We've yet to see Palm or Sprint confirm these numbers, but a quote from JPMorgan found in a Wall Street Journal roundup this morning asserts that "sales [of the Pre] in the first two days probably exceeded 50,000." The report continues by mentioning that said figure was "aligned with expectations, but probably fell short of the 146,000 reported first-gen iPhone sales" during its opening weekend due to "capacity constraints in manufacturing." By and large, most analysts are deeming the Pre launch a success, though it's hard to say whether the suits at Palm and Sprint agree or disagree. No matter how you slice it, 50,000 units in a single weekend ain't nothing to scoff at, but we'd say next weekend's sales could be even more telling. You know, if anything goes down today at 1:00PM ET.

[Via ZDNet]

Update: A new WSJ report now says analyst ranges are between 50,000 and 100,000. Heck, maybe Palm sold eleventy billion.

See folks, this is the kind of mess you end up with after you gleefully do a deal with the devil. According to a roundup of reports over at Unwired View, three of Russia's major mobile operators could be looking at massive (we're talking hundreds of millions of bucks) fines if they can't sell through their iPhone allotments, and unless a significant market shift happens within the next few months, that situation seems remarkably unlikely. We're told that Vimpelcom pledged to sell 1.5 million iPhones within two years, while Megafon committed to 1 million and MTS the same. Today, just 900,000 iPhones have been imported to Russia, with over half entering the country via grey market channels; we'll let you figure out the math there, but it ain't pretty for Russia's carriers. Of course, we're not shocked in the least -- after getting burnt by a bootable-but-not-usable iPhone over there, are you seriously going to give Apple another chance to win you over?

[Thanks, Staska]

Take it from Garmin-Asus -- making a smartphone ain't exactly easy sauce. Regardless of the facts, ViewSonic has decided it prudent to jump head first into the tumultuous waters known only as "the smartphone industry," announcing today plans to create its very own offering that'll undoubtedly compete with the likes of HTC, Samsung, LG, Apple and the rest of the gang. The portfolio addition brings it a major step closer to realizing a "3- to 300-inch product line," but outside of a launch pattern, no details whatsoever were dished out. We're told that China will get the phone first, with Europe and the Americas following suit. We'll go ahead and start the vaporware watch now, just so we aren't caught off guard when there's nary a mention of this at CES 2010.

Truthfully, we wouldn't put too much stock in that headline considering that Samsung Mobile Display, a company that makes its ends off of selling active-matrix OLEDs, is the source. But on the other hand, we can definitely see it coming to fruition. According to a new report, said outfit has stated that OLED screens of some sort will be on over half of all mobile phones (not just smartphones, mind you) within the next five years, and that these same power-sipping displays will be on 20 percent of digital cameras and 30 percent of portable game players (PSP2, anyone?) within the same window of time. While it may seem a bit far-fetched now, we actually have good reason to believe that OLED adoption will indeed skyrocket on the small scale; it's those big screen TVs that we're worried only our grandchildren will truly enjoy.

[Via OLED-Info]

So, there's good news and bad news here, and we're opting to go against tradition by dishing out the positive first. Nokia just pushed out its Q1 2009 results, and while many firms have been struggling to stay afloat, at least it managed to turn a profit of €122 million ($160 million). That said, it's still looking at a staggering 90 percent drop in profits compared to its first quarter of 2008, where it raked in a mind-boggling €1.222 billion ($1.6 billion). Not surprisingly, sales were also down 27 percent to €9.28 billion ($12.2 billion) from €12.7 billion ($16.7 billion). Of course, Nokia's far from being alone in having to showcase less-than-beautiful Q1 numbers, but in reality, the damage could've been much worse; in fact, shares of the company's stock inched up by 8 percent following the reveal, as many had feared an even more significant decline. All in all, Nokia's still holding strong to a 37 percent market share worldwide, and if CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo has anything to do with it (hint: he does), things should be on the up and up here soon.

[Via BBC]

We'd already heard that right about now was a great time to be in the prepaid cell business, and that's being proven quite definitively by MetroPCS' Q1 subscriber results. We're told that the firm saw a net addition of 684,000 customers in the first three months of 2009, representing an astounding 51 percent increase year-over-year. While celebrating mightily, the company also saw fit to introduce a "one-call communication solution targeted at families and friends who are trying to save money in today's economy by 'cutting the cord' and replacing their landline telephones with wireless phones." Said "landline replacer" is called GroupLINE, which enables up to five MetroPCS Family Plan subscribers to receive calls on a shared GroupLINE number while still maintaining their individual mobile numbers -- all for just $5 per month. So, anyone looking to tighten the belt by going prepaid? Your options are getting good.

[Via GigaOM]

Read - MetroPCS results
Read - GroupLINE launch

So, what's a flagging cellular operator to do once it has succumbed to the grim realization that no one wants to sign up for your service and you've already collected the dough from selling off nearly all of your towers? Go wholesale, of course! Unbeknownst to most, all of the Kindle downloads on Amazon's white-hot e-reader go through Sprint's network, and given just how successful that little venture has been, the carrier is hoping to expand its revenues from wholesaling bandwidth (which currently sits at just 3 percent of its total) by inking similar deals with connected gadget makers. From internet-connected vehicles to GPS systems to cameras, the options are darn near limitless, and with so much free capacity on Sprint's network, it might as well find companies to use it. 'Course, it's not like Sprint's the only one out there trying to carve these kinds of deals into stone, but it's definitely the one that needs to do it most immediately.

Quite honestly, we can't imagine now as being an awesome, jovial time to be heading up any division of Sony Ericsson. Thus, we're not too awfully shocked to hear that Najmi Jarwala, President of Sony Ericsson USA and Head of Region North America (comprising the US and Canada markets), has decided to leave his corner office at the end of March in order to "pursue other career opportunities." The announcement comes just a weekend after SE proclaimed that its Q1 sales were down some 50 percent, and with the outfit's somewhat lackluster showing at MWC (Idou notwithstanding), we can't imagine things magically turning around in the near future. At any rate, Anders Runevad (pictured), Executive VP and Head of Global Sales & Marketing will be taking over until a successor is named, and that's assuming anyone is willing to walk into such a severely precarious situation.

[Via MobileBurn]

Great job, thief. Just days after Telstra CEO Sol Trujillo had his HTC handset stolen at Mobile World Congress, the guy has decided that enough is enough. All kidding aside, Sol Trujillo has indeed announced his intentions to vacate his seat and return home to the United States. During his four years as head honcho, the Australian operator has managed to do quite well for itself, and as they say, there's no better time to leave than while on top. He has vowed to keep pressing on until June 30th, after which he'll hop a (presumably first class) flight back to the US of A and watch Telstra attempt to fill his shoes -- probably from a sweet shack in Key West, if we had to guess.

Here's a concept: sell cheap, low-margin phones while the economy is in the dumps in order to grow market share. Brilliant, right? Believe it or not, that's the idea that's being pushed around at LG headquarters, as the company has revealed a goal of increasing its global handset market share to at least 10 percent during this year. The company does expect profits to shrink over the course of 2009, but it's still hoping for a high single-digit percent profit margin on mobiles, against 11 percent in 2008. According to Skott Ahn, President and CEO of Mobile Communications at LG: "Developed markets will definitely suffer some contraction, but there's a chance for growth in first-time buyers in emerging markets." So, what does LG really have to do to hit 10 percent? Maintain its sales volume at 2008's level, which was moving some 100.7 million across the globe.

Way back in 2006, there was quite a bit of hubbub surrounding Cingular's decision to sell / not sell 3G phones in 2G areas, and now it seems that AT&T is looking seriously at how to move on beyond the latter. According to a leaked email sent within the AT&T organization, there's currently a phase-out plan that will lower prices on select 2G dumbphones, with the expectation that 3G handsets will be gently pushed on consumers jonesing for one of those older pieces. Of course, we get the feeling that this is just the tip of the iceberg, and moreover, it's probably more to do with getting rid of 2G phones than 2G technology. Heck, LTE isn't even here yet -- do you really expect a sluggish corporation such as this to be that on the ball?

So, how does one successfully snatch away market share from Telstra and Optus? If you're Hutchison or Vodafone, you merge! Announced today, two of Australia's smaller operators have decided that an equal joint venture would be the best approach to moving on up, and while they aren't suggesting that the current economic conditions influenced the decision, many analysts are suggesting that the tie-up could help the newly formed VHA fend off adverse effects from slowed spending on mobile communications. Once together, the combined group will have a local market share of around 26 percent, and Hutchison Australia's current chief executive, Nigel Dews, has been chosen to lead the new venture. Under the agreement, VHA will market its products and services under the Vodafone brand, though it will retain exclusive rights to Hutchison's "3" brand in The Land Down Under.

[Via MobileBurn]

Given just how poorly most every other carrier company has been doing, we can't imagine the suits at NTT DoCoMo frowning about this. The Japanese wireless carrier has just outed its earnings for the nine months ending December 2008, and while the tail end was expectedly less-than-awesome, the nine month snapshot wasn't too shabby. Net income slipped 30 percent in October to December to $1.01 billion compared to $1.45 billion in the same window a year earlier, but a 16 percent increase in net profit (from $4.2 billion to $4.8 billion) was realized in the April to December '08 time frame. Moving forward, the company noted that its ongoing strategy was to "cut back on handset subsides and put the savings toward reducing tariffs had helping the company to retain customers" -- a mantra that was shared a few months earlier. For those hungry for more data points, give that read link a poke.

You've had a nice run, 2G, but the time has come to start looking beyond to bigger, better and (most importantly) faster things. With LTE just over the horizon, NTT DoCoMo is proactively announcing the phase out of its mova and DoPa 2G services. The 2G mova services encompass car phone and Pre-Call prepaid -- which got their roots in March of 1993 -- while the 2G DoPa packet communication service sprouted up four years after that. Both of these longtime favorites will be disconnected at the close of 2012, with the company noting that "associated services and related billing plans will also be terminated at the same time." Anyone still relying on this stuff will be contacted sometime over the next three years to ensure that they aren't shocked and surprised when December 2012 arrives, and they'll be encouraged to make the not-at-all-painful shift to FOMA 3G services. It's better in the fast lane, we promise.