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What Got Buzz at Mobile World Congress?

Now that Mobile World Congress has wrapped, a number of digital analytics firms have parsed the data on social networks and blogs to determine which smartphones, tablets, operating systems and brands received the most buzz – and whether that chatter was positive or negative, in some cases.

A few general trends that were revealed included the following: nearly equal buzz for tablets and phones, Android’s domination of the OS buzz on both phones and tablets, and Samsung and HTC coming out on top as the most buzzed about device manufacturers.  Do these trends match up with your experiences from attending or reading about Mobile World Congress and its related news?

Top Brands

According to leading analytics firm Webtrends, which analyzed trends by day and overall, the top three most buzzed about brands during Mobile World Congress were (in order):

  1. Samsung
  2. Google
  3. HTC

Samsung was in the top spot on Monday (with 32% of buzz), thanks to its Sunday night announcement of new Galaxy S phones and a new Galaxy Tab computer. But on Tuesday, HTC beat Samsung (leading with 30.8% of buzz) after it revealed new phones with Facebook built in by way of an on-device, hardware button for posting to the social network. It also revealed a new tablet with a digital pen.

However, Samsung won as the overall most-buzzed about brand at Mobile World Congress 2011, says Webtrends, after having already won the brand buzz at CES 2011 in January. Google was second, thanks to its popular Android mobile platform and HTC came in third overall. Meanwhile, Chinese brands Huawei and ZTE had a very low amount of buzz in the English language buzz Webtrends was tracking.

Top Tablets

Tablets came close to beating out phones at this year’s event, with 47.7% of buzz compared with 52.3% for handsets. That’s impressive, says Webtrends, considering that Apple launched the iPad only 10 months ago.

Webtrends says the tablets category was dominated by two devices: the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 and the LG Optimus 3D. Apple’s iPad, and specifically speculation about its new features, allowed it to achieve its #3 position despite the fact that Apple itself has no presence at the event. HP’s Touchpad, launched prior to MWC 2011, didn’t receive much viral buzz.

The buzz associated with tablet brands was as follows:

  1. LG Optimus – 29.4%
  2. Samsung Galaxy Tab – 25.1%
  3. Apple iPad – 19.5%
  4. HTC Flyer – 11.8%
  5. RIM PlayBook – 10.6%
  6. HP Touchpad – 3.4%

Top Phones

In smartphone buzz, there were three leaders from the event, each with unique innovations of their own. First, the Samsung Galaxy S II announcement revealed a 4.27″ Super AMOLED Plus screen and extra-thin form factor. 3D capture and playback became available with LG’s new Optimus 3D phone and Playstation gaming arrived on Sony Ericsson’s Xperia Play.

Apple’s iPhone 4 also managed to get a lot of buzz, thanks to its win of “Best Mobile Device” at Mobile World Congress 2011.

According to Webtrends, these phones from Mobile Word Congress led the buzz:

  1. Samsung Galaxy – 23.7%
  2. Xperia Play – 18.4%
  3. iPhone 4 – 16.2%
  4. Optimus – 15.9%
  5. ChaCha – 6.0%
  6. Salsa – 5.9%
  7. Desire S – 5.8%
  8. Xperia Arc – 2.8%
  9. Iconia Smart – 2.1%
  10. Skate – 1.8%
  11. Ideos X3 – 1.5%

Top Mobile Operating Systems

Among OS buzz, Android won hands down, says Webtrends. (We have to wonder how much buzz was actually related to the scavenger hunt for the adorable Android collector pins that quickly became the hit of the show.)

Webtrends says Android’s win is mainly due to the fact that Apple doesn’t attend major shows. Windows Phone 7 received a fair amount of buzz, attributable to the Nokia partnership announcement, but Symbian and Palm fell flat.

  1. Android 55.6%
  2. iOS – 20.5%
  3. Win 7 – 18.8%
  4. Symbian 3.7%
  5. Palm 1.5%

A Second Opinion

A second firm called Integrasco also measured buzz for MWC 2011, but didn’t separate buzz by phones and tablets. For day 1, it found that the top products (in order, by buzz) were the Samsung Galaxy S II, Sony Ericsson Xperia Play, LG Optimus 3D, Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1, LG Optimus Pad, Sony Ericsson Xperia Neo, Sony Ericsson Xperia Pro and the Motorola Droid Pro.

Day 2 buzz according to Integrasco went to (again, in order): LG Optimus 3D, Xperia Neo, Xperia Play, Galaxy S II, Xperia Pro, Motorola Droid Pro, LG Optimus Pad and Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1.

Integrasco said the buzz for the Galaxy S II was largely positive, and over half the discussions related to the phone’s “top-notch hardware.” Also receiving positive buzz was the Xperia Play (the PlayStation phone), LG’s Optimus 3D phone and the Galaxy Tab 10.1.

Sentiment around the LG Optimus Pad was mixed, due to disappointment that glasses-free 3D support was not available when viewing videos and the tablet seemed to attract fingerprints on its glossy screen. Other devices with mixed sentiment included the Xperia Neo, Xperia Pro and Droid Pro.

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