Nokia, the Finnish mobile phone manufacturer, has reported losses of 945 euros for the quarter to December 31st 2011, Sales were 21% down on the same period last year. Despite selling a very tidy 113.5 million handsets only 19 million of these were smartphones. Sales in units were 8% down on 2010.

Nokia have found life increasingly difficult since the heady days when they had a massive market share and were the market leader by a country mile. Competition from Apple, Samsung, HTC in particular have made life increasing tough. There is some good news. Sales of the Lumia are strong and it is hoped that this flagship model will improve the company’s position as we move through 2012.

Phones4U will be the first to stock the new LG Prada mobile phone. The handset has been made in conjunction with the Italian fashion house and does look amazing.

Sadly, Alpha Telecom have ceased trading and have called in administrators.

Apple’s success seems to be continuing a pace with records profits for q4 of last year. The company have announced that they made a profit of £8.35 billion in the last quarter of 2011 compared to £3.84 billion in the same period in 2010.

This success was down to the sales of a staggering 37 million iPhones and over 15 million iPads.

Wow – pretty amazing stuff. The company is neck and neck with Exon to become the USA’s largest company.

It looks very likely that the brand ‘Orange’ will disappear from the UK. The move will occur when Everything Everywhere who own Orange in the UK, along with T-Mobile, get rid of the two brands and promote the Everything Everywhere brand to replace them. Whilst the t-Mobile brand will probably not be missed by many, Orange on the other hand was one of the most successful brand launches  in UK corporate history.

The brand was launched in 1994 and used the mystery of a clever but simple slogan to gain prominence. The slogan ‘The future’s bright the futures Orange’ became somewhat iconic and much impersonated. Orange was launched by Hutchison telecom as a new player in the digital mobile phone revolution. The company floated in 1996 only to be purchased by Mannesmann in 1,999. The German company then sold Orange onto France Telecom in 2,000. In 2009 Orange merged with T-Mobile to form Everything Everywhere, the company initially said that both brands would continue under the EE umbrella, now this position has changed.

The change will cost millions, stores, shops, advertising websites, letterheads etc will all have to be changed. Some analysts are suggesting that this is a bad decision given how successful the brand has been.

Even on a smaller scale the cost of changing brands here at Insurance2go was significant when older brands of iphone insurance were brought under the insurance2go.co.uk umbrella.

The recent Consumer Electronic Show in Las Vegas last week didn’t really through up too many ground breaking ideas. The show was more about promoting existing ideas with a little bit of a new angle or twist. However, from all the coverage we’ve seen the thing that has made a big leap forward over the last 12 months is 3D printing.

This technology has been around for a while but it now seems that we could be on the cusp of a price break through which will allow small businesses and private individuals to buy their own 3D printer.

In short a 3D printer allows you to put your own design into a PC and when you press ‘Print’ then your 3D designed object will be made in front of your eyes.  The models available now are:

The Makerbot which costs in the region of $2,000, 3D systems costing $1,200 and the Sculpteo with various costs.

We believe that the products will become really mainstream over the next few years beginning as the sort of technology to be used by artists to sculpt their designs and component makers. The model s above use plastics but more sophisticated machines use a mixture of materials such as metals, resins, plastics etc.

Imagine the savings for component makers who would no longer need to hold stock but can simply ‘print’ an items when required. Or send over the programme file for it to be printed anywhere in the world where it is needed. The customer would then pay for the file, making intellectual property the item of great value.

Potentially this could change the world economic situation removing from the far East the competitive advantage of low salaries they have in manufacturing . If a company in the US or Europe wants to get its product made then they could simply ‘print’ them when an order comes in. At present they must order a set amount of product, pay for the products and wait for them to arrive. …..and then sell them. With printing as discussed above they could print when they have an order.

Missing from the CES show were Apple, although apparently there were 250 on the visitor lists. Next up is the Mobile world Conference in Barcelona, the folks from insurance2go will be there to pick up on all the lastest news from the world of mobile phones.

Orange are to launch their own brand Tablet in the UK. This might be seen as a ‘brave’ move given the lack of success all Tablets that aren’t iPads seem to have had. The news comes hot on the heels of the announcement from RIM that the Blackberry Playbook Tablet is be to heavily discounted. The new device will be called a Tahiti and use the Android Honeycomb Operating system, it has a 1.2 Ghz Qualcomm processor.

If you want to grab one for yourself you can at £69.99 on a £25 month contract for 24 months (total liability of £669). It features a 5 MP camera comes in Black or Silver and weighs 390g (an iPad 2 is about 600g).

The upfront price will certainly be attractive and could tempt new customers into buying a tablet device. At Insurance2go.co.uk we have certainly seen an increase in those taking out Tablet insurance over the Christmas period and in early January along with mobile phone insurance with the biggest take up on the iPhone.

There still seems to be a significant difference of opinion amongst users as to which operating system is best.

With the iPad 3 looming on the horizon and a host of other competitors in the marketplace it’ll be very interesting to see if Orange have made a prudent decision in launching their own branded model. We wonder if people trust the brand strongly enough over such well known manufacturers as Apple, Samsung RIM, and HTC. Time will tell.

Motorola, the US mobile manufacturer, is to launch two budget smartphones in February. The phones will be called Motoluxe and Defy Mini. The Motoluxe will have a 4 inch touchscreen and an 8 MP camera. The Defy Mini has a slightly smaller screen and is part of Motorola’s durable range. Time will tell if they can make an impact on the market leaders – the iPhone and the Samsung Galaxy range.

Naturally insurance2go.co.uk will be offering comprehensive mobile phone insurance on both models for all those wishing to protect their handset.

O2, the mobile network owned by the Spanish company Telefonica, have announced plans to create Europe’s largest Wi-Fi network in central London in time for the Olympics in 2012. The network will be installing the necessary equipment at points all around the London Boroughs of Westminster and Kensingston and Chelsea to create the zone. Further expansion is planned after the Olympics.

No taxpayers money is to be used in setting up the scheme. Nice move by O2, they will no doubt gain some excellent publicity from the scheme.

TalkTalk, the broadband provider, is to enter the mobile phone contract market following the appointment of Dan Meader as their new head of trading for the UK. Mr Meader previously spent 9 years at O2.

As per usual all mobiles can be protected by insurance2go who provide excellent mobile phone insurance. We look forward to the launch.

Disappointing news from RIM, the makers of Blackberrys, who have announced that the new Blackberry 10 handset will not be launched in quarter 1 of 2012 but later in the year. The company also reported that incomes for the quarter to the end of November 2011 will be $265 down from $911 in the same period in 2010.

The company needs to have a strong year in 2012 to compete with Apple, HTC, Samsung and a resurgent Nokia who have reported strong sales of the new Lumia handsets. The news of the delay of the new Blackberry 10 will not make this any easier.

In other news, despite the economic gloom in many countries, there are reported to be some reasonable sales of high end technology especially iPhones and Tablet computers. The sales of iPhone insurance and mobile phone insurance at www.insurance2go.co.uk remain strong and 20% up on 2010.

Apple, makers of the iconic iPhone series, took 42% of the UK Smartphone market over the last month. A great result for the company who just seem to go from strength to strength. Nokia had their official launch of their new Lumia 800 model last night with a spectacular light show beamed onto Millbank Tower in London. The New Lumia is seen as a bit of a watershed moment for the Finnish mobile maker who once could claim a market share of 70% but have seen this position eroded over the last 3 or 4 years.

New handsets are arriving on the market thick and fast at Christmas approaches. www.insurance2go.co.uk is seeing levels of people taking up policies for mobile phone insurance increase as we get nearer and nearer the Christmas break.