The iPhone captured a record 51 percent share of global smartphone factory revenue in Q4, with Samsung a distant second at 15.7 percent, said Strategy Analytics in a Thursday report. The firm estimates global revenue climbed 8 percent in Q4 to reach an all-time-high of $120 billion, it said. Average selling prices (ASPs) surged 18 percent in the quarter to $300, it said: “The smartphone industry has managed to increase massively its pricing and revenues, despite a recent decrease in shipment volumes.” The firm credited “solid demand” for the iPhone X as driving Apple’s strong share performance in the quarter. “Apple now accounts for more revenue than the rest of the entire global smartphone industry combined,” it said. “Apple generated three times more smartphone revenue than nearest rival Samsung,” and seven times that of Huawei, it said. The iPhone’s ASP is approaching $800, “almost three times higher than the overall industry average,” it said.

Sony Mobile Communications applied Feb. 7 to trademark a “3D” logo for smartphones, tablets, smartwatches and other products, Patent and Trademark Office records show. The application follows a similar filing Sony made to Japanese trademark authorities in September, say the PTO records. The colors blue, green and purple are “claimed as a feature” of the logo, which “consists of the number 3 and letter D with a miscellaneous design,” says the application. The logo image also includes a geometric profile view of a person. Components supplier Himax said Tuesday it’s working through its collaboration with Qualcomm with “multiple” top-tier Android smartphone makers with the goal of launching 3D sensing on their “premium” handset models starting in the first half of 2018 (see 1802140021). Himax representatives didn’t comment Thursday on whether Sony is one of the smartphone OEMs it’s working with on 3D sensing. Sony representatives also didn’t comment.

Cell Detect explained its approach to curbing use of contraband cellphones in prisons, which targets prisoners and not the network, during last week’s meeting at the FCC convened by Chairman Ajit Pai (see 1802070048). Cell Trax is “designed to eliminate illicit cell phones in prisons and jails by detecting, reporting and eventually jamming only those devices that are in close proximity to the inmate actually using the cell phone,” the company said in docket 13-111. Cell Trax offers a small, lightweight bracelet to be worn by inmates. “When a cell phone is detected, the Cell Trax bracelet immediately reports the inmate’s identity to a cloud-based computer, which processes the alert and notifies officers in real-time,” the company said. “The Cell Trax bracelet will also be capable of emitting a low-power, short burst, jamming signal precisely timed to prevent the illicit cell phone from receiving responses from the tower.” The company wasn't listed among those attending in an FCC-written ex parte filing on the meeting last week, which described the discussion in broad terms.

The internet's future will be written by smartphone users in the developing world, blogged Caesar Sengupta, vice president of Google’s Next Billion Users Team. “The future of the internet is in the hands of the next billion users -- the latest generation of internet users to come online on smartphones in places like Brazil, China, India, Indonesia and Nigeria,” he said. “As time goes on, the average internet user will be more like these ‘next billion users’ than the first billion who started on PCs.” Sengupta warned that these users have a very different mindset. “The next billion users are already changing the internet in three key ways: a mobile-only mindset, an instinct for ubiquitous computing, and a demand for localized content,” he said.

T-Mobile’s buy-one-get-one offer on iPhones -- including the X -- is “something to watch,” Wells Fargo analyst Jennifer Fritzsche wrote Tuesday, citing a continuation of the carrier’s “fight back” mode in protecting its customer base. Under the promo, customers who buy an iPhone 7, 7 Plus, 8, 8 Plus or X can get another for “free.” That’s up to a $700 maximum value via rebate; X's are $999. Customers have to trade in a fully functional, paid-off, iPhone 7, 7 Plus, 6s, 6s Plus, 6, 6 Plus, SE or 5s; LG V20, G6 or G5; Samsung Galaxy S7, S7 Edge, S7 Active, S6, S6 Edge, S6 Edge+, S6 Active, S5, S4, Note5 or Note 4, a chat agent told us. The representative said he hadn’t been given an end date for the sales event, shown as a “limited-time” offer on the website.

T-Mobile said growth continued in Q4, with 1.9 million total net additions and 1.1 million postpaid phone adds. The carrier said it added 3.6 million postpaid phone subscribers in 2017. Postpaid churn was T-Mobile's lowest ever at 1.18 percent. CEO John Legere said the company has soared in the five years since he told CES that the carrier would “take a stand against a stupid, broken industry.” T-Mobile has gone from 33 million customers at the end of 2012 to nearly 73 million, Legere said Thursday. T-Mobile had a “lagging 3G network” then, and now has a 4G network that is “blazing fast," he said. The recently enacted Tax Cuts and Jobs Act had a net effect of $2.2 billion on earnings. After going big in the TV incentive auction, Legere said that at the end of 2017, the company had turned on its 600 MHz spectrum from the auction in parts of 28 states, covering 300,000 square miles. T-Mobile offered two 600 MHz-capable phones at the end of last year and expects to have at least 12 available this year, he said. Legere said the carrier added nearly 2,800 stores in 2017. “With a Sprint merger officially off the table for the time being, T-Mobile is focused on continuing to grow its business organically through retail and network expansion,” Technology Business Research wrote investors. “T-Mobile will sustain revenue and subscriber growth over the next two years by sticking to its core Un-carrier strategies and will capitalize on Netflix On Us to cement its position as a value leader in the U.S. postpaid market.” Craig Moffett of MoffettNathanson said T-Mobile’s stock has struggled since it called off a possible Sprint deal (see 1711060068). “Shares have nicely rebounded from their lows after the merger was called off, and have outperformed over the past three months, but over a year, they have lagged,” Moffett wrote. “Lately, they have struggled to do much more than tread water.” They closed down 5.1 percent at $58.88 as the market overall fell.

Citing a flattening of Apple’s U.S. iPhone installed base, Consumer Intelligence Research Partners said Monday that it reached 151 million units for the quarter ended Dec. 30, compared to 149 million at the end of the September 2017 quarter and 128 million units at the end of the December 2016 quarter. The iPhone 8, 8 Plus and X models account for 18 million units, or 12 percent of the installed base; the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus are 58 million, or 39 percent; and the 2-year-old iPhone 6s and 6s Plus comprise 43 million, or 28 percent of the installed base, said the research firm. The X, released later than other models, affected sales figures for the quarter, noted analyst Josh Lowitz, saying CIRP expects unit sales and share of total sales to “increase meaningfully in the next two quarters.” CIRP predicts older models will continue “strong sales,” as the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus are 39 percent of the installed base, “a high share for a year-old phone." Early last year, the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus had 35 percent of the installed base a year after launch, CIRP said. “In a holiday quarter, growth did flatten considerably,” said analyst Mike Levin, citing a continuing trend. He said the iPhone's quarterly growth has averaged 4 percent for the last eight quarters, and while “most companies would be delighted with growth in a loyal customer base at those rates, just a few years ago Apple grew the iPhone installed base considerably faster.”

The GSMA said Monday it expects some 25,000 attendees at its second Mobile World Congress Americas, in cooperation with CTIA, scheduled for Sept. 12-14 in Los Angeles. The show's theme is “Imagine a Better Future,” said a news release. Los Angeles is “the entertainment capital of the world,” said Michael O’Hara, GSMA chief marketing officer. “This year’s show will really illustrate how mobile is reshaping how media and content are produced and consumed.”

Reports on global smartphone shipments agreed Q4 volumes declined but differed on magnitude. Smartphone vendors shipped a total of 403.5 million units in Q4, a 6.3 percent decline from the same quarter a year earlier, said IDC Thursday. The worldwide smartphone market shipped a total of 1.47 billion units in 2017, declining less than 1 percent, IDC said: “Developed markets such as China and the United States both witnessed a decline during the quarter as consumers appeared to be in no rush to upgrade to the newest generation of higher-priced flagship devices.” Strategy Analytics pegged the global Q4 decline higher -- at 9 percent to 400 million units -- the “biggest annual fall in smartphone history.” It blamed a “collapse in the huge China market,” where demand fell 16 percent due to longer replacement rates, fewer operator subsidies and “a general lack of wow models.” Global smartphone shipments last year grew 1 percent, topping 1.5 billion units for the first time, said SA. IHS Markit “preliminary data” showed global unit shipments declined 4.5 percent to 387.5 million smartphones, said Gerrit Schneemann, senior analyst-mobile location and mobile devices. Shipments for the year grew 3.1 percent to 1.44 billion units, Schneemann wrote Friday: “Of the leading handset brands, only Xiaomi and Motorola experienced shipment growth" in Q4.

Sprint is moving toward mobile 5G early next year and will soon be able to put less emphasis on discounting the cost of its service, CEO Marcelo Claure said on a financial call Friday as the carrier reported quarterly results. “I am very confident in Sprint's future, based on the competitive advantage that we will have with the deployment of 5G on our 2.5 GHz spectrum,” Claure said. “We're working with Qualcomm and network and device manufacturers in order to launch the first truly mobile network in the United States by the first half of 2019.” Sprint will offer applications “no one else can offer and there will be no reason to continue discounting,” Claure said. New Chief Financial Officer Michel Combes said Sprint has cut $6 billion in costs out of the business, but isn’t done cutting. “I still see more room to improve operational efficiency,” he said. The company reported slowing growth. Postpaid phone net adds were 184,000 for the quarter, with churn of 1.71 percent. But Sprint noted this is its 10th consecutive quarter of postpaid net adds.