Despite “saturation” in many well-developed Western European markets, unit smartphone shipments in Europe overall climbed nearly 14 percent last year to 200 million handsets, Futuresource Consulting said Monday in a report. The European tablet market also continues to grow, “but major markets have reached saturation point earlier than the industry expected,” Futuresource said. Although percentage growth in tablets equaled that of smartphones in 2014, growth in Western Europe “will slow further in 2015, with consumer shipments moving into decline by 2017,” it said. "We're seeing a smartphone growth bubble in Eastern Europe, perpetuated by the low level of ownership in many of its countries," the company said. "It's not all good news, as we expect growth to slow in 2015 as Russia -- the largest market in the region by some distance -- faces increasing economic uncertainty.” Across Europe, the Samsung and Apple “duopoly remains solid,” albeit with some market share being lost to Microsoft following its acquisition of Nokia’s devices business, the firm said. “This decline in smartphone prices was somewhat offset by a persistent shift towards higher-priced smartphones,” resulting in an overall increase in mobile handset average selling prices, it said. As for tablets, Apple and Samsung represented more than half of total units shipped in Europe last year, it said.

Google won't fix security flaws affecting about 60 percent of all Android users -- those who use Android 4.3 and earlier systems -- said Google Chief of Security for Android Adrian Ludwig. Google decided updating outdated browser versions was requiring hundreds of developers to write more than 5 million lines of code every month for just one browser, and in some cases “significant portions of the code” were changed, so it was no longer practical to make these changes. “Keeping software up to date is one of the greatest challenges in security,” Ludwig said in a Google Plus post, but a necessary one since using an “updatable browser will protect you from currently known security issues, and since it can be updated in the future it will also protect you against any issues that might be found in the future.” Google's decision is “is great news for criminals,” wrote Tod Beardsley, a software developer and blogger. “As a software developer, I know that supporting old versions of my software is a huge hassle,” he said. “I empathize with their decision to cut legacy software loose. However, a billion people don't rely on old versions of my software to manage and safeguard the most personal details of their lives. In that light, I'm hoping Google reconsiders if (when) the next privacy-busting vulnerability becomes public knowledge.”

Sprint said it will give T-Mobile customers a “guaranteed minimum” of $200 instantly for current working smartphones when they bring their wireless number to Sprint. Sprint also will continue to match all major U.S. carrier phone trade-in pricing, it said Friday. The offer runs through April 9 and can be combined with a contract buyout in which eligible T-Mobile customers can get up to $350 per line via a prepaid or reward card to cover their installment billing balance on their current phone or early termination fees, Sprint said. The carrier matches AT&T and Verizon pricing via the Sprint Buyback program but without the $200 switchover reward, a Sprint spokeswoman told us.

The FCC should make sure the U.S. plays a leadership role in global efforts to promote international harmonization of frequency bands to be used for 5G, Samsung said. The company filed comments in docket 14-177 in response to a notice on inquiry on the future of spectrum above 24 GHz (see 1501160037). Some bands, including 28, 39 and 37/42 GHz, should be targeted for licensed use and 5G, Samsung said. “Samsung’s vision for 5G is a global vision, and Samsung believes that a global effort will be necessary for 5G services to reach their full potential,” the company said. “In a 5G world, international harmonization will be more important than ever before, and Samsung asks the Commission to take a leadership role in promoting international harmonization for 5G.” CEA said the spectrum could play a big role in mobile broadband, but reminded the FCC that it will also be used for other purposes. “CEA members have deployed parking assistance, blind spot detection, collision avoidance, and automatic cruise control using radar in the 28 GHz/79 GHz bands,” CEA said. “The mmW bands at 24 GHz, 28 GHz, 39 GHz and 70-80- 90 GHz are being used to provide important backhaul, satellite, and other point-to-multipoint services that should not be foreclosed under new rules.”

Virgin Mobile was to begin offering no-contract data-sharing plans Saturday starting at $30 per line, available exclusively at Walmart. The data-sharing plans are “some of the most aggressive shared-line plans ever launched,” Angela Rittgers, Sprint Prepaid vice president, said. Four 4G LTE smartphones are part of the plan initially -- the HTC Desire 510 ($99), LG Tribute ($79), LG Volt ($149) and Samsung Galaxy Core Prime ($129) -- and the phones are preloaded with an app that enables customers to manage data sharing from the device, Virgin Mobile said. Every multiline plan will also come with a free Mobile Hotspot feature, the carrier said. Data buy-up options start at $10 per month for 1 GB, it said. A $20 starter kit is required to activate each new line of service and includes two months of unlimited music streaming without counting against the customer’s data allotment, Virgin Mobile said, and for $5 per month subscribers can get unlimited use of social media and music streaming apps, including Facebook, Instagram, Pandora and Twitter, without counting against the monthly data allotment. The plan will be available on more devices at the end of February, it said.

T-Mobile found a way to pique interest at CES: The self-proclaimed uncarrier is giving away bags of cash. To highlight T-Mobile’s new 10 GB data plan, the carrier is sponsoring the #DataStash DASH at the conference. At the top of every hour, T-Mobile is tweeting the location of the prizes. The first three people who show up get a bag. “One of them is filled with $1,000 cash and the other two are packed with prizes such as new smartphones, tablets and free T-Mobile service,” T-Mobile said in a news release.

Facebook was the top smartphone app of 2014, with 118 million average unique users each month, said a Nielsen report on digital trends in U.S. smartphone apps and operating systems released Wednesday. Consumers seemed to “place a premium” on the Internet’s social side in 2014, Nielsen said, with a large portion of the top smartphone apps geared to connectivity. In addition to its top app rank, Facebook's Messenger app had a user uptake jump of 242 percent over 2013 to reach the seven position on the smartphone app list. Positions two through six were held by the Google family: Google Search, YouTube, Google Play, Google Maps and Gmail. Google+, Instagram and iTunes Radio/iCloud were in the eight, nine and 10 spots. Among operating systems, in Q3, Android held the top spot with 51.9 percent of smartphone users, followed by iOS with 42.9 percent, Nielsen said. Eking out slivers of the U.S. market were Windows Phone with 2.8 percent, Blackberry with 1.5 percent and “other” with 0.9 percent, it said. Nielsen’s findings were based on passive metering technology on smartphones used by roughly 5,000 panelists on an opt-in basis. Operating system data was based on Nielsen’s monthly survey of 30,000-plus mobile subscribers aged 13 and older in the U.S.

Wireless pricing is confusing to many subscribers, Glenn Lurie, new chief executive of AT&T’s mobile business, said in an interview with The New York Times. Lurie said AT&T wants to go beyond deal-of-the-day offers, citing new offerings that spring up almost daily. “Some of those offers are long-term offers, some of them are short-term,” he said. “Some of them stay for the customers and some of them don’t. I think we’re propagating some confusion in the market place -- us as an industry. There’s been so much noise in the industry. There’s been so much noise that customers are getting confused.” Lurie also said AT&T dropped the use of “super cookies," which track users' mobile activity in a deeper manner than in the past, because of subscriber “discomfort” with their use. “It’s a great example of us listening to our customers,” he said.

ZTE USA announced availability of the ZTE Speed for $99 through Boost Mobile’s no-contract wireless service. The smartphone packs 4G LTE, Android 4.4, a 4.5-inch display and a 1.2-GHz quad-core processor, the company said Tuesday. It includes a 4.5-inch display, 5-megapixel rear camera and 2-megapixel front camera, it said. Plans start at $35 per month.

British-based mobile device supplier Bullitt Group will use CES to introduce a line of Android smart phones and tablets under license from the Kodak brand, the company said Monday. Bullitt will target consumers “who want a high-end experience but aren't always as comfortable using increasingly complicated mobile devices as they would like to be,” the company said. True to Kodak’s “heritage,” the devices “will let users take great pictures and edit, share, store and print them in an instant," it said.