
- iPhone 3G
- BlackBerry Bold
- BlackBerry Storm
- HTC T-Mobile G1
- Palm Pre
- HTC Touch Pro
- HTC Touch Diamond
The top, number one, smartphone, the BlackBerry Curve is available from almost all carriers. The BlackBerry Curve has been highly discounted and is free this weekend with a contract for new/current customers (all carriers) at Wirefly.
The Top Ten Smartphones "Sold" List was a lot more work than most lists Wireless and Mobile News usually publishes. It cost the pretty price of increasing the page views of a competitor because IDC only releases this list to one publisher.
I had a lovely conversation with analyst Ramon Llamas at IDC, after I
asked him for list of top-selling U.S. smartphones. It turns out IDC has an
exclusive deal with FierceWireless to publish the top ten list of
smartphones "selling" in the U.S.
I sent a
series of emails requesting the information from Llamas and he keep
referring me back to FierceWireless. Finally, he returned my call. In
our conversation, I asked if FiereceWireless paid anything for the deal.
His response clearly let me know that Fierce doesn't pay a penny for
the exclusive information.
Hugh?
This
is frustrating for reporters
because what the rest of the press has to do is carefully re-purpose
the
information from the long slide show on FierceWireless, thus upping
Fierce's page views as well as time spent on the site which rates very
highly with Google ad rates.
FiereceWireless has set up the list in
separate pages, therefore to get all the information
the reader has to click through ten pages. Most websites have only two
or three page views per reader. Fierce also does not put the list in their
daily emails and requires readers to click through to the ten-page
clicker.
Is
this situation fair? Is it worth
getting in a tizzy over?
Well, not really because all the list does is
show what was shipped to stores, not what was sold. I called a Best Buy
store
recently and the sales associate, actually told what models were
selling, (iPhones and freebies) which can be different from what models were shipped.
Although, nobody likes not being able to get the latest smarpthone
gossip, including me, when I checked the Quantcast rankings for FiereceWireless, Wireless and Mobile News'
ranked higher. The added benefit for our
readers is that you get to read the list in two seconds, as opposed to
two-minutes, so you'll keep coming back...right?
According to Llamas the above were
preliminary figures. He promised me, in September, he will send me the
top smartphone list by vendor not model.
Here are the disclaimers for the list:
IDC counts vendor
sales to mobile carriers, consumer electronic stores,
online retail stores and independent distributors, and excludes
counting the sell-through to consumers. After the list, continue
reading for a whopping disclaimer.Manufacturers and carriers do not disclose sales information for
specific handset models. Therefore, IDC derives sales information from
a variety of sources, including interviews with vendors, operators,
component and software suppliers and resellers, as well as press
releases, marketing and technical literature, white papers, filings
with the Securities and Exchange Commission, quarterly conference
calls, reports published in trade and business journals, end-user
surveys and other sources. The firm also conducts cross-checks with
ODMs and supply chain players.
I offered Llamas the opportunity to write an article any time for Wireless and Mobile News. What would you ask him to write about?
Editor's Note: September 1, 2009.
I received this request today in an email:
Howdy!
I'm writing in response to your recent post, here:
http://www.wirelessandmobilenews.com/2009/08/blackberrycurvetopstoptenussmartphonesshipped4salesfromidcfast_furious.html
Thanks for the citation! I'm just writing to request that you update your post with a link to our slideshow with this information, here:
http://www.fiercewireless.com/slideshow/top-selling-smartphones-united-states-second-quarter
Thanks so much!
Mike.
Comment from Wireless and Mobile News:
Here are list of other news sources who took the IDC Top 10 smartphone list and listed it:
T-Mobile Forums copied the list and added or used the original pics from FierceWireless.
RIMarkable cited the source as Venture Beat.
Eric Zeman at Information Week questioned the figures, wondering if it was unfair for lumping all the BlackBerry Cureve models together.
Tech Republic folded the IDC info into an article with other stats from other sources.
Latitude Project Blog, published the list and then linked back to an earlier IDC news release that didn't contain the information.
BlackBerry Cool did a backwards numerical count of the information with prices and carrier information.
Smartphone Cool published the same list as BlackBerry Cool of the IDC's top smartphones.
JK On the Run cited IDC, then listed the smartphones and the makers.
Out of all the information copycats listed above Wireless and Mobile News was the only one to cite FierceWireless in the first place, because I took the time to trace the report to the original source who was Ramon Llamas.