Handango Yardstick Q1 2007
Handango have just released their Yardstick for Q1 2007. Apart from the Motorola Q which is at the top of the chart, little else has changed since 2006.
As with the 2006 statistics, I remain curious as to why the top sellers by revenue and by units sold don’t include any Symbian devices. In previous years Sony Ericsson UIQ and one or two S60 devices usually made the top 10.
Previously, when looking at the 2006 statistics, I thought that one reason why this might be was that new Symbian 9.1 devices didn’t ship until mid 2006. The possibility was that people held off buying obsolete hardware and software. However, the latest statistics are for Q1 2007 when these devices were shipping in large numbers.
I also previously showed the differing number of new titles across the platforms and that fewer developers were developing for Symbian. I now think this may be the main reason my Handango didn’t sell as much Symbian software.
So why aren’t developers choosing to develop for Symbian OS? First of all, its much easier to develop for Windows Mobile (the Motorola Q). Secondly, while Symbian and Windows Mobile devices both implement varying degrees of application install locking, the latter one can be defeated by the user.
So why doesn’t Symbian allow the end user to defeat the platform security? Because the network operators are less keen on carrying (application) unlocked phones. It’s for this reason (and a few others) that many more network operators are taking on S60 and UIQ phones than Motorola Qs. If it’s a case of selling more phones or placating 3rd party developers then phone OEMs are obviously going to take the more profitable route.
It’s not necessarily the end of the road for Symbian 3rd party developers. The up side of all of this is much increased device sales volumes - that creates a large potential market if developers can see beyond the immediate barriers.
4 May Update: Thomas Bailey thinks low Handango Symbian sales may be due to sales occurring via other channels - Motricity application shop and the Nokia Software Market.
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