Sales of 12 month Sim-only deals are rocketing, according to analyst firm GfK. Latest figures from GfK’s retail and technology division show that take up of 12 month Sim-only contracts doubled from 11% to 22% between January and May this year.
GfK senior account manager Cedric Mertes said: ‘When we looked at the contract Sim segment, we saw amazing growth of the 12 months area – 11% in Jan to 22% in May – which shows that customers are obviously keen to commit for a shorter period of time.’
Mertes said the figures indicate that 12 month Sim-only contracts are attracting consumers who are happy to keep their existing phones rather than migrate at the end of their contracts to the latest handsets.
The rise is also partly due to operators attempting to retain customers who are reluctant to sign up to 24 month contracts, said Mertes.
‘Operators are pushing 24 month contracts as they look to keep customers on their networks for longer, but at the same time they don’t want to lose those customers who don’t want to be tied in for that long, or who aren’t as interested in the new handsets. So a lot of operators are now offering 12 month Sim-only deals.’
Mertes said iPhone users could also be driving the rise in the 12 month deals.
‘It is possible that operators have launched some 12 month Sim-only deals for iPhone users coming to the end of their 18 month contract who are happy to carry on using the model they have.’
Neil Mawston, analyst at Strategy Analytics, said he expects the rise in Sim-only deals to slow down.
‘Sim-only deals have been growing in the past couple of years. For operators they mean lower acquisition costs and subsidies but as they also increase the potential for churn, Sim-only can be a double edged sword.
However, I think it is coming close to its peak – there is only so much of the market that is going to take on these deals and then you will see operators encouraging their Sim-only customers onto 18 and 24 month deals – it’s cyclical.’
To sort out the antenna problem with the iPhone 4, Apple is giving away free bumpers to all iPhone 4 owners. But as they don’t just appear out of thin air, Apple is going to set aside $175 million of iPhone 4 revenue in the September quarter, according to Apple’s CFO Peter Oppenheimer during the Q3 earnings conference call. But as in the same conference call they reveiled that they earned over $15 billion, shelling out $175 million for iPhone cases, won’t be too much of a catastrophe for Apple.
The $175 million might seem a huge amount for normal people like us, but compered the $1.5 billion Apple would have to pay for a full recall of the iPhone 4 as some industry analysts are predicting, giving away free cases is a much better option for Apple.
A couple of days ago, Google announced that they had just received the last shipment of Nexus One’s. But today, Google has just sold out of Nexus One’s on it’s online store. The Nexus One was the official Google developer phone and was wildly known as one of the best handsets out there, even though it did not catch on outside of the geek community.
However, as we said a couple of days ago, the Nexus One will still be available through Vodafone in Australia, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and here in the UK with a contract of course. So you can get the Nexus One if you really want it from Vodafone, but you better hurry, as they will stop selling them when they run out of stock.
There is only one thing to say. Nexus One, we will miss you.
This week Gareth, Andy, Matt and James are chewing the fat about Apple, HTC and Blackberry in this action packed mobile podcast. The iPhone 4 resolution is upon us, the Nexus One is being laid to waste and RIM put a little effort in Blackberry.
Nobody can say that they’re particularly surprised about this one. As the US carrier Verizon, has just confirmed that they are no longer going to sell both Kin phones and they are going to be returning them back to Microsoft. Who themselves just threw in the towel on the Kin project at the end of last month. We are told that all existing Kin’s will work as Microsoft is keeping the back-end services running. But as so few Kin’s were sold, I wonder how long this will continue to happen. This phone was meant to be released here in the UK later this year, but because of this monumental fail by Microsoft, it is safe to say that we will never see it coming across the pond.
Sadly no photos of the elusive beast as of yet (that’s the original Desire pictured above), but the guys over at SuperETrader have some rumoured specs to go along with a rumoured October launch date in the UK for the HTC Desire HD (previously known as the HTC Ace). Just have a look at these specs and it’s a logical set for HTC to capitalise on the Desire’s success.
At Apple’s press conference on Friday, Steve Jobs showed 3 phones that had the same antenna problems as the iPhone 4. This made Nokia and RIM retaliate to what Steve Jobs said about their phones. (Read here) But the third phone shown was the Droid Eris, and this had the most drastic drop of signal. It went straight from 4 bars all the way down to 0 bars.
HTC have not acted like Nokia and RIM to Apple’s claims, but they have given a percentage of the people calling technical suport about the Droid Eris’s antenna problem. Apple claimed that 0.55% of customers called AppleCare about the antenna issue but HTC is claiming that the Droid Eris technical support line received only 0.016% of people calling about the antenna issue. About thirty-four times lower than Apple’s claim.
At yesterday’s press conference, Steve Jobs defended it’s iPhone 4 antenna issue by saying that all smartphones had this problem and by showing several devices from Nokia, HTC and RIM having the same problem. Now as you can expect, you wouldn’t be very happy if Steve Jobs bashes your device on stage, so RIM and Nokia have retaliated to what Steve said yesterday and they are not happy.
RIM:
Apple’s attempt to draw RIM into Apple’s self-made debacle is unacceptable. Apple’s claims about RIM products appear to be deliberate attempts to distort the public’s understanding of an antenna design issue and to deflect attention from Apple’s difficult situation. RIM is a global leader in antenna design and has been successfully designing industry-leading wireless data products with efficient and effective radio performance for over 20 years. During that time, RIM has avoided designs like the one Apple used in the iPhone 4 and instead has used innovative designs which reduce the risk for dropped calls, especially in areas of lower coverage. One thing is for certain, RIM’s customers don’t need to use a case for their BlackBerry smartphone to maintain proper connectivity. Apple clearly made certain design decisions and it should take responsibility for these decisions rather than trying to draw RIM and others into a situation that relates specifically to Apple.
Widely believed to be the best phone among the geek community, the Nexus One is coming the end of its life. As Google is no longer going to make its own Android handset and they have just received its last shipment of handsets. The Nexus One never really caught on outside of the android and geek community, even though it is a great handset and probably the one of the best phones available at the moment.
However, Google will keep selling them in the UK through Vodafone, and through KI in Korea. But in N.America, it will no longer be available unless you are a registered Google developer, then you can get it through Google’s partners. It will still be the official Google developer phone and it will still get the latest Android OS before any other phone.
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