Adobe s Flash Lite is widely recognized as one of the most pervasive software platforms in the mobile market. It s fast penetrating the market of high-end phones and moving into mass-market phones in 2007 thanks to the Actimagine acquisition. Adobe is also expanding the mobile product line with Flash Home and winning important contracts with 3 Flash Cast operator deployments which were announced in 2007. Here are the facts and figures that provide more detailed peek into the Flash Lite phenomenon. These have been pulled together from Adobe s financial analyst meeting, several briefings with Adobe and other public sources.
Adobe $2,58B: Adobe revenue for FY2006, growing at 15% annually 37%: target non-GAAP operating margin for 2007 1.46%: proportion of Mobile & Devices contribution to total revenue for FY2006, which grew to 2.11% in1Q07 16: The number of products launched in March 2007 as part of the CS3 Suite, making this the biggest product launch in Adobe s 25 year history ( InDesign, Photoshop, Illustrator, Acrobat, Flash, Dreamweaver, Fireworks, Contribute, After Effects, Premiere Pro, Soundbooth, Encore, OnLocation, Ultra, Bridge and Device Central)
Flash Lite 220M: total Flash-Lite-enabled devices shipped by end of 2006 (includes mobile handsets, PDAs and consumer electronics) 194%: year-on-year growth for Flash-Lite-enabled devices shipped in 2005 and 2006. 200+: mobile handset models with Flash Lite embedded 100+: other embedded device models with Flash Lite embedded 16: Number of handset OEMs who have launched handsets supporting Flash Lite (Fujitsu, Hitachi, Kyocera, LG, Mitsubishi, Motorola, NEC, Nokia, Panasonic, Samsung, Sanyo, Sendo, Sharp, Siemens, Sony Ericsson and Toshiba) 2010: year when Adobe projects that Flash-Lite-enabled cumulative devices shipped with have reached the 1 billion mark 51%: target addressable market for Flash Lite in 2006 (approximate) 72%: target addressable market for Flash Lite in 2007 (approximate, Adobe forecast), based largely on technology acquired from Actimagine $0.20: average Flash Lite per-device royalty fee for 2006 paid by device manufacturers in 4Q06 $0: cost to download Flash Lite player for Symbian and Windows Mobile platforms (although re-distribution is forbidden)
Flash Lite in Japan 40%: proportion of Flash Lite-enabled device shipments in Japan for 2006 25%: penetration of Flash Lite handsets in the installed base 70%: penetration of Flash Lite handsets in the sales base
Flash Lite Commercial Traction 4: mobile operators actively supporting Flash Lite enabled devices (NTT DoCoMo, KDDI, Softbank, Verizon Wireless) 33: Nokia models shipping with Flash Lite embedded according to Adobe’s website 10-15: approximate number of S40 device models embedding Flash Lite 12: the number of Verizon handsets supporting Flash Lite (from manufacturers LG, Motorola, Samsung) China Mobile and Airtel: mobile operators who are launching Flash Lite content through their WAP portals. Lightmaker: the company who designed the idle screen, dialler and menu applications for the Samsung D900 based on Flash Lite. LG Prada: a designed phone which uses Flash Lite extensively throughout the user interface
Flash Lite Technology 1.5MB: size of Flash player for PCs [updated: this is dependent on product packaging – see here for size of Flash player versions 2 through 9] 400K: size of Flash Lite 2 for mobile devices 300K: the target size for Flash Home product, built on Flash Lite (based on the technology acquired from ActImagine) ARM 9 with 32/32MB ROM/RAM running at 150MHz: lowest-spec phone embedding Flash Lite, according to Adobe. BREW extensions: the technology Verizon uses to automatically download and install the Flash Lite player on 12 supporting handsets.
Flash Lite 3 Video: the main feature of the next release of Flash Lite 3 May 2007: when Flash Lite 3 is due to be released to handset manufacturers Christmas 2007: when Flash Lite 3 enabled devices will hit the stores.
Flash Cast :an on-device portal, client-server product based on Flash Lite. 2005: when Flash Cast was launched DoCoMo i-channel: the only deployment of Flash Cast in the first two years 10 million: the paying subscribers for DoCoMo s i-channel (reached in March 2007, 18 months after service launch) $5: approximate price per user per month for i-channel service $600 million: annualised NTT DoCoMo i-channel subscription revenues 3: The number of mobile operators who announced Flash Cast deployments in 2007 – Chungwa Telecom (Taiwan), Verizon Wireless (US) and Telenor (Sweden)
Flash Home :active idle screen product based on Flash Lite Feb 2007: when Flash Home was announced 2H07: when Flash Home code will be released to manufacturers 1H08: when supporting devices are expected to appear in the market 300KB: expected Flash Home code footprint (compared to 400K for Flash Lite 2.0).
[updates] Nokia recently announced that its Series 40 5th edition platform will ‘support’ Flash Lite 2.1. Although ‘support’ doesn’t mean ’embed’, Nokia’s announcement marks a transition from embedding Flash Lite on select Series 40 handsets only to platform-wide technology integration across Series 40. It also implies that Adobe trusts that Flash Lite can scale down to mass-market Series 40 handsets, probably thanks to Actimagine’s IP. It will be interesting to observe how Adobe’s per-unit revenues fare over the next year.
Comments/suggestions/improvements ? Let me know and I ‘ll add them in.
Andreas