A Foolish Week of Telecom: Alcatel Lucent SA (ADR) (ALU), France Telecom SA (ADR) (FTE)

No. 5 is No. 1 in the 4th Q
Apple’s iPhone 5 was the best selling smartphone in the world in the fourth quarter of 2012, according to Strategy Analytics. The iPhone 4S was the second best selling smartphone.

Apple sold 27.4 million units of the iPhone 5 in the quarter, to shoot well ahead of the Samsung handset, which sold 15.4 million. The iPhone 4S sold 17.4 million units.

Global market share breaks down like this: The iPhone 5 and the iPhone 4S made up 20.6% of global smartphone sales in the fourth quarter. That’s a jump from their 12.9% share in the third quarter.

The Galaxy S3 share dropped from 10.4% in Q3, to 8% in Q4.

Smartphones for the senior set
France Telecom’s Orange unit will start selling Fujitsu smartphones in Europe this June. There are two things notable about this.

First, this will be the first serious attempt by Fujitsu to sell its smartphones outside of Japan.

And second, the particular model handset for France Telecom-Orange, the Stylistic S01, will offer features that will make it more suitable for the demographic that has not as yet taken up smartphones en masse — the golden oldies.

To minimize inadvertent screen swipes, the Stylistic S01 will have a touch screen that will require the same amount of pressure to use as would a physical keypad button. The phone’s interface will also have a simplified layout with extra-large icons.

And, for the “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up crowd,” the handset will come with a loud personal security alarm.

Sleep texting
I wouldn’t believe it, but I read it on the web … so it must be true, right?

According to the Philadelphia CBS affilate KWY-TV’s website, Villanova University nursing professor  Elizabeth Dowdell has found evidence that teenagers not only text while awake, but also while asleep. According to Dowdell:

The phone will beep, they’ll answer the text. They’ll either respond in words or gibberish. (It) can even be inappropriate. Ex-girlfriends contacting ex-boyfriends, saying ‘I miss you. I want to see you.’ The thing that happens, though, is that when they wake up, there’s no memory.

OMG.

The article A Foolish Week of Telecom originally appeared on Fool.com and is written by Dan Radovsky.

Fool contributor Dan Radovsky has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool recommends Apple and France Telecom (ADR). The Motley Fool owns shares of Apple and France Telecom (ADR).

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