02/13, 3:10pm
Lumia 610, 808, three Ashas coming to MWC?
Exactly which handsets Nokia will reveal at the upcoming Mobile World Congress show and its February 27 press conference may have been leaked to PocketNow. There will reportedly be six new phones unveiled, including three smartphones and three feature phones. The Windows Phone-powered devices would be the Lumia 900 and Lumia 610, while the 808 PureView would still use Symbian. The 808 is expected to be a replacement for the N8.
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02/10, 12:55pm
Nokia outs Public Transport app for Belle phones
Nokia has just detailed its new Nokia Public Transport app (free, Ovi Store), for its Belle-powered smartphones. It offers bus, train, underground and suburban train schedules for nearly 80 cities and urban areas around the world. Users can also bookmark often-visited locations such as their home or work.
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02/09, 5:15pm
Earlier indications from phone-maker prove false
Nokia has told Astound smartphone owners that they won't be upgraded to the latest Symbian OS release, Belle. Apart from thanking owners for their patience, it didn't say more. Its international equivalent, the C7, is getting the new version.
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02/07, 11:40am
Belle now shipping for most late Nokia phones
Nokia has began releasing its promised Nokia Belle software updates for a number of its handsets on Tuesday, a day earlier than expected for some. The handsets that will benefit from the changes now include the Nokia N8, E7, E6, X7, C6-01, C7, and Nokia Oro, with owners of the Nokia 500 having to wait a few more weeks. There are a number of changes with the update, with the easiest to notice being the new interface.
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02/03, 4:30pm
Canalys Q4 and year-end 2011 shows change of guard
A Canalys wrap-up of 2011 smartphone share painted an overall picture that kept Apple and Google in front, but also provided clearer pictures of Windows Phone. Android was just short of an absolute majority at 48.8 percent, while the iPhone held 19.1 percent. Nokia's Symbian and RIM's BlackBerry still held on to the double digits at 16.4 percent and 10.5 percent each.
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02/03, 12:30pm
Nokia may see market dropping Symbian faster
A potentially major rumor has Nokia accelerating the death of Symbian as a smartphone platform. The company has officially planned for a transition through 2013, but the Register heard only one new model, a sequel to the N8, was still in the works. Existing owners would get the Belle update, but every other project on the OS had supposedly been cancelled.
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02/02, 3:55pm
comScore Q4 2011 has Android at 47pc, iPhone 30
The sustained effect of the iPhone 4S launch has kept the iPhone growing at the same pace as Android in the US. Google's platform grew a collective 2.5 points over the fall to 47.3 percent, but Apple nearly matched it with a 2.2 percent hike to 29.6 percent. As with much of the past year, the two were only really drawing from other platforms, with the BlackBerry down nearly three points to 16 percent.
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01/30, 11:45am
Nokia Vietnam possibly dates Belle update
The Belle software update (no longer Symbian Belle) to Nokia handsets will come on a wider basis on February 8, at least to handsets in Vietnam. The information was revealed by Nokia Vietnam's Facebook page. It specifically references the Anna version of the software and the Nokia 603, 700, and 701 phones already coming with Belle.
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01/27, 11:10am
ABI says iPhone 4S rise led to Android loss
Apple's record iPhone sales have led to Android shrinking for the first time in its over three-year history, ABI Research estimated Friday. Operating on the belief that next-closest Samsung shipped 33 million smartphones, it had Android's collective share drop from 52.5 percent in the summer to 47 percent this fall. Apart from the iPhone 4S' launch effect, Android had 'sagging midsection' where LG, Motorola, and Sony had been fighting just to become profitable.
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01/27, 7:50am
IHS iSuppli and Strat Analytics show Apple shift
Separate IHS iSuppli and Strategy Analytics studies Friday have backed Apple's rapid return to the top of the smartphone space in the fall. Determining that Samsung had shipped 36 million smartphones, slightly higher than Samsung's preliminary estimates, IHS iSuppli put Apple's 37 million iPhones just on top. Although Samsung nearly quadrupled the amount of smartphones it shipped and moved more year-long, Apple's higher starting point meant it could just double its yearly shipments to stay competitive.
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01/26, 7:10am
Nokia beats market consensus, but profit down
Nokia has posted its financial results (pdf) revealing better than expected results. The Finnish company reports that it has sold ‘well over’ 1 million Windows Phone-based smartphones in combined sales of the Lumia 710 and the Lumia 800. However, while its core earnings beat market consensus, they were still down 73 percent as it sold less Symbian-based smartphones than it had forecast.
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01/25, 9:50am
Nokia hits symbolic milestone with S40
Nokia hit a milestone and a possible close to one phase of the industry on Wednesday after it sold its 1.5 billionth Symbian S40 phone. The device, an Asha 303 messaging phone, went to 21-year-old Mayara Rodrigues of Sao Paulo, Brazil. The platform has been around since 1999, starting with the Nokia 7110.
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01/24, 2:40pm
Nokia may have runaway success in one country
New reports from Danish carriers have suggested that the Nokia Lumia 800 may be experiencing iPhone-like demand. Talking to Mobilesiden, local telecom leader TDC's Morten Steen Jensen claimed to have seen the same kind of demand as for the iPhone 4S. While it's not clear which phone was next, the Windows Phone sold three times as many as its next-closest counterpart. Telia had the Lumia 800 second only to the iPhone.
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01/19, 6:55pm
iSuppli optimistic Nokia will revive Windows Phone
IHS iSuppli made an optimistic estimate late Wednesday that Windows Phone would overtake the iPhone in market share by 2015. It saw Nokia's switch to Windows Phones like the Lumia 900 as a catalyst, taking Windows Phone from just 1.9 percent in 2011 to nine percent in 2012 and 16.7 percent in 2015. At that rate, it would just be ahead of Apple, which researchers thought would have 16.7 percent.
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01/18, 3:10pm
iOS edges ahead in corporate network use
A new study from Check Point on Wednesday hints that iOS use may have pushed past the BlackBerry in at least one metric for corporate use. Among the device types connecting to 768 IT pros' networks in the US, 30 percent said the most common was one of Apple's mobile types at 30 percent. Just slightly less, 29 percent, pointed to the BlackBerry as the most common, while only 21 percent were pointing to Android.
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01/06, 1:00pm
Nokia takes on Smartphone to upgrade core lineup
Nokia and Ferd Capital revealed late Thursday that Nokia had quietly bought Ferd company Smarterphone. The deal, which had been wrapped up in November but only just made public this week, was intended to give Nokia's basic feature phones a "user experience similar to smart phones" using Smartphone's software. The terms of the deal hadn't been given out.
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01/01, 12:55pm
NetApplications shows Android loss in December
In spite of its device share, Android is losing ground in terms of actual use online, NetApplications found on New Year's Day. Android slipped to 16.3 percent of mobile web share in December, or the same share it had in September. Unusually, most of the loss came to otherwise shrinking platforms: Java ME bounced back to get just under 21.3 percent, Symbian returned to 5.8 percent, and even the BlackBerry recovered slightly to 3.5 percent.
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12/30, 9:30am
StatCounter shows odd uptick in Symbian share
December StatCounter data has shown an unusual resurgence in Symbian on the web at the very end of 2011. Having dipped under 30 percent in October, Nokia's platform not only bounced back but nearly matched its high for the year at just over 33.5 percent in December. Most of the drop appeared to come at the expense of iOS, which shed a point and a half to reach 22.6 percent.
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12/26, 8:10am
Seiko Epson chooses to pay Nokia over threat
Seiko Epson stated Monday that it was paying Nokia $80 million to settle its part of a Nokia lawsuit over price fixing for cellphone LCDs. Although Seiko Epson still denied that it colluded with others on artificially hiking LCD prices, it decided to pay $80 million rather than risk a product ban. Nokia wasn't requiring an admission of liability in return for dropping the lawsuits, but Seiko Epson argued that it was being pressed into a payment it wasn't ready to make.
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12/23, 1:25pm
Nokia sheds a little more light on Symbian rename
After being saddled with questions about why it dropped the Symbian name from the latest OS update for its smartphones, Nokia has responded in a blog post. Nokia's Head of Symbian Product Marketing, Vesa Jutila, wrote that the Symbian Belle name is still being used for developers, with the Nokia Belle name reserved for end-users. The explanation isn't very informative, however.
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12/21, 11:35am
Nokia to update phones with Belle OS in February
Nokia has released some updated news on upgrades to Symbian Belle user interface, the first of which is a name change to just Nokia Belle. It will also become available for download onto existing Nokia phone soon and become preloaded on new smartphones. The interface is already on Nokia 701, 700 and 600 phones, with N8, E7, E6, X7, C6-01, C7, and Oro handsets getting the update in February.
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12/15, 9:15am
Nokia Rolling Thunder to try and retake US
Nokia's US lead Chris Weber in an interview said that the launch of the Lumia 710 on T-Mobile was just part of a much larger campaign to make Nokia relevant again in the US. Calling it Operation Rolling Thunder based on the Vietnam War bombing campaign, he told Bloomberg that Nokia would have a "very large presence" at the CES expo in January. Multiple Windows Phone models would come out at different prices and on different carriers in a sign that the company was no longer downplaying the US.
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12/13, 1:05pm
Nokia persuades self iPhone, Android irrelevant
Nokia's Entertainment Global marketing lead Niels Munksgaard in an interview on Tuesday was convinced that Windows Phone was about to turn a corner and become the leading smartphone choice among younger buyers. He unusually claimed to Pocket-lint that the iPhone was too popular. Android, in turn, was considered too intimidating and contributed to a "sea of sameness."
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12/13, 10:00am
NPD shows Android did not dampen iPhone in 2011
An NPD Group look back at most of 2011 has shown the sheer change in the smartphone business in the past year. Android was now the majority, having climbed from 42 percent in all of 2010 to 53 percent from the start of 2011 through October. Despite the pressure, though, Apple too grew share the entire year and actually grew at a faster relative rate, bouncing back from a dip to 21 percent in 2010 to a new high of 29 percent by this October.
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12/10, 7:10pm
Symbian Belle coming late to existing models
Nokia will be somewhat late in rolling out Symbian Belle to phones that didn't already have it. A statement from the company confirmed to All About Symbian that the 500, C6-01, C7, E7, N8, Oro, and the X7 will get the OS update in early 2012. It didn't explain the months-long gap between then and devices already shipping with Belle, like the 603, 700, and 701.
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12/10, 12:15pm
iPhone 4S gets Network Access Permit in China
Chinese iPhone 4S buyers received good news Saturday after it was confirmed that Apple's device had received a Network Access Permit from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology earlier in the week. The clearance will give the HSPA version of the phone approval to run on China Unicom's network. Its version is identical to that available elsewhere save for its support of the China-specific WAPI standard in place of the usual Wi-Fi.
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12/09, 3:10pm
Platform connects business workers
Microsoft will finally launch planned Lync mobile clients on December 12th, a report indicates. The primary source for the information is Alessandro Zattoni, an Italian IT profession who through Twitter says he learned that the Lync client for Windows Phone will become available on the 12th. Zattoni elaborates that the information was revealed at a partner-only Lync event. Possibly backing up the claim is that Zattoni has been retweeted by a representative for Microsoft's Lync Server technical reference hub, although officially Microsoft has refused to comment.
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12/06, 10:05am
Analyst has Apple, Samsung win at cost of HTC, RIM
Apple and Samsung have been gradually taking over the US smartphone market, Canaccord Genuity analyst T. Michael Walkley said in a research note Tuesday. Based on channel checks e saw all three iPhone models gain real-world sell-through share in November and the iPhone 4S continue to be the top seller at AT&T, Sprint, and Verizon. Samsung had achieved a rare feat, however, and saw the Galaxy S II take the second-place spot away from the regular iPhone 4 on AT&T.
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12/03, 11:50pm
Carrier IQ puts attention back on phone firms
Carrier IQ followed up its technical discussion of how its system works with an implication that phone designers like HTC were compromising the security of its device tracking. In a chat with The Verge, marketing VP Andrew Coward was careful not to mention HTC by name but gave strong clues that a standard Android log file containing the normally unsaved information had to have been populated by HTC with the tracking data. HTC's software in this view was making copies of whatever the Carrier IQ programming interface saw.
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12/02, 1:20pm
comScore October 2011 data shows iPhone up to 28%
New comScore data has shown that the iPhone 4S launch helped keep Apple's smartphone share growing in the US despite Android. Although Android grew 4.4 points to a new high of 46.3 percent in the US between July and October, the iPhone grew a point by itself to 28.1 percent. As usual, all of Android's gains were at others' expense, with the BlackBerry dropping as much as Google gained to sink to 17.2 percent.
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12/01, 12:55pm
Senator says Carrier IQ may be in trouble
Carrier IQ's problems mounted dramatically on Thursday after Senator Al Franken sent a letter to the company demanding answers as to the company's extensive phone logging practices. He was concerned that Carrier IQ might be violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, Electronic Communications Privacy Act, the pen register statute, and Stored Communications Act by recording without consent not just diagnostic information but phone numbers, text messages, web addresses, and the location. Carrier IQ's earlier denials that it wasn't tracking keystrokes or personal content were "especially concerning" given evidence showing just the the opposite, Franken said.
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11/30, 6:15pm
Director hoping to bring movie to the big screen
Director Hooman Khalili has created a feature-length movie shot entirely using a Nokia N8 smartphone and a custom 35mm lens. Shooting for the movie, Olive, was funded by former Facebook CPO Chris Kelly. Production has now been completed, and Khalili is looking to raise funding for distribution.
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11/30, 3:00pm
comScore shows Android taking iOS, RIM share
Android has managed to cut into the once unassailable positions of the BlackBerry and iPhone in Canada, comScore said in a regional breakdown. Having been at 19 percent in spring, Google's platform was up to 25 percent of smartphones sold during the summer. Most of that came at RIM's expense, as even its home country advantage didn't stop the BlackBerry's fall from 38 percent to 35.8.
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11/29, 3:20pm
Nielsen breaks down US share from Q3 2011
Android's share of the US smartphone market started leveling off in the summer, Nielsen said Tuesday. With Android at 42.8 percent, its overall summer share was the same as what it managed in August. Apple was also unaffected and held the iPhone firm at 28.3 percent.
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11/28, 4:40pm
Study shows smarpthones have 27% global share
Market analyst company VisionMobile just released a report that shows smartphones account for just 27 percent worldwide. The numbers are measured by OS and the findings show that areas offering generous 3G coverage and post-paid plans are where smartphones are most common. Pre-paid markets are dominated by price-oriented phones, with Nokia's Symbian phones and RIM's BlackBerrys at the top.
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11/23, 8:05am
Strategy Analytics sees China pass US in Q3
China has overtaken the US to become the world's most important smartphone market, Strategy Analytics said Wednesday. Where US shipments actually shrank 7.5 percent from spring to summer to fall back to 23.3 million smartphones, the Chinese market grew 57.5 percent just the one season to hit 23.9 million. Nokia, despite its rapid decline, was still the leader in China with 6.8 million Symbian phones, or 28.5 percent, beating Samsung's 4.2 million and 17.6 million.
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11/22, 7:55am
Millennial study shows Google static
Android is no longer gaining in traffic, Millennial Media found early on Monday. Although still in the majority at 56 percent, its ad share was identical in October to its results from the summer. Apple was also holding steady at 28 percent, as were RIM at 13 percent and one point each for Symbian and Windows.
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11/18, 7:35pm
Czech carrier not averse to future iPhone deal
Telefonica Czech Republic in an interview on Friday said it was open to the prospect of a future Apple deal after dropping iPhone sales. Representative Hany Farghali told Bloomberg that the carrier's current rejection "doesn’t mean that Telefonica won’t sell Apple products in the future." While not saying how amenable Telefonica might be, the representative noted it was "purely a business decision" and wasn't permanent.
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11/17, 2:30am
Also most likely to be next purchased phone
The iPhone made enormous strides in penetrating the enterprise in 2011, a new survey from iPass shows. The Apple handsets jumped from 31 percent share to 45 percent in a single year, while Android phones also did well, going from 11 percent to just over 20 percent, an even higher growth rate that put it in third place. The growth came at the expense of rivals, principally Symbian and Windows Phone, though the Blackberry suffered a small drop as well.
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11/16, 7:45pm
Leak sheds light on two upcoming updates
Nokia is reportedly readying two significant updates to its Symbian operating system, enabling handsets to take advantage of the latest hardware features. Screenshots posted on the Spanish-language site SymbianLatino suggest the releases will follow the company's tradition of using female names as monickers, with the first update labeled Carla and the next version referred to as Donna.
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11/15, 9:15am
Gartner shows Android now majority of smartphones
Android now represents the clear majority of smartphones worldwide, Gartner found Tuesday. It had more than doubled its share in the summer versus last year to hit 52.5 percent, leaving all other platforms combined in the minority. Both Nokia's Symbian and Apple's iPhone had declined in share over the summer to 16.9 percent and 15 percent each, although Nokia's rapid collapse in shipments and the known slingshot effect as customers waited for the iPhone 4S meant that Apple would likely take second place in the fall.
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11/04, 3:45pm
comScore Sept 2011 shows iPhone up despite Android
Even with Android still on the rise, Apple now represents a tenth of all US cellphones, comScore found on Friday. Android hit a new high of 44.8 percent in smartphones in September, but Apple as an individual cellphone maker crossed the 10 percent mark for the first time to hit 10.2 percent. Among smartphones, Apple was still up at 27.4 percent.
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11/04, 11:45am
Canaccord shows Apple reversing Nokia fortune
Apple has put Nokia in nearly the same market position it was in four years ago, Canaccord Genuity analyst T. Michael Walkley said in a research note on Friday. Where the iPhone had four percent of the cellphone industry's profits in 2007 to Nokia's 67 percent, the rapid Nokia share decline and Apple's own rise to number two have reversed the situation. Apple now makes over half the profits in the business at 52 percent, while Nokia is at the exact same four percent as the company it once dismissed.
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11/03, 4:35pm
IDC Q3 2011 smartphones show Samsung in front
New IDC data on Thursday supported beliefs that Samsung had overtaken Apple at least temporarily for the lead in world smartphone shipments. The research group estimated that Samsung had shipped 23.6 million smartphones in the summer, giving it exactly 20 percent of the smartphone market and the front position. A wait for the iPhone 4S meant Apple's nearly 17.1 million units pushed it down temporarily to 14.5 percent and second place.
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11/02, 8:10am
Nokia axes 600 before it even ships
Nokia on Wednesday confirmed talk that it was cancelling the Nokia 600. The company had made "careful consideration" and decided to drop the phone before it had even started shipping. The 603 and 700 were still available for those who wanted Symbian Belle, according to the company.
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10/26, 12:40pm
Nokia shows off four Symbian S40 Asha phones
Nokia also revealed four new entry-level handsets at Nokia World. The Asha (derived from Hindi and meaning hope) line includes the Asha 303, Asha 300, Asha 200 and Asha 201. The 303 is the most advanced, getting a 2.6-inch capacitive touchscreen, a hardware QWERTY keyboard, and a 1GHz processor.
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10/25, 4:10pm
Nokia to give away unseen Symbian slider phone?
Nokia may unveil a QWERTY Symbian phone at its Nokia World show that kicks off tomorrow, as indicated by some photos posted by Engadget. They reveal Nokia reps unpacking a truck outside of the venue, with images and text on the boxes showing what is believed to be a Symbian-powered, vertical slider. The tagline on the boxes reads "You. Me. Everyone. Let's QWERTY," though the model number is covered up with tape.
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10/24, 2:50pm
Nokia releases Symbian Anna phone update for US
The Symbian Anna update for Nokia smartphones has gone live in the US for the C6-01, E7 and N8 smartphones. This was confirmed by Yvonne from Nokia via an e-mail to My Nokia Blog. The update, 025.007, brings with it a number of improvements, including a new interface that includes fresh icons and wallpapers.
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10/21, 4:40pm
Vertu ships Constellation with AMOLED display
Luxury handset maker Vertu has just introduced its latest and most advanced smartphone with the Constellation. For one, it gets a modern AMOLED touchscreen sized at 3.5 inches and, as is typical of the brand, is coated in a scratch-resistant sapphire crystal. On the rear, users will find black alligator skin.
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10/14, 8:45pm
Three studies show iPhone 4S gets more new users
Three separate iPhone 4S launch day studies have shown noticeably more buyers being switchers from the BlackBerry and other platforms. The most detailed, a 195-person study by UBS analyst Maynard Um in New York City, had 75 percent coming from an existing iPhone versus 80 percent a year ago. Of the remaining group, about 10 percent were jumping from a BlackBerry, while five percent each were coming from LG and Samsung phones; four percent were coming from Motorola.
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