The dynamics of the market-share battle between Android and iOS smartphones will remain virtually unchanged through 2021, as global unit shipments of devices from each platform rise at a compound annual growth rate of just above 3 percent, IDC said in a Tuesday report. It expects overall smartphone shipments to grow to 1.7 billion handsets in 2021 from 1.47 billion in 2016. "The big inflection point that everyone is watching for is when the smartphone market experiences its first year-over-year decline," said IDC. Bringing first-time buyers into the smartphone market is one of the “main catalysts for continued growth,” it said. “At the end of 2016, we estimated that about half of the world's population was using a smartphone, which leaves plenty of room for additional first-time users. And, despite very high saturation levels in mature markets like North America, Western Europe, Korea, and Japan, we still see the majority of users replacing their handsets roughly every two years. We expect these trends will hold through the forecast."

Smartphone apps account for more than 50 percent of digital media use, said a Thursday comScore report. Desktop computers make up 34 percent of digital media usage, tablet apps are 7 percent, smartphone web use is 7 percent and tablet web use is 2 percent, it said. By age, 18-24-year-olds spend two-thirds of their digital media time -- more than three hours a day -- on smartphone apps, compared with 54 percent for 25-34-year-olds, 53 percent for 35-44-year-olds, 48 percent for 45-54-year-olds and 46 percent for 55-64-year-olds. Digital media users 65 and older spend 27 percent of that time on smartphone apps and 53 percent of their time on desktop PCs, vs. the 23 percent of PC time by 18-24-year-olds, comScore said. On average, U.S. digital media users spend 2.3 hours per day on mobile apps, comScore said. But digital media users are selective about the apps they frequent, said comScore. Most smartphone users don’t download any apps in a month, and the average number is two, it said. Among users 13 and older for the three months ended June, 51 percent downloaded no apps, 8 percent downloaded three and 5 percent downloaded eight or more, it said. App discovery is down across app stores, word-of-mouth referrals and marketing-driven efforts, said the research firm. The percentage of smartphone users searching a store for an app slipped to 20 percent from 21 during the three months ended June, and 13 percent sought out new apps from a featured list. Word of mouth, at 15 percent of users, was more effective for app discovery than social media (10 percent) or news/reviews (8 percent). Advertising was minimally effective for app discovery at 10 percent via website, 9 percent via device browser and 6 percent via TV, print or billboard, it said. The report was based on behavioral measurement and results from a survey of 1,033 smartphone users in July.

The Samsung Galaxy Note8 launches Sept. 15 on the T-Mobile network, the carrier said Wednesday. (See a separate report about the Note8 launch in today's issue of this publication.) But the phone won't come with a chip allowing the use of the 600 MHz spectrum T-Mobile bought in the TV incentive auction, a spokesman said, saying Samsung will have a handset available by year-end that does. "When you put the Note8 on the T-Mobile network, it’s like putting a world-class racecar on a brand new, state-of-the-art racetrack -- it’s straight up incredible,” T-Mobile CEO John Legere said in a news release.

Fifth-generation wireless “is right around the corner” and “brings the promise of a high-speed, high-capacity, seamless wireless Internet experience,” but only as long as regulators stay out of the way, FCC Commissioner Mike O’Rielly told the Americans for Prosperity’s Defending the American Dream Summit Saturday in Richmond, Virginia. “It is estimated that such innovations will result in economic benefits to the tune of $500 billion in gross domestic product growth and more than 3 million jobs in the U.S. alone,” O’Rielly said. “The FCC’s job is to provide an environment for such innovation and investment to flourish in the communications technology sector while protecting consumers along the way.” The FCC has wandered off course, O’Rielly warned in remarks, posted by the FCC Monday. “Rather than permitting ‘disruptive’ technologies to continue to develop, the Commission favored regulatory ‘know-it-all-ism,’” he said. The result “has been the creation of market uncertainty, leading to a rethinking of network investment.” Some changes before the FCC may seem small, but really add up, he said. For example, he said, the FCC is considering changes to its wireless and wireline infrastructure siting rules. “These are the types of rule changes that will accelerate access to 5G networks that enable life-saving innovations, such as remote surgery and vehicle collision avoidance systems,” he said. “Not to mention, they will allow self-driving cars and other breakthroughs we can’t imagine today.”

FedEx Supply Chain recalled about 10,200 batteries from refurbished Samsung Galaxy Note 4 smartphones that were distributed as replacement phones through AT&T’s insurance program between December and April, said a Consumer Product Safety Commission notice. FedEx and Samsung determined some of the recalled batteries are counterfeit and show anomalies that can cause batteries to overheat. The batteries weren't supplied as original equipment by Samsung, said CPSC. Consumers who own the recalled battery will receive by mail from FedEx a free, new replacement battery and a postage-paid box to return the recalled one, it said. There was one report of a counterfeit battery overheating but no reports of damage, said CPSC. “FedEx Supply Chain is conducting this recall of non-genuine Samsung batteries as some of them are counterfeit," said a Samsung spokesman Friday. "The refurbishment program was managed by FedEx Supply Chain and operated independently of Samsung."

CTIA said the FCC should extend the Nov. 1 deadline for carriers to meet new requirements for wireless emergency alerts. The Competitive Carriers Association also pressed for more time (see 1708160063). Carriers “are committed to working collaboratively with public safety and alert originators to develop the ability to receive and transmit WEA alerts with embedded references on their networks, and to work with mobile device and [operating system] vendors to implement embedded, ‘clickable’ references, but remain concerned about implementing such functionality without adequate time for development and feasibility testing,” CTIA said in a filing in docket 15-91. “To ensure that ‘clickable’ references are deployed in an effective manner, standards development and implementation are critical pre-requisites.” Timelines should be extended and should apply only to new devices, CTIA said.

DTS Headphone:X is one of the features in the Asus ZenFone 4 that launched Thursday in Taiwan. The phone’s built-in audio wizard enables personalization and DTS:X optimization based on music genre, headphone model and the user’s listening profile, said DTS. Users can choose from eight music genres -- normal, classical, dance, jazz, pop, rock, vocal and custom -- and the audio library includes 400 headphone models that can be selected to fit the sound characteristics of the headphone to the phone's audio playback, DTS said. The Android-based ZenFone 4 Pro and ZenFone 4 are camera-first smartphones. The Pro model, using a Sony IMX362 image sensor with an f/1.7-aperture lens for low-light shooting, is a 16-megapixel camera with a 2x optical zoom lens and 6 GB RAM, said an Asus news release. The ZenFone 4 dual-camera system features the main camera based on the Sony IMX362 image sensor and a 120-degree wide-angle lens, Asus said.

Samsung led Android smartphone volume in Q2, shipping 10.2 million Galaxy S8 phone and 9 million S8+ models, but Apple topped overall global smartphone shipments, with 16.9 million iPhone 7 and 15.1 million 7 Plus shipments, said a Wednesday Strategy Analytics report. The Xiaomi Redmi 4A ranked fifth, behind the Apple and Samsung models, shipping 5.5 million units, it said. But the top five manufacturers -- Apple with 8.9 percent, Samsung at 5.3 percent and Xiaomi at 1.5 percent -- were a small percentage of the global smartphone market, as the rest of the market shipped 84.3 million devices, said the research firm. “Xiaomi is becoming wildly popular across Asia,” said SA analyst Linda Sui, citing the Chinese maker’s position as fourth largest vendor in China and second largest in India. Xiaomi has a significant online presence, selling through key distribution partners Flipkart and JD, she said.

The Competitive Carriers Association asked the FCC to extend the deadline on new requirements for wireless emergency alerts by at least a year. The FCC approved revised rules and sought comment on future changes in September (see 1609290060). The order increases the maximum length of WEA messages from 90 to 360 characters for 4G LTE and future networks and requires participating wireless providers to support inclusion of embedded phone numbers and URLs in all WEA alerts. CCA asked that the deadline be extended from Nov. 1 this year to May 1, 2019. As an alternative, the CCA said in a footnote to the petition in docket 15-91, it's seeking a 12-month extension. “Many of CCA’s members, especially those serving rural and remote areas, are still transitioning from 2G and 3G networks to newer technologies,” CCA said. “Applicable standards for new WEA requirements are still under development … and the record demonstrates that compliance with certain requirements cannot be achieved until these standards are defined and publicly available.”

Apple representatives said they were called in by officials from the FCC Public Safety Bureau to discuss proposed updates to rules for wireless emergency alerts. “iPhones do not support device-based geo-targeting for WEA messages," so the commission should "carefully assess the feasibility of this approach,” said a filing in docket 15-91. “Using device-based geo-targeting would likely significantly increase the latency of users seeing WEA messages.” Apple expressed concerns about any requirement devices translate alerts into other languages. Apple’s operating system “does not include an on-device functionality that automatically translates WEA messages,” the company said. Meanwhile, public safety and emergency management officials from Texas raised an alarm on a December CTIA petition asking the agency to rethink some of the emergency alert system rules approved last year. Granting the relief “would do great harm by setting back the extraordinary progress that was made this past fall,” the Texas officials warned.