As Samsung with its Galaxy S 2 and HTC with its brand new Android Sensation get set to do battle on the Telstra Next G Network, new research has revealed that consumers are turning off the iPhone as sales of the Apple device plunge in several countries including Australia.
Last night at an action packed event headlined by The Vines, who are an Australian alternative rock band originally formed as Rishikesh in 1994 in Sydney, HTC and Telstra rolled out their latest Android Gingerbread offering in an effort to steal share away from Apple which have seen its share of the smartphone market fall from 30.6 per cent to 18.3 per cent in a year.
At the same time, Android sales rose from 10.7 per cent to 45.2 per cent which bodes well for carries like Telstra, Vodafone and Optus which make more money selling an Android device than they do an Apple iPhone.
The latest market share figures for smartphone operating systems are from Kantar Worldpanel ComTech who said that Android is now the top OS in several countries including Australia.
According to Ben Hodgson, Country Manager for HTC, the new Sensation is the “best ever HTC handset.”
“I believe that after the consumer has played with this device they will realise that we have a superior handset.”
Grabbing a handset, he flicks through several images shot with the Sensation handset using the built in 8 megapixel camera and says, “Just look at the quality.”
In a stab at the brightness of the Samsung Galaxy S2 which has a large AMOLED screen he said, “It is not about the brightness it is about the quality and the definition you get using the Sensation.”
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He then flicked through new HTC Sense features such as social weather and stock updates that are viewed by simply turning on the display.
“This is where we differ from our competition. We have a superior software interface. Our new Sense offering lets people quickly jump to the most used features, like making a phone call, sending an email, or taking a picture with the flick of an icon.”
Hodgson said that he was convinced that HTC, which has had a record year in Australia, can take it up to their competition, in particular Samsung, “Because we have a superior offering.”
According to Andrew Vollard, Director Telstra Mobile Products, HTC has been good for the company.
“We have had a great year with HTC and the Sensation is simply sensational, we are expecting to grow our business this year with this handset. We have spent the last six months significantly expanding our network. We have taken on board a lot of new customers lately and it is vital that we are able to deliver the network experience they expect.”
He said that Telstra, which today will launch new Telstra One services that use widgets to deliver information content to a smartphone along with new HD Audio, will continue to differentiate their network offering.
While refusing to talk about overall market share, he said that the HTC Desire had been a “huge” success for Telstra, grabbing 24 per cent market share on the Telstra network.
He said that some 46 per cent of Australian mobile phone owners now have a smartphone up from 31 per cent last year and that this should grow to more than 60 per cent over the next 12 months.
For a review of the new HTC Sensation go to this link.
