Sprint will launch the Lumia 635 smartphone through its no-contract Boost Mobile and Virgin Mobile prepaid services Dec. 23, marking the first time Windows Phone 8.1 smartphones will be available from the Sprint carrier family. The phone will be available Jan. 16 to Sprint postpaid customers with pricing to be announced later, Sprint said. Boost Mobile plans start at $35 a month for unlimited voice and text and 1 GB of data, the company said. Virgin Mobile plans start at $20 month for 300 voice minutes, unlimited text and Wi-Fi-only data access, Sprint said.

Samsung’s share of the worldwide smartphone market fell to 24 percent in Q3, from 32 percent in the year-ago quarter, according to Gartner Group. Samsung’s deepest decline was in feature phones, shipment of which decreased by 10.8 percent year over year. Demand for Samsung’s smartphones weakened mostly in Western Europe and Asia, Gartner said, with smartphone sales tumbling 29 percent in China, its biggest market. Emerging markets continued to drive smartphone sales in Q3, with Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa showing growth of 50 percent year over year, Gartner said. The U.S. led mature markets with 20 percent growth in the quarter, fueled by Apple’s debut of the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, said the report. Smartphone sales in Western Europe dropped 5 percent, the third consecutive quarterly decline of the year, it said. Following 26 percent year-over-year growth for Apple worldwide in Q3, Gartner expects record sales of the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus in the holiday quarter, “but we should not underestimate the Chinese vendors and local brands,” said Annette Zimmermann, Gartner research director. Chinese smartphone companies will continue efforts to penetrate overseas emerging markets, while prepaid markets in Europe and low-cost LTE phones will also offer “key opportunities” for Chinese brands, she said. Huawei moved into the No. 3 position worldwide among smartphone vendors, although fewer than 1 million units separate the number three, four and five players, all Chinese brands, Gartner said. Xiaomi cracked the top five for the first time on a 336 percent sales increase, driven by a “strong performance in China” where it became the leading brand, Gartner said. Lenovo filled out the top five for the quarter with market share of 5 percent. Gartner expects 2014 sales of smartphones to reach 1.2 billion units worldwide.

Shipments of smartphones with near-field communications capability built in will jump at a 55.8 percent compound annual growth rate through 2019, said a report available for sale from the research firm TechNavio. NFC technology "has revolutionized the ways in which people access and use data and information," the report said. "NFC-enabled devices can be used for applications such as mobile payment, loyalty programs, interactive advertising, ID authentication, and transit fare collection."

The FCC sought comment Friday on its Technological Advisory Council’s Dec. 4 report on mobile device theft prevention. The Wireless Bureau and Office of Engineering and Technology sought general comment on recommendations in the report, “with a particular emphasis on recommendations for industry that can be implemented in the near term to provide timely benefits to consumers,” the agency said. Mobile device theft has been a top focus for the TAC and for FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler (see 1403110031). Comments are due Jan. 30, replies Feb. 17.

United Airlines will distribute iPhone 6 Plus smartphones to its more than 23,000 "mainline" flight attendants during 2015's second quarter, giving them the ability to handle most onboard retail transactions and access to company emails and internal policies and procedures manuals, the airline said Wednesday. Future enhancements will include the ability to replace flight attendants' printed safety manuals with an electronic version on the iPhone 6 Plus and providing real-time reporting capability on aircraft cabin issues and repairs, it said.

Shanghai components supplier AAC Technologies teamed with Swedish audio signal processing supplier Dirac Research on a "unique package" that offers smartphone makers the quality of "unprecedented sound" and shorter time to market, the companies said Tuesday in a joint announcement. The offering combines AAC high-performance miniature speakers and Dirac’s audio software algorithms, they said. "Smartphones and tablets are becoming entertainment platforms," they said. "Consumers' demand for sound quality increases and the speakers are moving in the direction of high fidelity but miniature size. With Dirac's cutting edge technology in audio signal processing working together with AAC's high performance speakers, the sound quality is enhanced, and the combination fits well with our strategy to provide customers with total solutions." The announcement offered few technical specifics, and AAC and Dirac representatives didn’t comment.

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler sent letters, as promised Thursday, to wireless carrier CEOs requiring them to lay out steps they will take by the end of Q1 to combat smartphone theft (see 1412040049), FCC officials confirm. The letters weren't posted by the commission. Wheeler asks the CEOs to describe specific steps they're taking to ensure all phones can be locked, wiped and restored, to protect unique identifiers for every device and to improve “the timeliness, accuracy and availability of data about smartphone theft for use by law enforcement,” said one of the letters made available to media. “I would also ask you to take appropriate steps to ensure that employees in your retail and authorized reseller affiliates understand the importance of their role in preventing mobile device theft by checking the appropriate database to ensure that every device they initialize for service has not been reported lost or stolen.” Wheeler said he would send the letters, in remarks Thursday to the FCC Technological Advisory Council. CTIA supports FCC efforts to curb smartphone thefts, said Jamie Hastings, vice president-external and state affairs, in a statement. But Hastings questioned the deadlines in the Wheeler letter, which were not part of the TAC’s stolen phone report. “We must all work together to achieve our shared objectives as soon practical, but we need to be careful in setting artificial deadlines on some stakeholders with respect to implementing technical changes,” Hastings said.

In a move to grab customers from its two biggest competitors, Sprint said Tuesday it will buy out AT&T and Verizon customers’ wireless contracts up to $350 in a “Cut Your Bill in Half” event beginning Friday. Sprint will pay customers up to $350 per line via a Visa prepaid card to cover their early termination fee or installment bill balance when they switch, it said. Sprint will offer unlimited talk and text within the U.S. over its network and match customers’ data allowance for half the cost of their current data plan. The promotional rate “will be the customer’s ongoing price” as long as they remain on the plan, Sprint said. To participate, AT&T and Verizon customers need to upload a copy of a current wireless bill to the Sprint website, visit a Sprint store with a copy of the latest bill, turn in their current phone, pick a service plan and get a new phone using one of Sprint’s leasing options -- or pay full rate for the phone, the carrier said.

IDC sees the Windows Phone operating system more than doubling its share of global smartphone shipments to 5.6 percent in 2018, compared with 2.7 percent this year, the research firm said Monday in its worldwide quarterly mobile phone tracker. In terms of global share, the Windows Phone OS will still pale in comparison with Android (its share will decline to 80 percent in 2018 from 82.3 percent this year) and iOS (12.8 percent in 2018 vs. 13.8 percent in 2014), the firm said. It sees the industry shipping nearly 1.3 billion smartphones globally in 2014, an increase of 26.3 percent over 2013, it said. IDC expects 1.4 billion smartphones to be shipped worldwide in 2015, a 12.2 percent year-over-year growth rate, it said. Slower annual growth continues through 2018, when shipments will approach 1.9 billion units, for a 9.8 percent compound annual growth rate for the 2014–2018 forecast period, it said. "Smartphone revenues reflect a starker picture, as they will be hard hit by the increasingly cutthroat nature of pricing," resulting in a 4.2 percent compound annual growth rate over the same forecast period, it said. "The impact of upstart Chinese players in the global market will be reflected in a race to the bottom when it comes to price. While premium phones aren't going anywhere, we are seeing increasingly better specs in more affordable smartphones. Consumers no longer have to go with a top-of-the-line handset to guarantee decent hardware quality or experience. The biggest question now is how much lower can prices go?" IDC pegs the average selling price of smartphones shipped globally this year at $297, but sees ASPs dropping by 19 percent to $241 by 2018, it said: "Emerging markets like India will see much lower smartphone prices, as ASPs hit US$135 in 2014 and fall to US$102 by 2018. In contrast, ASPs in mature markets are not expected to change significantly and modestly higher shipment volumes will not drive up overall revenues as each generation of flagship phones shows less and less differentiation from its predecessors."

Smartphone reseller Gazelle sent customers an email Monday offering an extra $10 on top of trade-in prices for iPhone 4 and later models that are sold through its service before Dec. 5. Sample trade-in prices for phones in good condition -- versus broken or flawless -- were $30 for an unlocked 8 GB iPhone 4, $50 for a 16 GB iPhone 5c on the Sprint network, $55 for a 64 GB iPhone 5 on T-Mobile and $215 for a 32 GB iPhone 5s on Verizon. The newest releases, in 128 GB capacities, are bringing in $430 for the iPhone 6 and $480 for 6 Plus on AT&T, said the website. Unlocked versions of the 6 and 6 Plus were $480 and $530, it said. In its “Buy Certified” section, Gazelle was selling a 32 GB Verizon iPhone 5s for $359 in “good condition.” Gazelle defined good condition as “the screen is very good. There may be scuffs and scratches on the side or back. It's nothing that a cover can't hide.”