The July 29 launch of Windows 10 will be the “first step” in Microsoft’s ambitions to build a base of a billion Windows 10 “active devices” by 2018, CEO Satya Nadella said on an earnings call Tuesday. Based on feedback from more than 5 million people who have been using Windows 10, “we believe people will love the familiarity of Windows 10 and the innovation,” Nadella said. Though the PC “ecosystem” has been “under pressure” recently, Windows 10 will “broaden our economic opportunity and return Windows to growth,” he said. In recent days, Advanced Micro Devices and Intel downgraded their PC sales expectations for the year despite any anticipated sales bump from the impending Windows 10 launch (see 1507170035). Microsoft’s OEM partners have more than 2,000 “distinct devices or configurations already in testing for Windows 10 upgrades as well as hundreds of new hardware designs,” Nadella said. “We are delighted that the first of these exciting new devices will start to be available on Windows 10 launch day, and by this holiday we will be selling the widest range of Windows hardware ever available.” Nadella also thinks Microsoft will field “great flagship” premium smartphones for Windows 10, he said in Q&A, conceding that’s a market “segment” in which “we don't today have good devices, and we hope to change that with Windows 10.” Nadella’s long-term view is for Microsoft smartphones to “spark innovation, create new categories and generate opportunity for the Windows ecosystem more broadly,” he said July 8 in announcing the decision to cut up to 7,800 jobs in the restructuring of Microsoft’s smartphone business (see 1507080024). In “value” smartphones, “that's the place where I want us to be much more efficient,” he said on the Tuesday call. Microsoft needs to be “smart” about how many SKUs in that segment “we want to generate” and at what price points, he said: “That's where you will see the most significant operational changes from how we operated last year to the coming year.”

The activation of FM chips already built into smartphones would enhance broadcasters' ability "to distribute lifesaving, emergency alert notifications before, during and after natural and man-made emergencies,” the Multicultural Media, Telecom and Internet Council (MMTC) told FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler in an open letter Tuesday. During Hurricane Katrina, the FM chip “would have added a layer of security for consumers, first responders and other stakeholders interested in the timely distribution of emergency response data,” MMTC said. During that emergency, terrestrial radio “was the only viable method of mass communications, and the activation of FM chips would have potentially extended this service to wireless consumers who are more likely to be ‘smartphone dependent,’ minority, multilingual and, in some cases, geographically isolated,” it said. “With your support and endorsement we could make radio a reality in all smartphones,” it told Wheeler. “You can help by encouraging all cellular carriers to turn on the FM Chips in their phones. The goal is to provide all Americans with peace-of-mind during emergencies so they will be kept abreast of lifesaving alerts if ever needed.” In House testimony in March, Wheeler expressed doubts whether the FCC “should be forcing wireless carriers to activate these chips or whether they ought to be leaving that to consumer choice” (see 1503200031). Those remarks drew a sharp response from NAB, which said broadcasters weren't seeking a government mandate on activating FM chips in smartphones, but were merely seeking the FCC's help “in using its influence in enabling a technology that can save lives in emergency situations.”

High-profile smartphone brands including HTC, Microsoft and Sony are struggling to keep pace amid the emergence of strong Chinese and Indian manufacturers, said Futuresource. Xiaomi had 33 percent growth in the first half of 2015, following 231 percent growth in first half last year, Futuresource said. Xiaomi’s strategy is driven by flash sales, low price points for design-oriented handsets and key strategic distribution partnership deals, said Futuresource. Other companies, such as Coolpad and Oppo in China, Micromax and Karbonn in India, Advan in Indonesia and Cherry Mobile in the Philippines are taking similar approaches and adding local celebrity endorsements to heighten consumer appeal, said the researcher. HTC, Microsoft and Sony, meanwhile, are “struggling to keep pace” while going through reorganizations, cost-cutting and strategic reviews of how they can compete effectively in growth markets such as Southeast Asia, it said. While market leader Samsung has maintained its position through scale, product range and marketing budget, its share dropped by 4.3 percent in the first half, said Futuresource. “There has been a significant amount of growth in the mobile handset market over recent years,” said analyst John Devlin, but “mature markets are nearing saturation. Migration from feature phones continues to gather momentum globally with countries like Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines all seeing smartphones outsell feature phones for the first time in 2014,” he said. The smartphone market had slower growth in 2014 than in previous years for smartphones, expanding by 23 percent to 1.3 billion units, compared with growth of 48 percent in 2013, it said.

Global smartphone shipments in Q2 reached 304 million units, a 1.9 percent increase sequentially from Q1, said TrendForce, a Taiwanese research firm, Monday in a report. The firm thinks shipment growth slowed in Q2 “as vendors prepared to launch their flagship devices in this year’s second half,” it said. The firm downgraded its outlook for calendar 2015 and now expects unit growth to climb 8.2 percent from 2014, instead of the 11.6 percent growth foreseen in its previous forecast. The firm blamed the downgrade on “the negative global economic outlook for the second half of this year.” The 8.2 percent increase, if the forecast holds true, would pale in comparison with the 26.5 percent unit growth in 2014 compared with 2013, the firm said.

Chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. during Q2 saw demand for smartphones become “weaker than we expected,” due to a sales slowdown in emerging markets and in China in the mid-priced and low-end smartphone segments, President Mark Liu said Thursday on an earnings call. The strong U.S. dollar relative to “emerging market currencies” was partly to blame for the weaker demand, but so were deteriorating “regional economic conditions,” Liu said. As a result of the slowdowns, the industry by the end of Q2 had managed to absorb only half of the “excess inventory” it had accumulated “in the supply chain,” he said. Recent “macro economy uncertainties in many parts of the world” has only “further dampened” the supply chain's confidence in end-market demand “and has caused customers to become even more cautious in managing their inventory,” he said. That said, “we expect our customers' end-market demand will improve in the second half” through new iPhone launches and several launches of Android-based high-end phones, he said. He also thinks the “continuing 4G migration in China and the demand recovery in emerging markets will further support” second-half growth, he said.

ATIS said Tuesday it has completed a feasibility study of how the commercial cellular network may be used to disseminate early earthquake warnings as part of the proposed California Earthquake Early Warning System. “The goal of this work is to identify possible methods to harness today's advanced cellular technologies to deliver time-sensitive Early Earthquake Warning (EEW) notifications to the public,” ATIS said in a news release. “ATIS' study evaluates techniques to distribute EEW notifications to mobile devices via the cellular network in coordination with the California Integrated Seismic Network (CISN).” ATIS found a wireless EEW notification is “a viable concept designed within the constraints of the cellular wireless networks.” ATIS also proposed an architecture for the broadcast of time-sensitive EEW notifications using capabilities in the LTE broadcast channel. “The study advises against solutions using traditional SMS or push data services, which would not deliver effective and timely early warnings, but instead would swamp the network and slow message delivery,” ATIS said.

Fifty-two percent of all shoppers using a smartphone for purchases in Q2 2015 used the iOS 8 operating system, according to a report released Monday by mobile commerce provider BrandingBrand.com, which also said that iOS 8 accounted for 56 percent of all Q2 smartphone-generated revenue. BrandingBrand.com's analysis also found that more smartphone users are adopting Lollipop, Android's newest OS, which made up 12 percent of all smartphone visits to online stores and 32 percent of Android visits in Q2 -- up 225 percent from Q1.

“Talk to your kids about your rules for when and where it's appropriate to use their phones,” FTC Consumer and Business Education Division Counsel Carol Kando-Pineda wrote in a blog post Monday. Before giving children a mobile phone, decide whether they need one designed for children that has features like limited Internet access, minute management, number privacy and emergency buttons, Kando-Pineda said. Advise kids to use features like GPS technology revealing their location sparingly “and only with friends they know in person and trust,” she said. “Encourage them to think about their privacy and get the okay of the photographer or the person in the shot before posting videos or photos,” Kando-Pineda said. “It could be embarrassing and even unsafe,” she said. “Filters you've installed on your home computer won't limit what kids can do on a phone.”

Notifications on cellphones inevitably impair a person’s ability to focus on a given task, said a new Florida State University study published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance. “The level of how much it affected the task at hand was really shocking,” said Courtney Yehnert, an FSU research coordinator. “Although these notifications are generally short in duration, they can prompt task-irrelevant thoughts, or mind-wandering, which has been shown to damage task performance,” the paper said. “Cellular phone notifications alone significantly disrupt performance on an attention-demanding task, even when participants do not directly interact with a mobile device during the task.”

Wireless carriers’ attempts to entice customers to upgrade to new and better smartphone models more frequently than every two years “is not yet catching on with smartphone users,” a Gallup survey found. Gallup canvassed nearly 16,000 U.S. adult smartphone owners in April and May and said it found a “mere” 2 percent of those canvassed said they upgrade their phones when a new model is released, usually about every year. The survey found that iPhone users upgrade more frequently than Android owners. Of iPhone users canvassed, 51 percent said they upgrade every two years, while 47 percent said they’ll do so only when their phones stop working or become obsolete, Gallup said. By comparison, 58 percent of the Android customers surveyed said they won’t upgrade until their phones stop working, while 40 percent said they’ll upgrade as soon as they’re eligible through their carrier to do so, it said. Gallup’s “bottom line” conclusion was that while “there may be zeal for owning a smartphone, Americans are divided in how frequently they upgrade their phones,” the research firm said. “It is apparent that despite aggressive marketing and media campaigns encouraging users to upgrade their phones to the hottest model, there is some resistance to switching out phones every year or two.”