“Uncover Your World” with AdMob rich media and the Google Search app

Check out the video below how Google uses Admob rich media mobile advertising to promote its Google Search app.

China Mobile Ad Market Landscape by Guohe Ad

Guohe Ad, a local chinese mobile ad mediation player had just released its first report and infographics for China mobile ad market. Launched in January 2011, Guohe Ad has now integrated 11 leading mobile ads platform in China, serving over 1000 popular apps across iOS and Android system, and its ads has been displayed over 600M times on 5M mobile devices.

Below are some highlights of the report :

• 80% of ads impressions came from 10 provinces in China, and Beijing is leading the pack followed by Shanghai, Guangzhou, Jiangsu and Zhejiang;
• Larger iOS impressions over Android 58:42
• More attention on a smaller screen resulting in higher CTR (click through rate).
• Apart from Apple devices, HTC, Samsung and Moto are the top 3 brands producing better ads impressions;
• iPad is dominating the tablet market in China, accounting for over 98% of total ads impressions on tablet devices.

Source : technode (Check out the site for the infographics provided by Guohe Ad)

The Death of Palm WebOS

Just days after widespread rumours of poor sales for HP's TouchPad tablet, HP has announced that it's canning the webOS software and the devices that it runs on. WebOS became a HP property when it acquired Palm for $1.2 billion in April 2010, and the company had talked up its ambitions for the software not just on smartphones and tablets, but on a range of other devices too.

Those ambitions appear to have gone up in smoke. Earlier this week, reports suggested that US retailers were sitting on piles o f unsold TouchPads, after sales failed to match positive reviews of the company's first tablet.

Ironically, it was only recently that was reported the TouchPad being the second most desirable tablet behind Apple's iPad in a US survey although with only 10.3% of respondents interested in buying it versus 94.5% for iPad.

iPad is by far a runaway success and looking at the momentum generated, its unlikely in the short term that anybody can rival the success of Apple. Expect more casualties in this segment unless anybody could come up with something out of the box. It was only quite recently that Dell had also officially discontinued its 5" Streak.

Google acquiring Motorola Mobility for $12.5bn

Both firms had just confirmed that Google will acquire Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion. The official release says the deal will enable Google to supercharge the Android ecosystem and will enhance competition in mobile computing.

In other words, don't panic all you other OEMs. But you have to wonder how this might affects the giving out of Android platform goodies.

In the past, Google has been careful to share evenly first dibs on new OSs. HTC, Samsung and Moto have all taken their turns to be first to rush out devices based on an updated platform.

Will Google be so even-handed now?

The deal has to be great for Moto though, which endured a hideous period post-Razr and has been partly rehabilitated by Android in its native US, but less so in the rest of the world.

Android dominates U.S. smartphone ownership, representing 39 percent of the market as of June 2011 according to the latest Nielsen data. More than 150 million Android devices are active worldwide, with Android products available from 39 manufacturers and 231 carriers across 123 countries.

Motorola went all out on Android in 2008, embracing the platform as its sole operating system. The company now ships 11 percent of Android smartphones in Q2, but still made a loss.

Having been outbid in the recent sell-off of Nortel’s patent portfolio, Google was clearly willing to look elsewhere to build up its arsenal of IP and in the light of the growing number of IP legal disputes in the smartphone market; this move will put Google in a stronger position competitively.

Three important points to this deal :

1. Apple. This means war! Don’t doubt for a minute that Google is going after Apple’s lunch, directly competing with the iPhone with this move into hardware.

2. Patents. Google now has access to Motorola’s 17,000+ wireless-related patents. The word “patent” came up more than 25 times in this morning’s call, underscoring how much this deal helps Google protect itself from legal challenges from competitors.

3. Mobile computing. The buyout makes Google the owner of some of the most popular Droid smartphones, giving it a direct way to monetize it’s popular Android operating system.

Android taking up almost 50% share of smartphone shipments globally

Android accounted for 48% of all smartphone shipments in the second quarter of 2011, according to the latest figures from analyst firm Canalys.

Canalys estimates that 107.7 million smartphones shipped globally in Q2, up 73% year-on-year, split between Asia Pacific (39.8m), Europe, the Middle East and Africa (35m) and the Americas (32.9m).

But it's that Android growth that stands out from Canalys' figures. 51.9 million Android smartphones shipped in Q2, up 379% year-on-year thanks to the efforts of manufacturers including Samsung, HTC, LG, Motorola, Sony Ericsson, ZTE and Huawei.

APAC is particularly strong for Google, with Android taking an estimated 85% share of the market in South Korea, thanks to strong backing from the local manufacturers.

iOS in second place globally with 20.3 million shipments giving iPhone a 19% market share, overtaking Symbian for the first time. The company thinks that less than 1.5 million Windows Phones shipped during Q2, however, giving Microsoft just 1% of the global market.

Nokia still clinging on the overall No.1 market lead but not for long

Strategy Analytics had confirmed Nokia’s dramatic collapse in smartphone market share, with the Finnish vendor falling behind both Apple and Samsung in shipments in Q2. According to the firm, total global smartphone shipments grew by 76 percent year-on-year to reach a record 110 million units in the quarter.

However, Nokia’s smartphone shipments fell from a market-leading 23.8 million a year ago to just 16.7 million. Apple took the top spot on 20.3 million, followed by Samsung on 19.2 million.

Total handset shipments incl. smartphones reached 361 million units in Q2 2011, rising 13 percent from 320 million units a year earlier. Nokia hung on to its overall device lead by shipping 88.5 million handsets worldwide, but saw its market share drop sharply to 25 percent (from 35 percent), its lowest level since 1999.

Samsung was second on 74 million units, followed by LG on 24.8 million. Apple’s 20.3 million iPhone sales cemented its position in fourth place. Though with only 6% market share, Apple made more profits than all the handset manufacturers combined. Gone were the days where the larger you ship, the more money you make. Such was unthinkable 4 years ago before the rise of iPhone and totally impossible to see anybody unseat Nokia who had such a commanding market share. As the saying goes, whatever that goes up must come down. Its hard to reach the top and its even more harder to continue staying at the top. I wonder who will be able to take on the commanding position Apple is in now..... maybe Google?? What do you think??