LG #3 in Phone Sales; RIM Talks Apps, "Music 2.0"

LG overtook Motorola in 2008 to become the third largest handset maker on the planet. Meanwhile, RIM opens the BlackBerry Application Storefront for submissions.

Motorola, once the unquestioned leader of the cellphone world, is now number four. According to Digitimes, the struggling cellphone maker has fallen from the third spot to fourth, losing out to rival LG. While "official" numbers are yet to be seen, the estimated sales figures for 2008 are. Nokia continues its handset domination with approximately 470 million phones sold. Samsung is a very distant second with 200 million, followed by LG, Motorola and Sony Ericsson with 100 million, 99.9 million and 96.6 million respectively. In other terms, Nokia held down a 48.6 percent market share amongst the top five phone makers, while Motorola represents about 10.3 percent.

So far, 2009 has not been kind to Motorola. While seeing its standing slip to fourth, along with sales numbers on the decline, Moto announced last week that it would be laying off 4,000 of its employees starting immediately. That represents approximately six percent of its global workforce, and 3,000 of the laid off employees will be from the handset division. This along with the company announcing a loss of seven to eight cents per share makes for some pretty glum times at Motorola.

In other cellphone news, RIM is taking the wraps off of its Application Storefront. Much like the App Store for Apple and its iPhone/iPod Touch, the Storefront will allow for independently created applications to be submitted to RIM. If approved, they will be made available for several different BlackBerry devices. Submissions to the Storefront can now be made, but the feature won't be launched until next month.

Of course, it's rarely that simple. During a RIM-sponsored event across the pond in Cannes, co-CEO Jim Balsillie hyped up the new service along with "Music 2.0". 

“We’ve moved to [music] 2.0, where music is undergoing a radical transformation and it creates a remarkable new opportunity for content owners to monetize their content. BlackBerry is already very music centric, what were talking about now is our platform,” said Balisille. “We’re ingesting apps now and it goes online in March. It has a billing engine and is a channel for developers - you’ll see dozens of music apps.”

With so much talk about music, it's natural for most to draw a comparison to the elephant in the room, right? Wrong. “We are the overwhelming market leaders and we’ve been in the smartphone business for years. The Storm is a BlackBerry with different packaging, not a competitor of iPhone.” While Balsillie may not want to keep the Storm in the same category as the iPhone, a lot of consumers do. Trying to separate the two is like trying to separate the Nintendo Wii and Sony PlayStation 3. Regardless, both the Storm and the iPhone are capable machines, so comparison or not, we can definitely look forward to some interesting apps for RIM's Storefront.

http://www.boygeniusreport.com/2009/01/14/motorola-confirms-rumors-of-layoffs-4000-to-be-affected-in-2009/

http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/20/rim-opens-the-blackberry-application-storefront-says-its-going/

http://www.boygeniusreport.com/2009/01/19/balsillie-look-out-iphone-rim-is-gonna-shake-up-mobile-music/