Smartphones

How the iPhone conquered Japan

Despite its more-or-less mundane technology, Apple's device won over women.

By Michael Fitzpatrick, contributor

FORTUNE -- The Japanese were using their cellphones to watch TV, navigate with GPS, download music, make movies, pay bills, and check their emails years before American consumers were doing the same. Japan also had touchscreen phones eight years earlier than iPhone -- the Pioneer J-PE01. And yet it is no surprise that Apple's iPhone was the best-selling MORE

Analyst: Apple's smartphone share in single digits by Sept.

Unless, says Bernstein's Sacconaghi, Apple introduces new iPhones this summer.

FORTUNE -- The chart at right represents the worst case scenario for Apple's (AAPL) share of the global smartphone market, as forecast Monday by Sanford Bernstein's Toni Sacconaghi.

Using Apple's own numbers for fiscal Q2, Sacconaghi calculates that iPhone sales grew 7% year over year in a sell-in basis (12% in a sell-through basis) while the overall smartphone market grew by about 36%. The MORE

Pie charts of the day: The cellphone market's 4% growth

For the first time, says IDC, more smartphones were shipped than feature phones.

FORTUNE -- The headline of IDC's quarterly report on the state of the global mobile phone market Friday was that smartphone shipments, on the strength of their 41.6% year over year growth, overtook feature phones for the first time. The overall cellphone market, by contrast, grew an anemic 4%.

"Phone users want computers in their pockets," says IDC's Kevin Restivo.

With the usual caveat MORE

Success is far from guaranteed in Dish-Sprint merger

Even if Dish can beat out Softbank to acquire Sprint, the satellite operator would still have lots of work to do to remake the TV-distribution business the way it did in the '80s.

FORTUNE -- Why would a satellite TV operator want to buy a wireless network? Mainly, because the satellite TV business is terrible.

And even in that business, Dish Network (DISH), which on Monday announced a $25.5 billion bid for MORE

HTC's comeback hinges on fickle consumers

Will the One save HTC, the Android manufacturer that once seemed most likely to succeed?

by Kevin Kelleher, contributor

FORTUNE -- This is how quickly fortunes change in the smartphone industry. In 2006, Nokia (NOK) still controlled more than half of the share of the smartphone market. The iPhone wouldn't appear until the summer of 2007. And no one was making Android phones. Android Inc., bought by Google (GOOG) in 2005, wouldn't emerge MORE

Samsung's $4.3B ad budget: It's not just for mocking Apple

A $45 million lawsuit suggests that Samsung also spends a fortune on refrigerator ads.

FORTUNE -- We've learned a couple of things since November when Asymco's Horace Dediu surprised us with his estimate that Samsung spends more on marketing than Apple (AAPL), HP (HPQ), Dell (DELL) Microsoft (MSFT) and Coca Cola (KO) combined.

1. We learned that Dediu's estimate was a few billion dollars short. According to the update he posted Tuesday MORE

The one chart that shows the dominance of the smartphone

Is Apple prepping a streaming music service? Nobody outside Cupertino knows. Here's strong evidence why it should.

FORTUNE -- There's no doubt that the smartphone kickstarted a revolution. But the extent to which this is true in music and other media isn't yet fully appreciated. Consider this: Some 20 million people paid for music subscriptions last year. And an estimated 80 million tap into "freemium" streaming services such as Pandora (P) and Slacker. A MORE

Samsung's Galaxy S4: What the press is saying

No reviews yet, just some analysis based on specs and a few minutes of hands-on

FORTUNE -- The overnight verdict: Incremental improvements in hardware, a ton of new software features, and a general agreement that Apple has a fight on its hands.

Roger Cheng, CNET: Samsung has an unstoppable hit in Galaxy S4. "Last year, Samsung spent $401 million on advertising just in the U.S., with a vast majority going toward television, according to MORE

New Samsung Galaxy S4? Meh.

Samsung's latest Galaxy S phone may be a technical wonder, but it's increasingly the base software that really matters in mobile.

By Cyrus Sanati

FORTUNE -- Samsung's splashy launch party for its fourth-generation Galaxy S mobile device isn't going to have much of an impact in its war with Apple. That's because the battleground for dominance in the mobile space has shifted away from the hardware and physical design of phones and toward MORE

Live from Radio City Music Hall: Samsung's Galaxy S4

The drumroll for Samsung's new phone is bigger than anything Apple ever produced

FORTUNE -- The line outside Radio City Music Hall was long -- longer than any Apple (AAPL) iPhone or iPad launch I've covered. (YouTube video: Walking the line.)

The press presence was ridiculous -- there were three media doors, one for video, two for print, and it still took more than an hour to get in. The rumor in MORE