Telstra has revealed the addition of almost one million new mobile services in the six months to December 2011, but Sensis revenues plummeted 24 percent in 12 months.
Is the big N in for a bad holiday season? Not according to analysts elsewhere.
When presented with the following Sony statement regarding the boost in PS3 sales; "The PlayStation 3 sold 121,000 units at retail for the month of October, Sony expects a great deal of momentum moving forward this holiday and beyond with the availability of new PS3 hardware and pricing. Based on internal data, the company is already seeing a great spike in sales with a 192 percent lift for the PS3 over the past two weeks." pcworld.com quoted analyst Jesse Divnich who poured water on the PS3 euphoria; "Although the grass may look greener on the other side, the market still questions Sony's ability to generate strong first-party sales -- a key factor to any console's success," he said. Party Pooper.
Perhaps the Wii is still struggling with getting units to shelves. It is a common thread reported worldwide. Check out the problems they are having in Belfast , as the Wii is considered the must-have product for Christmas.
"This is 'the' console for the whole family," according to Colin Watt, deputy manager of Smyths Toystore in Belfast. "It is not just for kids, it's for everyone. Anyone can play it - even mum and dad."
Supplies at Smyths had been steady right up until the end of September when organised shoppers began making inquiries. Since then the store has been inundated with requests and has had to pre-order a set number of consoles for customers.
John Oag from the Zavvi store (formerly Virgin) said his store was also reduced to pre-ordering for customers as Nintendo were allocating numbers to individual companies.
Yesterday the store received 30 consoles which were snapped up in 90 minutes.
He attributed the Wii's popularity to its "fun factor".
"I think the novelty factor of the Wii is what makes it so popular," he explained. "It has motion sensors which allows players to become more involved in the game, such as when you play tennis, the player has to move about in order to swing the racquet. Also the games are more 'old school' Nintendo games."
So where does that leave the poor old Microsoft Xbox 360, the one with the year head start, the excellent online service and the deep and ever broadening library of games?
Perhaps only Australians know the Xbox 360's charm, or perhaps it is due to the ever-perplexing exchange rate (PS3) and supply chain (Wii) conundrum that leads Australians to the Xbox 360.
Whatever it is, for Australians it seems the favoured current-generation console for the beach house this summer is the Xbox 360.
But that probably won't please Microsoft too much, Australian sales figure by comparison to other markets are minisclue. Compare the following week ending Nov 11 figures.
David Bass
| For the fourth year in a row, IDC has placed content security provider Websense (NASDAQ: WBSN) at the top of the IDC Worldwide Web Security 2011 –…
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