webOS Market Share: Needs Work? 106
As came up quite often in yesterday's Round Robin Response, the most important thing for Palm to do right now is sell as many phones as possible. Two reports today seem to indicate that perhaps that effort isn't going so well.
First, comScore has released some numbers (via daringfireball)indicating that Palm is sliding backwards in the marketshare battle, moving from 8.3% to 6.1% from December to September. Now, Palm's survival isn't (just) about marketshare but rather sheer numbers. Also, it's worth noting that these number probably include everything Palm makes, so while there's a decline overall it's likely that's hiding an uptick in webOS share (one hopes).
Meanwhile, Barron's reports (via everythingpre)that Piper Jaffray Analyst T. Michael Walkley says webOS sales on Verizon has him "slightly disappointed," but he continues that heavy marketing could help. Hopefully there are enough moms out there to help Palm with these numbers.
Here at PreCentral, informally it does still seem like the vast majority of webOS users are on Sprint - but hey, maybe we're wrong. How about you set us straight with this here poll:
106 Comments
it sad were losing market to android (ughh)
These polls are just silly. Market share is irrelevant. It's simple really:
Palm reports Quarterly profit = good
Palm Reports Quarterly loss = Bad
The rest of this stuff is pointless.
PALM is down to about $9.50 per share today. Apparently, the capital markets disagree with your assertion that market share is irrelevant. A lot of action seems to be going on between the quarterly reports.
The entire market is down; Wall Street is down about 7 percent since its Jan 19 peak. Smaller companies usually see a larger fluctuation in their stocks. In addition, a lot of day traders love Palm's stocks. Palm moves over $100 million per day on average in stock trades. I guess Las Vegas is not sufficient for these guys!
Markets always react to news stories. It's the age of instant information and instant reaction. My point is that there is a LOT of these "moment in time" stories that ultimately add up to nothing. The real question is whether or not Palm (or any company in this situation) will continue to do business and only quarterly profits will tell that story.
Not paying attention to markeshare and just waiting for quarterly profits is fine unless you are: own PALM stock, trying to decide whether you buy or keep your Palm smartphone, thinking about developing for this platform, waiting for a WebOS version of whatever. It's not just about whether Palm can make a buck in this game or not.
quarterly report is a "moment in time" also. Not to mention. Their last quarterly report was not great and slammed their stock. Quarterlies are very important no doubt cause you're getting real numbers but one good one doesn't mean that any issue is settled. It's about making consistent growth: in the numbers. i think they are all "moments" that reflect on the companies value.
True. And people should also look at what the overall market is doing at the time in order to make a reasoned comparison. The entire market was down in the past week.
I agree, up to a point. Profit is the most important factor, if your concern is whether Palm will continue to exist, update their OS, keep creating new phones, etc. Market share is important if you're concerned with developers making new apps.
Thats a valid point. I'm certainly posting from the prospective of a Pre owner.
Mkt share is everything, especially if you have position yourself as the value-champion, but not among the leaders. The adoption period is nearly over where people move from simple-to-smart phones. When that ends, the market consolidates and the also-rans get squeezed out.
Mkt share equals promotion and R&D. Palm is behind on both, and the others have the resources that Palm needs to survive. Acqistition is webOS only real hope.
Saying that Palm is behind in R&D is either being simply presumptuous or being totally ignorant of the facts.
webOS is a market leading smartphone operating system. Palm has enhanced webOS with OpenGL 3D hardware support for gaming, and is expected to be the first company to provide support for Flash 10.1. Plus, Palm has delivered features critical to its users such as video record, not to mention the recent top quality 3D games such as "Need for Speed" and "Sims City". Plus Palm is the only mobile company to offer the widest selection of languages such as JavaScript, HTML, CSS, C, and C++ for developing mobile applications.
To date, this wide platform has only brought us lightweight games and GUI's. If it's the ultimate phone for developers, it's yet to show as power apps and new users. Every OS will multitask very soon. Then what?
If you consider these 3D games "Need for Speed" and "Sims City" that access the GPU hardware of the Palm Pre smartphone light weight games, then maybe I am talking to the wrong person.
In reference to your question ("Then what?"), the answer is pretty simple. webOS was introduced one year ago with multitasking; and while Palm's major competitor is playing catch-up, Palm is busy investing heavily in R&D to further distance themselves from the competition. The fact that Palm releases significant webOS updates better than one every month keeps the entire Palm community excited. We paid once for our phone and yet every month we get major enhancements; this is unheard of in the cell phone industry. So as consumers, it is exciting to see Palm keeping us on the leading edge of technology. And if anything, Palm seems to be picking up the pace
OMG, stick to code.
Who is Palm "Frightning"?
Apple? Who now sells one in four smartphones?
Blackberry, who owns over a third of the US market?
Sybian, who dominates the overall world market?
Android, who pretty closely mimic's Palm's advantages and has the backing of Google?
WinMO, MAYBE, as their O/S seems to have the market presence of the Zune.
The only people being frightened by palm are their customers and investors. New Palm ditched Old Palm, so that's a whole crop of loyal partners (customers and developers) that have reason to not trust New Palm with their money or time. Where is Palm cutting into Android or Sybian or Blackberry or Iphone market share. Who's blinking? Who did Palm make flinch? The best product usually bows to the best marketed product, that's a fact in the high tech market.
I love'em, but they hurt me and they made mistakes that are probably fatal. Rearrange the deckchairs if you like, or spend your creating a powerful innovative app that sets them apart from the "frightened" dominators that run the industry.
What's pointless is your comment. How do you think Palm is going to earn a profit with shrinking market share? The two are intimately related. Palm can't make a profit if it isn't selling phones. And shrinking market share attracts fewer and fewer developers, which makes the platform less appealing to buyers, which....
You can figure out the rest.
Also what they are not taking into consideration is that the period covered by the report is a period during which Palm clearly forecasted that their sales will be lower because of restructuring - that is, pulling their older phones out of certain markets.
It's so ironic that PreCentral had a front page story on how to change your user agent so your Pre appears to be an iPhone...and now reports that our web presence is faltering.
Pre users have been making this change for months...and I recommended against it then for just this reason.
http://forums.precentral.net/general-webos-chat/188299-why-you-probably-...
Is the number of users who do so statistically significant? Who knows...but one thing is for sure, it's not helping.
It's obvious why they're losing ground - advertising. It's not just that the advertising on Sprint and Verizon have both been poor ideas, there's so little of it. The DROID and other Android devices have been advertised a lot. Apple advertises about 1x every 5 minutes for the iPhone. Even blackberry's had a fair amount of advertising. But Palm Pre/Pixi? Almost none.
Not just advertised. Advertised well. Those droid commercials are nothing short of awesome! IMHO, the best webos commercial was the "give fun, get fun" ad for the pixi.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBKzy01Xh8g
But that was, at best, forgettable. "droid does" was freaking brilliant.
My point: it's not just quantity. It's also quality.
Best? That Pixi ad did nothing to differentiate the phone from any other feature phone. Let's see, it takes pictures, it sends texts. Oh, and somehow its "fun." Yeah, real selling points.
A lot of companies do not know how to advertise. Palm needs real help in that area. They do not understand that it is features that sell; not fun, not branding, not "me too" ads. They designed great features into their phone and most of the world does not know it. I wonder whether there is anyone from Palm that frequents PreCentral? They should visit the forums their customers visit and have someone there to provide feedback to the Palm leadership.
Its not just adverting solely...keep in mind; all the other leading devices are available on the "world market" in GSM versions (and unlocked). While they did not specify if the market share data is US only or world-wide, its simply common-sense that an unlocked GSM version has a much wider mass market appeal from a global market share perspective.
Considering how many bajillion Windows Mobile phones are out there, I'm pretty happy we have 1/3 of the number of devices they do.
I think it is more a reflection of the end of the life cycle of all the Treo's and Centros. Hopefully,WEBOS phones have grown and will continue to grow. But, they sure need to sell more of them.
Sprint exclusivity=fail. They (Sprint) are losing market share and desperate to maintain customers. I love my Pre but if the cost difference were closer I'd already have switched to Verizion. I have 2 lines on a shared plan that Sprint currently gives me a $20 monthly credit on plus 22% off for my insurance provider. My service sucks, I get 1x instead of EVDO a lot and my dropped call rate is getting worse and worse. Sad thing is at home I have great service, it's when I commute it sucks. Here's a suggestion from a fmr Sprint employee: get the 3G perfect before going after 4G?
That might actually be more expensive than going to 4G. The 4G towers allegedly have a much wider radius of effective signal than the 3G towers. I've read that the radius comparisons are 2mi vs 10mi. Which makes the effective area of a single 4G tower 25x bigger than a 3G tower.
Put another way, it takes 25 3G towers to equal a single 4G tower. Unless the 4G tower costs > 25 times the cost of a 3G tower, they're better off working on 4G.
Actually, a single WIMAX tower has a 30 mile radius: http://4g-wirelessevolution.tmcnet.com/topics/4g-wirelessevolution/artic...
I believe Sprint will limit the signals between 6 & 10 miles, that way Sprint can deploy more towers thus reducing network strain at each tower. The WIMAX towers in rural areas will have the max radius.
@rcgaryk; You're totally right. The biggest failure if the PalmPre is not the device itself its the carrier chosen for its exclusive release. Sprint has a much smaller subscriber base than verizon. That's all there is to it.
Two other things that lead to the market-share failure of the device:
1. Palms marketing campaign (pathetic).
2. The release of the droid on verizon stole alot of thunder from the palm camp.
I'm not saying Verizon is better than Sprint it's a simple matter of #of subscribers.
Palm dropped the ball going with Sprint and their marketing campaign.
why does everyone assume Palm chose Sprint? Perhaps it was their only 'choice', as the others didn't want it at that time.
I believe it is all about the marketing. If you think about it, many many people dont like at&t either yet a TON of ppl jumped wagon to get the iPhone. Yet the marketing campaign in Sprint and Verizon make the Pre less than desirable in either of the carriers for anyone who doesn't know about it.
Palm says that they have limited resourses and I believe them but what surprises me is how poorly they have used them. I mean if you only have say... 20 million to advertise. They you have to be very careful on where you put them, and IMO Palm is just throwing it down the drain for the most part.
I think the pre not selling well is due to two obvious factors. Poor build quality and lack of marketing. The more tech savvy along with long time palm fans were quick to adopt the pre because they saw the potential of webos. I think that the lack of marketing resulted in lower mind share, and due to the less than stellar build quality it was harder for it to become popular through word of mouth. It's hard for me to recommend this phone to my friends that aren't as careful with their gadgets as I am. I think palm learned a lesson with the pre though (as demonstrated with the pixi) and will create a solid phone next time around. I just hope that the next iteration of webos will be as innovative for the time as it was when the pre originally came out, because if it is, palm won't even need advertising.
It's the competition. Palm may be executing to match whatever internal goals they set for themselves, however, the competition is getting much more intense. RIM still has dominant smartphone market share. iPhone sales doubled compared to a year ago. Android devices are selling well across multiple carriers. Even Windows Mobile 7 is going to get some attention over the next few weeks.
Smartphones are the new technology battleground and every major player is getting right in there for the long run. What happened at CES was that interesting for Palm except the Verizon announcement. If the Pre Plus and the Pixi Plus aren't taking off then there's not much good news for PALM on the horizon. Nobody cares how small the company is except to highlight how vulnerable its single product line is.
WSJ (today) "On the other hand, Microsoft slipped to 18% share, while Palm saw the biggest losses, with its share dropping to 6.1% from 8.3%, despite recent price cuts that made its devices among the cheapest on the market."
Begin the deathwatch. Or, at least the acquisition-watch.
I know Palm is a small company but dang as soon as they build a little buzz they always fail to capitalize on it. They should drop the update soon then market then hell out of the phones. Showing what palm products are capable of not just one aspect of the phone on one carrier. Just show the public what Palm products can do for them and let them decide which carrier they prefer.
Market share loss is mainly the result of 2 problems:
1) Poor advertising. Palm, make some good advertising showing the power of WebOS (multitasking, notifications, touchstone, gesture area, app catalog, adobe flash, 3D games, productivity advantages with sinergy etc. etc.)
2) Only 8 GB version available for most of the time since launch when iPhone already had 32 GB and others phones MicroSD card slot. Next time put a damn MicroSD slot!
And please, for increasing also your global market share, sell it in more countries, even unlocked.
I don't know if the "fat middle" that Palm is targeting really cares about the MicroSD. I've never heard anyone really complain about that; rather, folks complain about build quality and advertising.
the next phone that palm releases has to be in par with nexus one, iphone in terms of build quality and a bigger screen. i think that will make a huge difference.. palm is encouraging 3d gaming which is a great thing a bigger screen will compliment that very well. I don't mind losing the keyboard for a bigger screen.
I wouldn't have bought a pre if it weren't for the physical kb and neither would have my wife. =)
+1
They need new hardware in the worst way. Their next chance is with the ATT launch, hopefully something new will be launched there. GSM pre 2 with dragon or tegra 2 would be just what they need, and please release an ad that actually features the phone instead of an odd spokeswoman that you tune out in 5 seconds.
I don't think build quality had anything to do with Palm's sliding marketshare. Advertising is the only reason. When the Pre first arrived, Palm did nothing to make sure that the general public would want the device. Having a great showing at CES is cool and all, but how many smart phone users know what CES. Their initial add campaign should have shown what WebOS is capable of, and told users why they should want it. Instead, most people i know don't even know the Pre exists. Instead of being a must have phone for everyone, its just 'one of the better phones on sprint' as far as mindshare is concerned.
At this point its going to take a new device with a larger screen and maybe even a standard virtual keyboard to get WebOS into the minds of smartphone users.
The problem with Palm is that, they were too stupid to release GSM versions of their webOS phones early on. While sticking and launching with Sprint was a somewhat safe move to begin with
The devices sold in Germany are not locked.
(GSM is slow and old. UMTS is current.)
Palm needs to advertise more and so does Verizon. The Pre and Pixi show up unobtrusively in some Sprint ads but that's it. Verizon has the Pre and Pixi on their site and their Facebook site, but the stores have the Pre and Pixi with no real signs.
They need to risk some $$$ and do some serious advertising. Most people have no idea about the Pre/Pixi, yet when they see my Pre+ or my wife's Pixi+ they love them!!!
Come on Palm (and Verizon and Sprint) let's get some more advertising going!!!
webOS is a great platform - it's easier and more intuitive than any other and it's very powerful. We need more people to know about it.
You left us Canucks out, we're not unlocked or with O2 or Movistar.
palm is hurting because customers have apparently completely lost their minds. Anyone who thinks winmo is a better (or even comparable) experience to webos has obviously never used winmo. I should know, I used winmo phones for four years before switching to palm. Those things seemed to freeze or need power cycling ever other day. Palm has been pretty good about addressing issues. Microsoft and RIM take forever to make updates to their products. And you can't deny the fear that android in a few years will look a lot like winmo, inconsistent user experience and wildly different hardware.
you blame the customers? It's palms job to make sure potential customer know what their phone is capable of. So i'm not surprised ppl stick w/ WinMo, BB, Iphone and Droid, you know before you buy it what type of experience to expect. Palm is keeping the greatness of the Pre a secret...
yes, I do. Customer have a responsibility to make informed purchase decisions rather than being sheep buying anything that looks cool in a commercial. Budweiser has great commercials, but it doesn't take long to figure out it's not the best tasting beer on the market.
Yet they sell more than any other... I wonder why?... uhhmm hey it's the MARKETING!! u said it GREAT COMMERCIALS
It's a CUSTOMER FAIL! LOL. I'm going to go around my office and up and down the train and collect smartphones from all those uninformed masses who bought the wrong brand. I'm pouring out all the Buds I see onto the ground, too. Who's with me!
And with the "perfect" commercial for Pre/Pixi, what will the Pre/Pixi be ... whatever looks cool in a commercial. I suppose people will still be sheeple if they buy the Pre/Pixi after the perfect commercial?
Advertising is everything. People want what's cool, and what other people are buying. Most mobile users aren't techys and dont give a rats butt about all these little features most of us do. They don't use their phone for probably more that making a call and texting. Palms marketing has been abysmal at best, and this whole new "mom for pre" crap makes me want to puke. I have never seen a company advertise so poorly before in my life. They must have techys on the advertising squad, because it's horrible, and doesn't hit the "cool" factor at all. Hire some people who actually know what is "in" and leave the programming to the nerds. Droid killed it with their "droid does" campaign, and Apple always (as much as I hate that company) has kick ass ads. It is what it is. Palm open your eyes before you die.
lol Droid has Stealth bombers shooting Droids to Earth, and cool explosions, and Palm decided to hit up the untapped MOM demographic lol. Way to be cool Palm haha. They should fire their whole Advertising department. It doesnt really take all the much intuition, to you know, make a commercial with some teen or 20 year old playing a kick ass 3d game on the Pre, getting a text, responding to it, and having Pandora cranking some trendy tune in the back ground to sell some phones. There, that's your next commercial. You can have the ideas, just implement them, and stop doing Mom commercials, using the oh so cool, to do list app.
* they need new hardware and a new advertising agency ASAP. creepy lady followed up by mom's advertising = fail.
* the slow processor and crappy battery is terrible combo...
I think once Pre and the Pixi are available on more carries in the US (which it started on the 25th) it will be better.
I'm so fuc### pist off, I'm a palm fan but How the f### are we gonna b able to sell phones the way these ads are going....palm needs to get it together with a better ad campaign, n I don't don't know about verizon???? I knw they can advertise better than that....sometimesi feel like they want us to fall
Telcel (GSM), in Mexico isn't listed, it's not "other via unlock".
Also, Iusacell sells sprint ones unofficialy ;)
Advertising is what one naturally blames when you believe that a product is inherently superior to the competition. After all, if you aren't selling lots of phones then it must be the advertising. It couldn't be the product itself, could it?
I don't suppose there is any point, around here, in suggesting that, perhaps, Palm's smartphones just aren't much more compelling than the competition. That's probably why Verizon went to the mom ads. If you can't really differentiate your product in the general marketplace, try to carve out an underserved niche. If you don't find any traction among the "fat middle" you would be better off trying to define your own market.
I'm dying to see who Verizon is going to target the Pre or the Pixi Plus at next. Tweens?
The Verizon customers are a big test for Palm because everyone wants to see if people will pick palm when there are other good options. Face it, Sprint was somewhat of a captive audience because there wasn't any significant smartphone competition. If Palm can't hold its own among Verizon customers then it will never gain any significant traction.
pixi ads are the only "good" ads showing off the functionality of the webos phone. what will the verizon pixi ads look like? will there even be any? lol
*bigger oleophobic amoled display
*snapdragon processor
*more memory
and you'll have a winner!
oh and don't cripple your phones to show value differences because you don't have the market share yet :)
I agree! Produce a really high end unit with a 4"+ display, RIM quality QWERTY keyboard in landscape, and 20 hours of battery life under moderate use and you will have a winner. Throw in a 10MP camera, SD (not micro) card slot, and you will have a knockout!
The Pre so hobbles WebOS as to make it difficult for it to express its virtues.
palm is hurting because customers have apparently completely lost their minds. Anyone who thinks winmo is a better (or even comparable) experience to webos has obviously never used winmo. I should know, I used winmo phones for four years before switching to palm. Those things seemed to freeze or need power cycling ever other day. Palm has been pretty good about addressing issues. Microsoft and RIM take forever to make updates to their products. And you can't deny the fear that android in a few years will look a lot like winmo, inconsistent user experience and wildly different hardware.
Well,I went to my local Verizon store just to checkout the PrePlus. I asked the store Rep, what's the demand for the PrePlus? He said, the demand is so high that the original 400,000, Verizon has order went up to 600,000 more PrePluses. He also said,more guys are buying the phone more instead of the women. He also said that Verizon&Palm is waiting to show a bigger marketing commercials, whenever they drop the 1.4 UPDATE,than we gonna see more pumping advertisement for The PREPLUS.I asked how's DROID sales,he said..it's ok, regardless of all that heavy commercial.
Wow, how can a company that is in the middle of launching a new and exciting smartphone OS and hardware platform see its market share SHRINK quarter to quarter??
"Hello, this is Bob from Dell. We would like to buy your company. Do you take Visa?"
I think palm is waiting until webos matches or surpasses the iphone's capabilities to then advertize it as an iphone superior. . . I think that day is not too far away with 1.4 on the horizon. I would do that if it was my company. My other point is they are trying to maintain a low profile while the iron out all the bugs and add more requested features. Why do would they do this? Because most of the time a first impression is what counts. And palm wants to make a superb first impression to the rest of the world. Please excuse my english, it isn't my native language.
Yup. I think the Colts are holding back until they get their best game together, also.
seriously.
This makes no sense at all. palm is waiting til it's superior? so they released an inferior phone so that later they could release software fixes because "a superb first impression" is what counts? But by then they'd have already released an according to you inferior phone making their first impression. So what you're talking about would be a second, third, tenth impression. The first impression was when the phone came out.
I own a Palm Pre since August. I have had a Palm Treo, Centro. My wife has an iPhone, my two sons, each a BB & Win6 Smartphone.
The Palm Pre has 3 serious issues.
1-Slow as molasses, compared to any leading Smartphone. Almost to the point of frustration.
2-Screen size. Show the Palm Pre to anyone that has an iPhone for casual use and that is the first reaction. Small screen.
3-Small Keyboard. Show it to an BB user and the first reaction. Geez that keyboard is small.
3 strikes and you are out!
Palm needs a massive re-think of their Hardware, and software to at least have it perform like a regualr Cell Phone.
i think there are more issues then that. not limited to
1. Image. Palm is barely visable to the consumer. And it's not viewed as cool. Now i'm sure the live in mom's basement playing warcraft nerds think that's great but it doesn't move product.
2. mediocre apps.
3. Palm is slow. They've basically got two phones on two networks in a year. And pixi is hardly a blockbuster so i think they really have one. Overall they are just to slow.
4. Battery life. sometimes the phone is barely usable. some days with everything off the phone dies in 3.5 hours on no use others its better and lasts 14 on no use.
and there are more issues.
2-Screen size. Show the Palm Pre to anyone that has an iPhone for casual use and that is the first reaction. Small screen.
I showed it to an iPhone owner. His comment:
True, but do you find the iPhone or Droid to be too large? My small wife has no issue with her iPhone's size.
There is something to be said for the Pre's small form factor, but the next webOS device needs to play with the big boys screen wise.
screen size is never something i even contemplated when buying a phone. Personally i think that is more of a concern for the phone enthusiast types but not regular people. like me.
I think palm is waiting until webos matches or surpasses the iphone's capabilities to then advertize it as an iphone superior. . . I think that day is not too far away with 1.4 on the horizon. I would do that if it was my company. My other point is they are trying to maintain a low profile while the iron out all the bugs and add more requested features. Why do would they do this? Because most of the time a first impression is what counts. And palm wants to make a superb first impression to the rest of the world. Please excuse my english, it isn't my native language.
Wow... talk about the uninformed sheep. Guys, this has NOTHING to do with the price of stock - it's the amount of phones Palm is selling in comparison to everyone else. They are losing tens of millions every quarter and they lost BIG market share numbers. Everyone knows about Android and Windows Mobile has some large numbers and will introduce a new product. Where does that leave Palm? On it's way out the door. Unless Palm can recover double digit market share it will never return to profitability and will run out of money in 2011. For those of you with two year Pre Plus contracts...
wow that was harsh
It is time for a NEW BETTER Palm phone.
Here is a challenge for all webOS users that like the Pre and the Pixi. Instead of complaining about Palm's advertising and all its faults, why don't we make our own ads and put them on Youtube. Why don't we show the experts how it's done and what we want to see and have all these ads hosted on Precentral or some other one.
I've been toying with this idea for a while and I don't see why I should be the only one to make an ad about webOS that I like. We are the users, why don't we change the rules of the game. Why don't we speak directly to the world about what we like in webOS?
Dieter's 50 app video went real far. I've convinced people to get a Palm based on that video alone.Imagine if each of us, who has some talent, were to make our own ads for the Pre and the Pixi that were as convincing as Dieter's? Palm is small. Maybe it needs our help instead of more bashing and complaints.
I for one will make my webOS ad and put it on YouTube. WHo's with me?
I agree we should take it upon ourselves the customers and make it happen
Totally agree with you, buddy.
I agree with the posts above. The Palm Pre needs to get the following more customers.
#1 A bigger screen which will also change the design, and make the keyboard bigger (Like the Iphone or bigger)
#2 Faster (Open Apps immediately)
#3 On-Screen Keyboard when closed
#4 4G (Since its available)
For one thing, the figures comScore Mobilens are reporting are inaccurate, irrelevant, and may only reflect their idea of market share based on Mobile Ads that developers put into their applications.
In any case, the numbers for Palm should rise for the month of January through February 2010 as the number of potential subscribers for Palm will increase through Verizon and soon AT&T.
Seems about right to me. If you pulled 100 smartphone users off the street, I would expect to see about 42 blackberries, 25 iPhones, 18 various WinMobs, 5 Androids, 3 Pre's or Pixis, and 3 Centros/Treos.
I would be surprised if major shareholders like Elevation would allow Palm to burn through the rest of its cash, spending money on advertising, only to file for bankruptcy next year. Whatever the Verizon sales are doing, Palm knows or will know in the next several weeks. If there isn't a significant spike then they will be looking for someone to acquire the company.
The market share for Google seems low to me. Palm has what, 3 phones right now with a Palm OS: the Pre, Pixie, and Treo 755p. How many Android phones are out there? 10? 15? How does Palm have double the Google market share? Are there really that many old Palm OS Treo's still in use?
Keep in mind that market share may be down, but the overall pool of customers is growing, so Palm could have more total owners and still see market share drop.
Geez.. if the advertising was directed toward the younger 'hip' crowd instead of 'moms' they'd sell more phones. VZ's marketing basically says this phone isn't cool enough for anyone who is a techie. Market it towards the cutting-edge crowd instead of insinuating it is geared towards geriatrics.
Just yesterday, online I purchased a Pre Plus for myself and a Pixi Plus for my girlfriend on Verizon. Stopped by this site looking to see some app reviews, saw this post and it's comments and you guys are making me question my purchase.
I live in Montana, our only option is Verizon. While other networks support their phones traveling through, they will not sell to us on their network. We laugh at Luke Wilson mentioning Bozeman Montana in the AT&T TV add. The Driod and Eris are popular with the kids and young professionals. Have yet to meet someone with a Pre Plus. Only 1 of the 6 Verizon stores are currently carrying the Pre's, and they would not unlock one for us to hands on try out the OS. I had to use verizon's online emulator to do so. Of all the phones we looked at the webOS seemed the most fluid for my daily use.
I hope our phones are still somewhat relevant in a year.
BTW great site, keep up the good work.
First of all dont listen to all the garbage in these types of threads. Everybody wants to feel that their view of what Palms next phone should be is the right one. some want slabs, other want huge screens, others want it small for carrying. Just get the phone, try it yourself and if you enjoy it great. if you dont then so be it. Palm itself is doing well with developers with the PDK as porting iphone apps is so easy. Is Palms biggest issue battery life with the Pre, yes but that solvable with getting the 1400 mah battery or waiting for updates that might squeeze more efficiency out of the phone.
Problem is, my friend, that people in these blogs just rant on everything. I think you should only watch the articles, and ignore the comments. Hope you enjoy your new Pre as much as I did almost a year ago!
Lets make it happen like the movie Pay It Forward. We have to get 1 friend to sign up and then they have to do it as well
No surprise the market share is dropping.
If App Catalog would be open - at least free apps - to unlocked phones, too, the story might be different.
As already said in the comments, it baffles me why Palm discourages "unlocked users", the early adopters who would be otherwise great marketers of the phones and technology.
And they/we are/were willing to pay for that!
Stop the madness.....this stuff makes everybody crazy, anxious etc. Palm is the underdog. New operating system in a space where Iphone and Rimm have been hanging out quite a while...but Palm is still the David and there are two Goiliaths.
Market share in simple terms is not a good business measure. It does not distinguish between the crap load of BB users (for example) who are given phone by their employer and that's that. The don't have the choice (but their "vote in market share is recorded anyway).
Palm's success will only come if they get more devices out there and prove greater utility and/or flexibility than the others. Dependence on carrier is tough stuff.
Palm, I have said it before and I will say it again. Start selling the devices unlocked and give a rebate in some form for all those still using older legacy product. Many of us are stuck with carriers (due to contracts or employers) but would love to be your advertising army in the field. We are cheaper than the creapy lady, will buy apps supporting the development community you need and are generally supporters of the whole process...disciples as it were.
Pretty please!!
Worst comes to worst, Palm will become a software company.
FYI, we have the Palm Pre up north in this place called Canada... It runs on the Bell network. Might want to change your poll to reflect that?
I think things are worse for WebOS than this table shows. The category for Palm isn't WebOS, it's Palm operating systems, including P-OS. Based on what I've seen in other reports, Android is outpacing WebOS, which would indicate a large portion of that Palm figure is P-OS devices.
I still see a heck of a lot of Treos in use. In fact, given my business contacts, I see a lot more Treos than Pres. Some of them are undoubtedly Windows devices, but in the world of business the Pre is almost invisible. In the last 6 months, one person on my project bought a Pre. In the last month, 4 bought Droids.
It's not just lack of (or poor) marketing, as some suggest. Yes, the marketing effort is poor, but good marketing won't hide (for very long) the poor feature set and lack of capability compared to competing products. Palm needs to up the ante on the OS, and get some professional quality apps out there ASAP, or the Pre will be an interesting anecdote in SmartPhone history. A bus school parable about how the leader in handhelds squandered their franchise through poor management and follow through.
Thought I'd share this, from a colleague of mine:
All of the press is discussing the decline in Palm's share by 2% to 6%.
What they're not mentioning is that this includes PalmOS as well as webOS. Lots of people are migrating from old Centros and Treos to other devices.
They're also ignoring Palm's share on the Windows Mobile side of the house with the Treo Ws and Treo Pros from the last 18 months -- that's getting lumped into Windows Mobile instead of broken out by Palm.
I popped a quick e-mail to the guys doing the analysis at IDC as to why they're not differentiating by OS platform. "Palm" is a meaningless term when compared with "Microsoft Windows Mobile," since Palm is a brand with three different OS options and Microsoft Windows Mobile is a platform. The "Palm" share doesn't even include all the platforms that Palm has sold the last 24 months!
Their response was basically "it's too hard to break out so we're going to report meaningless data to fill up space instead." Gotta love the analysts. ;)
Anyway, if anybody asks what webOS's share is today, I would estimate it's about 4% of smartphones -- not bad for seven months. The next six months on Verizon will determine uptake in the USA. Palm will be heavily dependent on US and Canadian sales for most of its growth -- the EU will be a secondary market and APAC is still off the radar until they have a few quarters of steady profit.
That's true - Palm is a hardware name and Windows is a software name. They should have said WEBOS instead of mixing up data.
What I'd like to know is if they're grouping Pres and Pixis in with Treos running PalmOS. I'd imagine there'd be a number of people who signed contracts for Centros awhile back that would have their contracts coming up...and considering that market, I'd imagine they'd probably switch to iPhones or BlackBerries...as that market is typically the one that's a little further behind the curve. That could partially explain why there was a drop in usage, considering the Pre has only been out for 8-9 months.
In any case, I wouldn't imagine that loads of people would want to break their contracts right now and flood over to the Pre Plus on Verizon. webOS is one of those mobile OS's that will probably take some time to grow, mainly because they're only on basically 2 handsets (the plus really doesn't qualify that much as a completely different phone for most average folks). Android kind of has to gain market share as a result of pimping their OS out to as many companies that will sign up that aren't thinking about WM7. Android really takes share from Microsoft, when you think about it.
WebOS has been on Sprint considerably longer than any other wireless provider. At this point, none of these results surprise me.
I really enjoy this site but sometimes I make the mistake of reading the comments.
I agree that I am biased. I have owned a Palm since the Treo 300 and have had several between that and my Pre.
The problem is that BBs, Android phones, iphones and webos phones each have their pros and cons. NONE of them will make every user happy. My wife had a BB and the email was the best I have ever seen on a phone but dear god the browser was horrid and the screen size... I tried to theme it for her (like I routinely do for my Pre) and it was like pulling teeth. She recently switched to an Android based phone. It surfs the web and the active home page is great. Oh did I mention the dead spots on the screen, the heavy weight or the battery life that is as bad as my Pre?
I have a coworker who has an iphone that was blown away by my multitasking. Yes I like the larger screen but I want a physical keboard (I do use the homebrew vkb occasionally) I do wish we had apps like the iphone but how many apps did their catalog have at first?
I love being in on the Pre from the beginning and benefitting from the Hombrew community. No the Pre is not perfect but no phone is. If you hate your Pre so much and want it to be (insert other phone here) you do have the option to go get one.
Rant over. I will do my best to stop reading comments.
why didn't you list Bell?
damn duplicate.
I am a money manager who follows this space very closely. comScore reports on active accounts at the subscriber level. This includes all smartphones up and running today. Prior to launching WebOS, Palm had a vacuum of sales in 2008 and first half 2009 that are included in that number (18 months of the typical 2 year upgrade cycle). Old Treos and Centros on VZ and ATT are now going away from this data before new Pixis and Pres fill up this pipeline. Even at 10% market share of NEW SALES (which Palm was certainly not getting prior to Verizon and eventually AT&T picking up the new OS phones), it would take over a year for market share to climb using comScore's methodology. It is important to know what you are reading when a study like this is published.
IDC, however, is tracking units sold. Although they did not reveal Palm's numbers quarter over quarter, they likely did decline due to the Sprint exclusive. The numbers to watch will be the IDC report in April which will include a couple of months of Verizon sales of the Pre Plus and Pixi Plus. Then we should know the real trend.
We have a 6% share target for smartphone sales 2010 for Palm in 2010 assuming an AT&T launch in the early summer. We are expecting an 8-10% long-term share. Multiply that by our 2012 smartphone industry sales estimates of 350-400 million units and you get 25 million - 40 million Palm WebOS handsets sold in 2012. These numbers are consistent with the expected industry growth rate of 35%.
Again, if achieved, this growth wouldn
I wonder really why so many people owning a device are getting hocked with topics that should be in the focus of the company who sells those devices...Roles are mixed kind of...I am a customer and I am happy with my decision...I own a pr
Customers have decided not to buy Palm Pres' in substantial numbers. Why? is the most important question? The answer is one, or a combination of points below. Advertising is not one of them.
Palm obviously has guessed wrong on screen size, keyboard size, lack of on screen keyboard, (due to screen size), and finally, slowness of using the phone. Its sloooow to start programs. Sometimes unbearble to dial a number of all things.
Majority of customers don't even know what multitasking is, which is the WebOs unique strength.
Word of mouth is the most potent advertising. I kind of like my phone. Would I recommend it in its present hardware/software configuration. Nope. It simply is not the "Best Of" Screen, keyboard, software, or overall experience. At best its a Beta one version.
Their WebOs has so much potential that is hamstrung by hardware that customers have decided not to buy with their hard earned money.
I predict that Palm will come out with a radical new hardware design this summer that will address their misjudgement of consumers. Steve Jobs is truly a genius for getting so many things right with the iPhone.
I have friends that switched from sprint to verizon and are now regretting it. They say the get more dropped calls with the pre on verizon than on sprint AND you have to pay for the navigation system on verizon.
The fact even PreCentral didn't list Bell (Canada) as an option surely speaks to the lack of attention Palm has paid to the Canadian market. Palm's marketing machine has been solely focused on the U.S. While this is understandable, Bell's respectable marketing up here has been undermined by the fact that the App Catalog is near useless up here with no ability to purchase non-free apps.