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    • Mon Dec 24th 07:42 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Could iPhone Become the Best Selling Smartphone on the Planet?
      2G, keyboard, battery, RIMM etc..etc..

      If you ever needed proof that the iPhone is a steamroller the simple stats from O2 say it all. On an inferior EDGE network, one that O2 itself admits barely covers the UK properly, 60% of customers with iPhones used more than 25Mb of data. iPhone data usage excludes any data used and moved on Wi-Fi. In contrast, 2% of non-iPhone customers did the same, including users of Nokia's 3G N95, the oft-vaunted closest pretender.

      I just saw demos (native type) for 3 iPhone productivity applications for doctors that blew me away. Think something several times better than the iPhone Netflix application or the iTunes mobile store on iPhone. They'll be out between March and May. Developing for the iPhone is remarkably simple and flexible and sensibly designed websites work with no extra tweaking. You try develop for Nokia, Motorola or Samsung in Symbian or WM and see how much of a pain it is. I do not have Apple stock and I'm not iPhone obsessed. I just see opportunity where many people see obstacles.

      On a recent tour of Africa for my company (I no longer work there...), I discovered 3G networks have been in place in some countries like South Africa and Egypt for 3 years and EDGE has been in place all over for several years before that, data connections are much cheaper than Europe and America, costing between 10c and 25c per MB versus $20/MB roaming on AT&T in some markets. Some cellphone companies offer multiple country local calling. I found a store in Nairobi taking in a "shipment" of 200 iPhones, all pre-sold, awaiting unlocking before dispatch to customers. The store started selling iPhones in late September and has done 20-30 such "orders" and it isn't the only one. Similar stories abound from Accra to Lagos to Cairo to Cape Town. iPhone detractors are clueless about the device's potential. If thousands of relatively worse off Africans, used to paying double the US or European price for Blackberries and Treos are buying iPhones and unlocking them... maybe Steve Jobs has just figured out the path to the internet for many people who were really frustrated with their phone options. All African countries have GSM networks, which are basically plug-and-play for handsets, unlike Verizon's. I was in Africa when Verizon made its opening up announcement and found the irony very amusing.

      Just before people jump all over this forum with chauvunistic statements about Africa, the five largest networks there earned a combined $7billion in after-tax profits and have a combined market cap of $130 billion, not small change. A $200 8GB Gen 1 iPhone would sell millions in Africa, even 2 years from now. Just like many Americans ignored text messaging (and some still continue to be clueless about it by labeling it a teen fad), sometimes people don't realize the opportunity they have created.

      iPhones in developing countries have very different uses from those in the G7. In a continent where people already send hundreds of millions by text message cash transfers, it's basically a sub $400 computer, functional even for the most academically challenged user, that can be hidden away from theft, charged from a small car battery and connect to the web anywhere with a cellphone network. It can bring market price displays to fresh produce markets, pictures of road conditions, allow injury assessments, allow fertilizer salespeople to travel from farm to farm taking accurate orders, transmit photo id for cash remittances, data capture for displaced persons in refugee camps, news accounts from remote places... i could go on and on but would start disclosing proprietary information. Basically, none of that youtube, facebook, google maps, stocks, iPod kind of stuff. The part of the iPhone that has value in Africa is the browser, the email app, the camera, voice recording and the cellphone connection.

      Sometimes when people start a revolution, they don't know which way the wave will go.
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    • Sun Dec 23rd 10:54 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Could iPhone Become the Best Selling Smartphone on the Planet?
      apple needs to do only 3-6 phones per day per carrier store and 3 phones an hour per apple retail store to hit a million per quarter in each of its markets. This rough estimate assumes it sells NOTHING on the web. Go figure!
      View article »
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