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Apple moves past Motorola, up to 3% global cell phone market share
Android may be moving ahead of Apple in the smartphone OS market, but Apple is steadily moving up the handset chart. It's just overtaken Motorola, shipping 8.75 million handsets in the first three months of this year, according to iSuppli. That many phones sets Apple up for three percent of the entire global market; that's a pretty amazing achievement for just the few years it's been in the business. Motorola sold 8.5 million handsets in the same time period, dropping it to number eight on the list while Apple moved up to number six. Who's still above Apple? RIM is the next target with their BlackBerry devices selling 10.4 million units. Sony, LG, Samsung, and then Nokia fill out the top five. The year-over-year growth tells the real story, though: while most of the top five, with the exception of Sony Ericsson, are showing positive growth from last year, Apple leads the pack with a whopping 130.7% growth. When you compare that to Motorola's -42.2% drop-off, it's clear why the two smartphone manufacturers are heading in different directions. Farther down on the list, you can see why China is such an important market for Apple in the next few years; China's TCL Alcatel is also making its way up in the rankings, and it's claiming 160.7% year-over-year growth. If Apple is going to continue the kind of growth it's had over the last year, growing foreign markets like that will be more and more important.
Analysts: iMac to take over 25% of PC sales, Mac to see 31% growth
We're only days away from the release of the iPad, and that means analysts are doing crazy business -- they're laying out as many predictions as they can before theory becomes actual numbers. Our friend Gene Munster is first -- he says that despite the introduction of a brand new category, Mac sales will be even better than investors expect this quarter, with a whopping 26% to 31% year-over-year growth. Apparently retail data suggests that Macs are flying off of the shelves, and that Apple should end up with almost 3 million Macs sold in the March quarter. PC sales in general are also expected to increase, with the iMac carrying a whole quarter of all desktop growth this year. Desktop sales are finally headed upwards for the first time in a few years, and along with bigger sales numbers in terms of netbooks and notebooks, Apple's iMac platform is leading the charge. International sales are also expected to drive the PC market -- if the numbers are right, this will be the first time ever that sales internationally take up 50% of the desktop PC market. Interesting predictions, all. There's no question, I think, that Apple will make plenty of money this quarter. The question going forward will be whether the iPad steals sales that would have gone to the iPhone or to a MacBook. But if the past numbers with the iPhone are any indication, big interest in the portable devices actually drives Apple's desktop sales as well.
Overall Mac sales up 21%, desktops up 74% year over year
There's probably a number of reasons why this might have happened (and we're sure you can come up with more than we can), but nevertheless, here you go: overall Mac sales are up by 21 percent in October and November since last year at the same time, according to Gene Munster (not pictured), analyst at Piper Jaffray. Desktop Mac sales are especially huge, with the rise as high as 74%, which seems like a typo next to MacBook and MacBook Pro increases of just five percent. In fact, those gigantic desktop sales, some reason, might actually be the reason behind the recent iMac delays. At any rate, no matter why, Apple is making a boatload on Macs this quarter already. Even without the bulk of the holiday season, the desktops were already flying off the shelves in huge numbers compared to last year.
The9 sees enormous drop in profits after split with Blizzard
In a news story that we're sure will surprise precisely nobody at all, The9 -- China's previous operator for World of Warcraft -- has reported a serious decline in profits for this last quarter. Since last year when The9 still had World of Warcraft in its stable of games to now, they have seen a staggering 94% drop in revenue. Since the split became final in June of this year, there was also a 91% drop between last quarter and this one. Between The9's lawsuit against Blizzard for (among other things) software copyright infringement and selling nearly 15% of its shares to Activision Blizzard competitor, EA, The9 has pretty well ensured that there's never going to be any kissing-and-making-up over this whole mess. Still, not everything is completely negative for The9. In the on-again-off-again World of Warcraft presence in the Chinese market altogether, owing to the squabble between The Ministry of Culture and the General Administration of the Press and Publication (GAPP), they've seen an increase in players from when they initially lost World of Warcraft. According to reports, the increase -- a modest bump from 3.2 to 3.4 million players -- is owing largely to a new update to Soul of the Ultimate Nation, as well as their other games Sword of the New World, FIFA Online, and Atlantica Online. Now, so long as more of their shareholders don't wind up suing them for making misleading statements about their connection with Blizzard, things might just start looking up for this former major player in the Chinese MMO market.
