The year of the smartphone is here. Which company will be #1, #2 and #3 by year end 2012? Apple, Googorola, Micronokia? Or more realistic Samsung or maybe Huawei? With 4G/LTE roll-out the whole story becomes even more interesting. Will RIM/Blackberry survive? Can Sony make the turnaround? Which role can HTC play after a bad Q4/2011 and a significant revenue drop announced for Q1/2012 of 36 percent in yesterdays Investor Relations Conference? What about LG? It is a long run – a marathon. Let´s watch out!
Category Archives: Retail
How to make choosing easier.
How many choices did you make every day? How many in a week? Interesting lecture from Sheena Iyengar. Watch it to gain insight of her survey and also to know how many the average CEO has to make.
A better way to handle choice overload and more.
(c) TED
All your x-mas gifts ready?
Today: smart x-mas sale level three. After Apple is pushing x-mas sales so far in two directions by iPhone 4s and iPad 2 messages into several consumer touchpoints it seems to be that Apple is introducing today the major x-mas product No. 3: the MacBook Air.
So iPhone, iPad and MacBookAir are making it´s way under the christmas tree.
Whilst Microsoft and Nokia are pushing Windows Phone and the Lumia 800. The timing of Googorola is also quite smart to introduce the new Motorola RAZR exactly for the x-mas sales period. In my eyes a really smart move.
I guess this is the start for a very though battle in 2012 for these kind of products. I promise you a new device and manufacturer ranking. Happy consumers – guaranteed!
No smart x-mas sale?
Hello, consumer electronics – where is this years christmas sale? We are writing the 29th November 2011.
My touchpoints with smartphone or netco´s christmas sales are short and mainly driven by one manufacturer: I have seen the Apple iPhone 4s TV commercial several times (up to 6 times), introducing the new great camera or alternatively the SIRI feature. Same with Online – Apple E-Mails me to buy the 4s or the iPad 2 as X-Mas-Gifts (up to 4 times). And eCommerce? Well, Apple Store introduces one big shopping day for the 25th November 2011. With discount up to 91 Euros (see older article). No matter, if I was thinking about buying new devices for myself or as a christmas gift: beside Apple there was only one Microsoft Live E-Mail Newsletter to myself to introduce the new Mango OS with Nokia Lumia 800, which was honestly message overloaded and the new Amazon.com Kindle TV Commercial to buy the new device for 99 Euro.
No more Tablet-PC offers, no more new smartphones for Santa Claus & Co.? Maybe we will see great x-mas campaigns shortly.
As far as I have learned and read from latest market research: the impulse-shopper is more or less dead in year 2011. Good job, Cupertino: I guess you guys have done some well done front loading.
So, what do we have? Smart shoppers, smart phones – but more or less no smart x-mas sales.
iMessage: “What is next?”
iPad 3 and iPhone 5 rumors are already out there. I guess Foxconn and Pegatron are already preparing themselves for the official launch, even after Apple has increased its order for X-Mas/Q4 sales – especially on iPhone 4s largely. Despite the fact that some market players have corrected their sales forecast with less sold units due to the economic downstream in some regions. Some experts have said that Apple could not continue their smartphone success story, as Android´s market position is getting stronger and stronger. Honestly: it seems to be that Apple is probably not the world´s best smartphone, but it´s beloved user-friendly eco-systems still drives the highest profit margins to Cupertino. Which was a 40,3% in this Q4 in Apple´s fiscal year 2011.
One is enough, two is too much, three is dangerous!
Facebook, Twitter, Google+? Is three at least one too much?
Who is next? Who would die? Where is it going the social network eco-system?
1st = as long as there was only one, the world was easy to handle for all of us users. Everybody was happy just to increase fans & followers and to post user generated content or links, vids and stuff
2nd = after a little education, getting common and increased functionality knowledge consumers intent to have multiple accounts for different activities in their life (e.g. private, business, fake, junk and testing/more)
3rd = with more (cross)-related-Apps running on those social media plattforms for extended services such as foursquare, yipit, instagram, rating functions and more the complexity of handling your posts, status and contents starts to driving you nuts. Every single one of them! And that is only your part of the story and your perspective. How to handle this on different accounts simultaneously?
Beside all that you will never find all your contacts on one of these platforms. Maybe nearly all on Facebook, but you still have people who are reluctant and unconvinced to join this garden party. So at the end you still need your Phonebook/Outlook/Mac contacts database to ensure interaction with all your social contacts via Phone and Mail. And this shows as long as potential competitor Google+ will not have critical mass of users combined with permanent/regular user interaction Facebook will still be the No.1 and the major place to be! Even if you dislike the forthcoming Timeline-Feature, as I do. But just for a single moment, just a twinkle in the eye: what is next? Intelligent Search with recommendations that are cross-checked and combined with your Friends ratings and tailor made for you? The timeline function – everything compressed in a story of your life? Your individual One-click online Store of your favourite brands? TV, Books and Games online based on your likes? Woo-hoo.
And: will the giant Microsoft get the job done? Sync/Cloud, mobile OS and Social Media? Imagine: from about 95% of every online connections that have been operated with Microsoft Windows OS a few years ago to nearly under 50% this year. Every second internet connection to the internet is without Windows OS. Forecast: still decreasing. Thank you, smartphones and tablets.
All you Innovators, Early Adopters, Early Majority, Late Majority and Laggards – where do you follow in the future?
On Sale: 11.11.11
BMC´s Magic 11 – Ladies and gents! I´ve written a marketing conception in 2010 for tomorrow 11.11.11 dd-mm-yy 11.11.11 hh-mm-ss because I thought that this magic date was something special for retailers and promotions. I am completely surprised how many companies don´t care about such opportunities. A crazy world, we all live in.
Faster, lighter, more – and ubiquitous!
We are so close to the next level of connected life. Worldwide LTE (Long term evolution/4G) cellular networks will give us a lot more opportunities as of today and enable us to do more data intensive applications, even by multitasking. The future is wireless – no doubt. And no matter how much up- or downstream you need.
For sure you use your Ultrabook, Tablet-PC or Smartphone as well with the next level software and apps. No wonder: with intuitive touchscreens and user-orientated/centric operating systems. You organize yourself in a new way in the enterprise 2.0 as well as in your private environment. Via Evernote, Wunderlist, Dropbox and Dragon you are everytime available on duty. Dragon for instance is giving you the freedom to record your voicememos instantly and converting them directly into written text for usuage by email, Twitter, Facebook and more. Siri from Apple, feature of the brandnew iPhone 4S, goes a few steps further of this scenario by converting and understanding your textmemo, if you want to set appointments and more. The phone does exactly what you want it to do – the perfect companion.
Can you imagine the next landmarks in commerce, mobility, smarthome, learning and health? Let´s get ready. The future is bright.
eBay goes mobile Shopping:
As you can see eBay is about to become a shopping portal rather than auctions only. 3-2-1-mine.
Alea iacta est?
Deutsche Telekom launches Pageplace, MediaSaturn launches MYJUKE.COM, Toshiba launches PLACES. Looks like the industry don´t want to lead these markets any longer by Apple. Books & Newspapers/Magazines, Music, Smart Metering – whatever you suggest, the whole industry is playing hard nowadays. Competition everywhere. 3D TV, Tablets, Ultrabooks – greatest hardware to come for christmas sales. Lucky consumers we all are and a great race where the industry is in!
(c) Screenshot by MediaSaturn