The past week had quite a bit happening in the mobile sector.
Apple (
AAPL
) announced that the iPhone 5 saw more than 2 million pre-orders
placed withing the first 24 hours of availability, obliterating the
previous iPhone 4S record. With Apple planning to making this
iPhone rollout the fastest ever, China Unicom (
CHU
) hopes to get the iPhone 5 before the year end. Nokia (
NOK
), meanwhile, continues to work behind the scenes to build carrier
support with the latest to join the Lumia club being the world's
largest wireless carrier by subscriber base, China Mobile (
CHL
).
iPhone 5 sees record demand
If the pre-order demand for iPhone 5 is anything to go
by, Apple could well be on its way to recording one of
the biggest upgrade cycles in the history of electronic devices.
Going by the past iPhone launches, most would have
expected Apple to run out of pre-order order stock on the
opening day itself. However, the rate at which the same has
happened this time gives us the first sign of what could
be another record-setting holiday quarter for Apple.
Apple started taking pre-orders for the iPhone
5 at 3:01 a.m. ET on September 14, with shipping
expectations set for a week. That didn't last long,
however, as Apple was forced to push its shipping dates by a
week
merely an hour
after launch, with overwhelming demand causing Apple to run out of
launch day pre-order stock. In comparison, Apple had taken at
least 20 hours to run out of opening day stock for iPhone 4 and
iPhone 4S during the previous two launches. Later, Apple announced
that more than 2 million pre-orders had been placed for the iPhone
5 on the opening day, more than double as many for the 4S last
year. This incredibly fast sell-out gives us an indication of
the huge pent-up demand that had built up in the previous months as
people postponed buying an iPhone in anticipation of the new
launch. (see
iPhone 5 Hits Record Pre-Order Demand; Could Push
Apple Past $850
)
Nokia gets China Mobile's support
Nokia's Lumia line could have a much bigger presence in
China soon. While all the talk in the past week has been
about Apple (
AAPL
) and the big iPhone 5 launch, Nokia seems to have pulled off a
major coup by getting China Mobile on board to sell the
Lumia 920. The news was revealed by a Nokia representative this
week. While pricing, availability and other details remained
absent, we feel the roll out will happen after the Lumia launch in
the U.S. considering the
big marketing push
that Microsoft is going to put behind the whole Windows story.
With the world's largest subscriber base of close to 700
million and a 3G penetration of only about 10%, China Mobile
presents a huge opportunity for a popular emerging market brand
such as Nokia.
This comes on the back of another news that Nokia
and Microsoft (
MSFT
) have also enlisted the services of Verizon to support Windows
Phone 8 in the U.S. With AT&T (T) and T-Mobile
already offering the Lumia 900 and Lumia 710, respectively, Nokia
seems to be moving to aggressively market the Lumia now that it
finally has a strong smartphone OS in Windows Phone 8.
However, Nokia faces an uphill task against the two
well-entrenched ecosystems of Apple and Google
(GOOG) to create a niche for itself and Microsoft.
Nonetheless, more carrier partnerships and better app support to
drive Lumia sales will be key to its resurgent hopes. (see
Armed With Windows Phone 8, Nokia Catches Big Fish
China Mobile
)
China to get iPhone 5 soon
In line with Apple's plans to make this year's iPhone
launch its fastest roll-out ever, China Unicom expects to launch
the iPhone 5 within three months of the September 21st launch.
While regulatory approval remains the only bottleneck, it should
not be a significant worry since China Unicom has mostly
been able to schedule its iPhone launches within the three month
time frame. The next step for Apple in China would obviously
be China Telecom (CHA), and in keeping with the Apple
tradition of giving each carrier a year's time with each iteration
of the iPhone, we can expect the carrier to launch the iPhone in
the Feb-March period. (see China Is Likely To Get iPhone 5 Before
The Year End)
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