Hasta La Gadget!

The name ZTE doesn’t mean a ton in the U.S. The Chinese company has only had a handful of phones make it stateside and they’ve been way on the low end. Now, suddenly, they’re going for broke with the Grand S. More »

AT&T has announced some pretty impressive numbers about their fourth quarter sales in 2012. The company reports that they have sold over 10 million smartphones during Q4 2012 alone. The previous record was 9.4 million smartphones sold in the same quarter in 2011, so this year’s numbers may not be a huge increase, but progress is certainly progress.

Overall, the latest results suggest AT&T smartphone sales for all of 2012 will be about 26.7 million units, slightly ahead of its previous forecast of 26 million. earlier last year. The carrier is trying to bounce back from the third quarter, when it added only 151,000 contract subscribers, compared to 1.5 million with Verizon.

AT&T averaged daily sales of more than 110,000 smartphones, which includes iOS, Android, and Windows Phone 8 devices. AT&T CEO Ralph de la Vega said that the carrier’s subscribers “are the industry’s most valuable postpaid subscribers with average revenues twice that of non-smartphone subscribers.”

Verizon had good things to say about its fourth quarter as well. CEO Lowell McAdam yesterday called their Q4 2012 “historic” and mentioned that it was their best quarter ever as they added 2.1 million net subscribers. AT&T plans to report its full fourth-quarter results on January 24, and Verizon on the 22nd.

AT&T reports record smartphone sales in Q4 2012 is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Nuance, maker of the popular voice dictation software Dragon Naturally Speaking, has been making itself known today, first announcing this morning at CES that it has bestowed Swype with some new features. The company has followed this up with an announcement that it has entered into a partnership with ZTE, bringing its voice features to the Chinese company’s smartphones.

The exact length of the partnership is unknown, with the announcement simply stating that it is a “multi-year” agreement. Nuance will bring its voice software to ZTE’s portfolio of upcoming handsets starting this year. The voice features will encompass 25 languages, although it didn’t state which languages those are.

There’s not much info in terms of what apps will be gaining Nuance’s voice functionality features, with the exception of one: Car Mode. This app is said to include voice control via Nuance and allow users to do hands-free activities, such as making calls and sending texts. The app is optimized to work in the loud environment of a car, and does not require any sort of broadband connection.

It also offers some other features that could arguably be utilized just as effectively outside of the vehicle as during a trip. Do No Disturb mode is present, which allows the driver to disable incoming calls and notifications until the drive is over. The app can be awoken hands-free with voice commands, and will provide verbal notifications about texts and incoming calls.

[via Android Community]

ZTE joins up with Nuance, voice integrated devices will roll out this year is written by Brittany Hillen & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Attention dumbphones, point-and-shoot cameras and music players: sorry to tell you this, but it looks like your days may be numbered. According to a new survey out from Accenture (embedded below and released to coincide with the CES show), consumers are moving away from buying “single-use” devices and opting instead for those that offer the ability to do many things, with smartphones (at 41% of respondents), PCs (36%), HDTVs (33%) and tablets (23%) topping the list of items consumers are most likely to buy in 2013, as gadget spending is projected to reach $1.1 trillion.

It’s a familiar story to those of us who write about the tech industry and trends in smartphones and tablets, but Accenture’s research, covering 11,000 consumers worldwide, shows that this is more than just the musings of analysts, and a global trend fuelled by the rise of superphones and tablets.

The survey, from September 2012, was based around consumer responses to some 16 different types of consumer electronics categories — from tablets and smartphones and connected TVs through to cameras, basic TVs and e-readers.

In a telling table of increasing versus decreasing ownership, it’s clear that over the last four years, consumers have been gravitating much more towards devices that let them email and watch TV, or take pictures and post them instantly to social networks.

There are a few exceptions. For example, e-readers, GPS devices and Blu-Ray players are still appearing in the ‘increasing usage’ category, albeit as smaller players compared to tablets, smartphones and PCs. And PCs are actually a little bumpy in consumer sentiment, but they are by far the biggest category — with basic mobile phones still a close second — and so even small declines will continue to keep them the most important consumer electronics device for a while to come.

This is how the list of “increasing purchases” looks right now:

Meanwhile the decreasing category is perhaps a lesson in what features we will increasingly start to see in the multi-use devices. Indeed, the increasing power of smartphones and the ever-growing prevalence of apps makes functions like cameras, music players, and health/fitness tools into add-on, rather than central purpose, features. And with broadband speed improvements and more content moving digital, tablets and PCs are becoming the screens of choice for video.

Among some of the other interesting conclusions in this report are some lateral looks at how ownership of multi-purpose devices is helping to render other devices as obsolete. I think you can read these two ways, though. In the case of tablets, for example, it looks like it has a bigger impact on usage of e-readers and DVD players than it does on PCs and smartphones. That points to some of those features being replicated on the tablet, but also that those using multipurpose devices are going to be the people who will gravitate to other multipurpose devices. In other words, there is still an audience for well-made products that do just what they say they will, and nothing more.

Another response that caught my eye: awareness of operating systems. This is one of those old chestnuts that some have claimed consumers don’t care about, but these numbers seem to tell a very different story:

That’s a powerful table combined with the fact around half of respondents also seem to say that they’d rather have all their devices using the same operating system.

The Accenture survey doesn’t single out any single brands among Apple, Samsung, Google, Sony, LG, Microsoft, Nokia or others that might be leading the pack with consumer sentiment.

That kind of lock-in is potentially music to many hardware makers’ ears, but it’s a road they need to tread carefully. Just as many want the opposite, meaning they can alienate just as many users as they can win over with a strategy that makes it easier or harder to run several devices in tandem (Apple: take note).

It isn’t exactly a secret that HTC has been in something of a rut lately. The company, which was once the top Android manufacturer as recently as 2010, has fallen hard in recent years, thanks to the increased competition from the likes of Samsung and Apple. HTC is going to try to turn that around in 2013, with CEO Peter Chou telling the Wall Street Journal that he’s optimistic for the year ahead.

“The worst for HTC has probably passed. 2013 will not be too bad,” he said. Reflecting on why HTC lost ground in this fiercely competitive market, Chou said, “Our competitors were too strong and very resourceful, pouring in lots of money into marketing. We haven’t done enough on the marketing front.” Chou admitted that HTC doesn’t have as much money as Samsung or Apple, but said that doesn’t matter as much as offering unique handsets that get consumers excited.

HTC seems to have succeeded in getting consumers excited with one of its latest handsets, the DROID DNA. The company has also put out a couple stellar Windows Phone 8 handsets, so slowly but surely, HTC is working its way back into the public eye. It seems that there are more than a few consumers out there who want to see HTC make a comeback as well, so the better year HTC is hoping for in 2013 might be more than just a pipe dream.

Chou didn’t specifically say how the company is planning to turn things around, but it sure does have its work cut out for it. 2012 was a great year for Samsung, with the company releasing the Galaxy S III and the Galaxy Note II to critical acclaim and very strong sales. Samsung is going to be a tough one to beat going into 2013, as the oft-rumored Galaxy S IV and Galaxy Note III are said to be launching this year. HTC has been drawing some significant attention with its rumored M7 handset, though, and if it can keep putting out quality Windows Phone 8 handsets, then 2013 might just mark the comeback some have been waiting for.

Indeed, Chou said in the interview that in 2012, the company learned that it needs to act fast and adapt to market changes as quickly as possible. Moving forward, he says the company will be constantly fine-tuning its sales plan to better position itself in the smartphone market. We shall see if all of that work pays off for HTC in the end, so stay tuned.

HTC’s 2013 resolution: be more innovative is written by Eric Abent & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.