Hasta La Gadget!

Verizon said today on its earnings conference call that it had activated 4 million total iPhones during Q1 2013, of which half were LTE devices, and half were 3G-only. That means 50 percent, or around 2 million were iPhone 5, with the remaining 2 million making up iPhone 4 and 4S devices.

iPhones represented a little over half of its total smartphone sales for the quarter, or 55.6 percent. Verizon activated 7.2 million smartphones in total in Q1 2013, and 5.9 million LTE devices, which means iPhones accounted for around one-third of all LTE device sales at the carrier during the three-month period.

Last quarter iPhone represented 64 percent of all smartphone sales by comparison, with 6.2M devices sold. As with this quarter, around half of those were iPhone 5, with older models making up the rest. The dip is mostly in keeping with past iPhone sales performance at the carrier, though it likely was higher last quarter due to strong interest in the still newly-launched iPhone 5 heading into the holiday shopping season.

The decrease in share of total smartphone sales is consistent with past performance, but it’s worth watching those numbers over the next couple of quarters as new flagship Android devices like the Galaxy S4 make their way to market. And if Apple is indeed planning an iPhone revision in June as many now expect, we could see more changes, though based on current data it looks like iPhone sales share might be settling in to a regular pattern, at lest at Verizon.

It took a hefty price cut and a holiday sales boost to coax the 3DS out of its predecessor’s shadow, but these days Nintendo’s autostereoscopic handheld is doing just fine. NOA President Reggie Fils-Aime says it isn’t slowing down either, revealing to GamesIndustry that more than 8 million consoles have been sold in the US in the last two years — beating the original DS’ first two years by a million units. Software sales are picking up too. “Life-to-date 3DS game sales surpass 20 million units in the US, and that’s just physical,” Fils-Aime explains. “It doesn’t include digital sales.” Both digital and physical software sales have increased by 55 percent in the last year, and according to Nintendo executive vice president of sales and marketing Scott Moffitt, 11 percent of last year’s 3DS games were downloaded from the handheld’s eShop. Nintendo’s digital escapades may not be perfect, but it’s good to see that its downloadable sales push seems to be paying off.

Filed under: Gaming, Nintendo

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Source: GamesIndustry, Polygon

Back in January, Minecraft developer Mojang announced that total sales for Minecraft reached 15 million. However, we never got to see a breakdown of sales for each platform. Today, however, it’s been revealed that the PC version alone has now reached 10 million in sales, and the developer even teased a new feature coming to a future update.

Mojang’s lead designer and developer, Jens Bergensten, tweeted the sales announcement and also hinted at a possible new feature coming to the version 1.6 update. The image he links to for the hint is a picture of a horse, suggesting that the four-legged animal will be making its way inside the game at some point.

As for the Xbox Live Arcade version of the game, Mojang reported back in January that the console version reached 5 million in sales. However, we’re guessing that number has only grown since then. As for the mobile versions of the game, which are available on iOS and Android, no statistics have been released on that front.

Minecraft for PC was originally released as an alpha version in 2009, with the full version releasing in 2011. Since August of 2012, Mojang has managed to sell 3 million copies of Minecraft for PC, which is quite impressive for such a small game, but it’s popularity has been something of a triumph over the last couple of years.

Minecraft for PC surpasses 10m in sales is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

General Motors, maker of that awesome new Corvette, has reported its Q1 2013 sales figures, and it looks to be all good news. During the first quarter of this year, General Motors sold just under 665,000 vehicles, resulting in a 9.3% increase over the company’s total vehicles sales from Q1 2012. The company also recorded its best March sales in five years, selling almost 246,000 vehicles in just 31 days.

As for a breakdown of some of GM’s subsidiaries, Cadillac sales were up 38% from last year, while Buick was up 28%. GMC saw a 14% increase, and Chevrolet saw the smallest gain, with a 5% jump. Overall, GM saw an increase in sales across the board, which is no doubt a good sign for a company that recently found itself in a deep hole.

As for what types of cars have most popular during the past year, GM reports that crossover vehicles saw the biggest increase from last year, with a 25% jump, while trucks were up 10%. As for the folks who want more fuel-efficient vehicles, those numbers saw an increase, but not as much as you’d think — combined mini, small, and compact cars were up 14% from last year.

Unfortunately, GM didn’t report any of their financial earnings — just sales numbers this time around, but with such an impressive increase in sales, we have to guess that GM is slowly starting to make progress digging themselves out of that wretched hole. With the launch of the 2014 Corvette later this year, we should hopefully see GM further into the black as we go along in 2013.

GM reports 9.3% sales increase in Q1 2013 is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Samsung has sold a lot of phones lately, including over 50 million Galaxy S III devices since its launch early last year. However, the company isn’t seeing a slowdown any time soon. It’s expected that Samsung’s Q1 2013 sales will hit record numbers yet again, even though demand hasn’t been as high as the company would like.

According to Hong Kong-based research company Counterpoint Research, Samsung has sold around 25 million smartphones each month so far this year, and that’s expected to drive the company’s quarterly sales to over 70 million units for Q1 2013. Samsung’s last earnings report showed a profit of $8 billion over those three months.

Samsung’s market share during January and February reached 35%, making them the largest smartphone manufacturer on the planet. Compared to Q4 2012, that’s a 3% increase in market share. With the upcoming release of Samsung’s GALAXY S 4, it’s possible that the company may even see a record Q2 2013 as well.

Back in January, it was estimated that Samsung would sell around 10 million GALAXY S 4 devices per month, and the company says that they want to sell at least 350 million smartphones in 2013, which is quite an ambitious goal. They eventually want to reach 500 million devices total for the year. The GALAXY S 4 is expected to early May at some point, with T-Mobile the only major carrier to offer a timeline.

Samsung expected to hit record sales in Q1 2013 is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.