iPhone makes up 50% of Apple's revenue

Its a crazy quarter for Apple almost doubling its profit to $6 billion thanks to 3 main drivers, iPhone, MacBooks and China. The iPhone now makes up half of Apple’s revenues, or $12.3 billion in the quarter. Sales grew 126 percent in dollar terms, with unit sales up 113 percent. Its amazing taking into account this revenue was non existent 4 years ago and all this was created through just 1 device is simply astounding.

Greater China's sales which makes up of P.R. China, Hong Kong and Taiwan grew 250%, very soon the Asia Pac region will rank the 2nd largest market for Apple.

iPad sales were below the 6 million expectation coming in at 4.69 million presumably due to short of supply and possibly many buyers were waiting for the launch of iPad 2. The following quarter should reflect a much higher iPad sales thanks to the launch of the new iPad 2.

The current stock price for Apple seems so appetizing even though it has gone up so much in comparison to 2 years ago.

2010 - Top 10 Largest Online Retailier in China

HTC is bigger than Nokia

Such would not had been easily comprehended a few years ago. How can a giant like Nokia be smaller than a tiny Taiwanese handset manufacturer (HTC) who had almost negligible market share. As of today, HTC's market capitalisation had over taken global handset market leader Nokia, in a development that was seen to reflect HTC’s strength in the booming smartphone sector where Nokia is losing ground rapidly according to Bloomberg.

A 5.3% increase in HTC’s share price yesterday took its value to US$33.8 billion, ahead of Nokia’s US$33.6 billion. The value of HTC’s shares have tripled in the past year, as its smartphone growth outpaced the market, while Nokia has seen its value slide with a significant drop-off after it announcement of its alliance with Microsoft in February 2011.

While Nokia is still the bigger of the two in terms of operating profits and revenue, it is expected that Nokia will struggle from its current Symbian OS platform to Windows Phone, a process that is expected to take several years.

The bulk of Nokia’s volumes also come from low price, low margin devices, which means its operating margin is pressured. In contrast, HTC is focused on the more lucrative premium device sector, without the burdens associated with delivering a mass-market handset portfolio meaning it has healthier operating margins.

The position for Nokia is just going to get worst before it gets better. The road ahead is definitely going to be more than just bumpy.

comScore: Android accounts for 33% of US smartphones market

Google's Android OS continues to go from strength to strength in the US, with a third of smartphone owners now having an Android handset according to comScore's latest stats.

Android's share of US smartphone owners climbed from 26% in November 2010 to 33% in February 2011, overtaking BlackBerry, which fell from 33.5% to 28.9% in the same period. Apple's iOS is holding its own, with a 25.2% share in February 2011.

Microsoft's Windows Mobile and Windows Phone combined share fell from 9% to 7.7% in the same period, while webOS' share declined from 3.9% to 2.8%. Overall, 69.5 million Americans now own smartphones, according to comScore's MobiLens data.

The growth in smartphones continues to affect content usage among US mobile users as a whole. 36.6% of all US mobile subscribers used downloaded apps in February - up from 33.4% in November. 24.6% played games (up from 22.6%) and 26.8% used social networking services from their phones (up from 23.5%).

Overall market share by handset maker in the US with Samsung in the lead taking a 24.8% share of all US mobile subscribers in February, followed by LG (20.9%), Motorola (16.1%), Research In Motion (8.6%) and Apple (7.5%).

Google putting more restrictions on Android to halt fragmentation

Google is putting more control over its open-source Android mobile operating system in a bid to halt ecosystem fragmentation, informing operator and manufacturer partners it must now approve all significant tweaks to the platform. About a dozen executives from firms including LG, Toshiba and Samsung told Bloomberg Businessweek that Google has stated it will no longer tolerate random changes to the Android OS nor will it accept Android-related partnerships forged outside of its domain.

Sources say that in recent months, Google has demanded that Android licensees adhere to "non-fragmentation clauses" that award the company final approval over new user interface tweaks and service additions. Although Google has always included these clauses in its Android license but many had cracked down on its policies.

Android smartphone shipments topped 33.3 million in the fourth quarter of 2010, translating to a 32.9 percent share of the global smartphone market, research firm Canalys reported in January a year earlier, Android shipments represented just 8.7 percent of the worldwide market, a 615.1 percent annual leap. Google's choice to make Android available as an open-source platform is arguably the most decisive factor behind the operating system's staggering growth, with smartphones now available from a host of manufacturers and carriers both in the U.S. and abroad.

Last week, Google said it has temporarily restricted access to the new Android 3.0, the first version of the OS designed from the ground up, for devices with larger screen sizes, particularly tablets.

250 million Facebook users on mobile

More than 250 million people are now accessing Facebook from their mobile phones according to Facebook. That represents rapid growth, since in February 2010 it passed the 100 million mark.

Alongside the new mobile milestone, Facebook has relaunched its mobile web presence, merging its two sites m.facebook.com and touch.facebook.com. The former was for feature phones, while the latter was for touchscreen smartphones.

Now they will use the same framework, but Facebook will automatically serve the best version of the site for each device that visits it, according to what features they have or don't have.