Mobile Fridays 1/26/12

It’s time for Mobile Fridays where we update you with the latest news in the mobile space that has been released throughout the week!

RIM CEOs Step Down

On Monday, Research In Motion’s co-CEOs Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis announced that they would step down from their current positions to hand the throne off to COO Thorsten Heins. Heins has been with the company for four years and previously served as Siemens AG’s CTO. The newly appointed RIM CEO has stated that he plans on sticking with the roadmap that Balsillie and Lazaridis had laid out for the company and plans on focusing on the core BlackBerry products. The company has officially announced that its BlackBerry 10 devices would not appear until the end of the year and that the PlayBook would not release a software update until February.

US Mobile Ad Spend To Reach $2.6B in 2012

According to a new forecast from eMarketer, mobile ad spend is expected to reach $2.6 billion in the United States in 2012. Forecasts depict that mobile ad spend will increase 80 percent from 2011 due to successful mobile ad performance networks. Competition for these ad networks are also expected to increase in 2012 as mobile advertising will be hot due to companies dumping more money into this new channel in order to communicate their messages to their target demographics. Previously eMarketer had reported that mobile advertising would generate $1.8 billion in 2012 but has adjusted its predictions based on the success of mobile ad networks. The increased predictions of ad spend on mobile are proof that mobile advertising is one of the most rapidly growing segments of mobile and that consumers are actually interacting with mobile ads.

Android Has 39% Share of Tablet Shipments in Q4

There is no doubt that Apple controls the tablet market when it comes to most units sold, however Android is making moves to compete with Apple in the tablet os industry. The latest research from Strategy Analytics confirms that the total amount of tablets sold globally reached 27 million units in the fourth quarter of 2011. Of those 27 million units, 39 percent were powered by Android os. Still, Apple is the tablet os leader with 58 percent market share. However, Apple’s lead is quickly diminishing with the strong presence of Google as the search engine giant continues to partner with consumer electronic manufacturers. Microsoft captured 1 percent of the globalt tablet share in Q4 of 2011 but with the release of Windows 8, Windows plans on competing more effectively in the tablet industry.

Apple Beats Out Samsung for Smartphone Supremacy

On Wednesday, buzz around the tech space pointed to Apple as the world’s largest smartphone manufacturer. According to analysts who reviewed the newly released data, Apple has knocked off Samsung from the top spot by a relatively sizable margin. In the last three months of 2011 alone, Apple has sold 37 million iPhones while Samsung only sold 35 million smartphones. Nokia has yet to reveal their sales results but analysts are expecting the company to place third after Apple and Samsung.