Samsung Electronics reportedly plans to open its Bada mobile operating system to other manufacturers and software developers in 2012, a measure to accelerate growth of the smartphone platform while also distancing the company from its reliance on Google’s (NASDAQ:GOOG) Android OS.

Citing a source familiar with Samsung’s plans, The Wall Street Journal reports the company has no plans to acquire a software company or mobile operating system, instead betting it can expand Bada beyond smartphones to so-called smart TVs and other connected devices by opening the platform to partners. The approach worked famously for Google, which made Android available as an open-source platform at launch–roughly three years later, Android is the largest mobile OS worldwide, commanding 48 percent of the global smartphone market according to data issued last month by Canalys. (Samsung is presently the world’s largest Android vendor, Canalys adds.)

Samsung introduced Bada in late 2009, targeting Europe and emerging markets. The manufacturer has not yet introduced a Bada device for the U.S. market. According to market research firm Gartner, Bada powered 1.9 percent of all smartphones sold globally in the second quarter.

“Hardware vendor-controlled platforms that move from closed to open do not have a great track record in the past. Nokia (NYSE:NOK) failed dismally with Symbian, for example,” Strategy Analytics analyst Neil Mawston tells the WSJ. “For Samsung to be successful with opening Bada it will need to be launched in the United States market, because that is where the most powerful developers and consumers are found. If Bada does not get traction in the huge U.S. market, then the odds will be stacked against success.”

Samsung’s future plans and continued commitment to Android have been the subject of considerable speculation in recent weeks, especially in the wake of Google’s agreement to acquire Motorola Mobility (NYSE:MMI) for roughly $12.5 billion. Google has promised Android will remain open, but analysts speculate that manufacturers building Android devices may not enjoy the same technological support and access given to Motorola once the company is absorbed into the Google family.

There’s also the question of whether Samsung wants to continue mortgaging its future on Android when the platform is facing so many questions over patent rights. Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) has already targeted Samsung with legal action, alleging that its Android products copy Apple designs and is seeking a worldwide sales ban–Samsung has responded with a countersuit of its own, contending Apple is in violation of its wireless technology patents.

Samsung recently denied reports it would bid to acquire Hewlett-Packard’s webOS mobile platform. “It’s not right that acquiring an operating system is becoming a fashion,” Samsung CEO Choi Gee Sung said during the recent IFA consumer electronics show in Berlin, adding the company is working to boost its software capabilities “harder than people outside think.”

Separately, Samsung Telecommunications America named former Sprint Nextel (NYSE:S) executive Kevin Packingham to be its new senior vice president of product innovation. Packingham, who was at Sprint for 11 years before becoming CEO of lobbying and consulting firm Amerilink Telecom, replaces Omar Khan, who left Samsung in July to head Citigroup’s mobile solutions business.

By Jason Ankeny

There are two new pieces of research that illustrate the problem. First, research2guidance, which has published a report comparing the average daily downloads per app on various stores, taking Apple’s App Store as the benchmark. The report claims that “apps on Nokia’s Ovi Store had 2.5 times higher download numbers in Q2 2011 compared to apps on Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) App Store”: 160% more average daily downloads per app.

Microsoft’s Windows Marketplace was 80% up on the App Store by the same analysis, with RIM’s BlackBerry App World up 43%. Google’s Android Market was down slightly (5%), while stores from Samsung, LG (SEO: 066570), GetJar and Palm (NYSE: HPQ) were further down.

Here’s the company’s chart:

Mobile app downloads should top 144% growth this year. That translates to 18 billion downloads. Last year the already impressive figure was 7.4 billion downloads.

If the current growth rate is maintained we will see close to 40 billion downloads a year by 2016 !

And this isn’t just free downloads. Premium downloads are set to reach $3.7 billion by year end. That is a exponential growth of 92% over last year.

Everyone wants to make their mobile site/app more relevant and useful. This helps to build traffic, increase time on site, improve search engine rankings, convert site visitors into actual sales, attract more advertisers et cetera. Providing excellent, accurate and oft-updated content that is relevant for your mobile customer is a major part of the mix.

Government initiatives in many countries to provide public access to information have provided an abundance of data sources that can transform mobile sites/apps, including travel, traffic, weather, locations of public buildings and crime statistics. Mostly this data is free to use and increasingly it is available in formats – e.g. RSS data feeds, widgets and APIs (application-programming interface) – that make it easier for developers to incorporate the service into their mobile site or app.

As mobiThinking was surfing the various government data sites – all listed below – as part of the research for The Mobile City Project, it was striking just how much untapped potential there is to make really useful mobile sites/apps, whatever business you are in.

Some government data sites give examples of mobile sites/apps that have been created using this publicly available information, but these really are the tip of the iceberg. See these examples from the US, Singapore, Norway and UK.

Data providers are actively encouraging third parties to develop sites/apps using these resources. After all it is a great way of delivering information to the people, without the need to do the publicity work or answer queries themselves. The mobile showcases are part of this process, as is the ideas section on the UK site where people can suggest ideas for useful apps to which developers can help themselves. And it is not uncommon to see competitions to encourage developers.

This isn’t a big secret, but most businesses/agencies/developers remain unaware of this gold mine of free information, or have failed to appreciate the opportunity this offers for developing relevant mobile services. With resources like these, there really isn’t any excuse for lowest-common-denominator mobile sites or disposable novelty mobile apps.

In the course of saying last week that Samsung Electronics would “never” buy webOS from Hewlett-Packard, Samsung CEO Choi Gee Sung also made some rather open-ended comments regarding the company’s software options and capabilities. He said that “it’s not right that acquiring an operating system is becoming a fashion,” and that Samsung is working to boost its software capabilities “harder than people outside think.”

Samsung spokesman Kim Titus clarified further: “As we move forward, our software capabilities are going to become even more visible as we strive to marry software, hardware and content to provide a richer experience.”

What do these comments mean for the world’s second-largest handset maker and, perhaps soon, the largest smartphone maker? There are multiple paths Samsung might take and if the company executes on its plans, it could vault ahead of its rivals.

At the minimum, the comments suggest that Samsung has realized that it is no longer enough to produce dazzling hardware. Samsung is also probably going to focus its software capabilities on a few key areas rather than spreading its resources too thin.

“Samsung’s operating system strategy in the past has been to bet on every horse in the race, and that way you can’t lose,” said Current Analysis analyst Avi Greengart. “The problem is you can’t win that way either.”

Here are the main options for Samsung:

• Android: Samsung has made a killing by going big with Google’s  Android platform, thanks in large part to the runaway success of its Galaxy S and Galaxy S II devices, and its position is envied by the likes of LG, Motorola Mobility and Sony Ericsson. However, Samsung’s TouchWiz UI does not have the same kind of cachet that HTC’s Sense has with users and enthusiasts. Analysts said Samsung will likely invest to change that, and to deepen users’ connection to their devices. This is especially true for Samsung’s burgeoning line of Galaxy Tab tablets. “We have yet to see anything that looks like the level of customization in the tablet UI side like we have on handset side,” said Forrester Research analyst Charles Golvin. Samsung will not just be making UI tweaks but will likely look to more fully integrate Android with its Media Hub services for movies, music and books.

• bada: Another option is for Samsung to further invest in the capabilities of its homegrown bada operating system, which it has pushed largely in Asia and Europe. The company introduced three new bada devices recently at the IFA consumer electronics show in Berlin, and as my colleague Mike Dano pointed out earlier this year, bada has a lot going for it, and analysts say it is gaining traction overseas. Samsung is not going to abandon bada–it’s a significant hedge against Android and  Microsoft’s Windows Phone–and while it will continue to add capabilities to the platform, the company is likely not going to undertake an all-out effort to make bada a platform to compete head-to-head with Android and iOS. Samsung would need to convince both developers and operators that the ecosystem is large enough and worth developing for and would have to undertake a massive marketing campaign to raise awareness. “It’s a pretty serious investment,” Golvin said. “I’m not sure they’re willing to make it.”

• Cloud: The most obvious software area for Samsung to innovate with is in cloud services. Apple realized that it was falling behind Android in the cloud, which is why it unveiled its iCloud suite. Samsung will need to beef up its own cloud services–especially related to media and content distribution–if it wants to remain competitive. Enhancing its cloud services could also help it integrate its mobile and TV products by streamlining media sharing. However, others are not standing still. HTC’s August purchase of cloud sync firm Dashwire and its earlier investments in content delivery platform provider Saffron Digital and cloud gaming company OnLive made its cloud ambitions clear. Who knows what Google will do if, and when, it acquires Motorola? If Samsung is going to be at the vanguard in smartphones, it needs to be up in the cloud.

Why does all of this matter? The combination of customizing Android and Samsung’s cloud services and Media Hub could help it deliver a more immersive user experience from a software perspective. Golvin said these enhancements are “elemental” to maintaining brand loyalty, which will be especially important as more people pick their first smartphones and tablets in the years ahead. If Samsung–or any vendor for that matter–can get a consumer to buy into, enjoy and identify with a particular mobile user experience, they will have gone a long way to strengthening long-term brand loyalty.

“Alongside cloud services, which they still have a long way to develop, those UI components are going to be real important elements of maintaining their customer base, so they have to continue to invest in that,” Golvin said.

Gartner analyst Michael Gartenberg said it’s all about how well Samsung executes its software plays at this point. But if the company can rival HTC in terms of user experience and develop more robust cloud capabilities, then other smartphone players better watch out, because Samsung will become more of a juggernaut than it already is.–Phil

Twenty-eight percent of American adults use their mobile phones to access location-based mobile and social services according to a new survey issued by the Pew Internet & American Life Project.

Click here to see a larger version of this chart from Pew.

Twenty-eight percent of all U.S. mobile subscribers (translating to 23 percent of adults) rely on their phones to get directions or recommendations based on their current location, Pew reports. Only 5 percent of users/4 percent of adults use geo-social services like foursquare and Gowalla to check in at local destinations, although 9 percent of Internet users/7 percent of adults have set up their social media profiles across platforms including Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn to automatically include their whereabouts in their posts on those services.

Pew adds that usage rises when the study focuses exclusively on smartphone owners. Fifty-five percent of smartphone users have accessed a location-based information service, and one in 10 have used a geo-social check-in tool.

Pew also notes the popularity of geo-social services and automatic tagging options vary significantly across demographics. A quarter of Hispanic smartphone owners leverage geo-social services and 31 percent enable automatic location tagging. And while only 7 percent of white smartphone owners use geo-social services, 59 percent access location-based information on their phones, a larger percentage than the 53 percent of blacks and 44 percent of Hispanics.

Cricket Communications, a subsidiary of Leap Wireless, announced its first Muve Music-enabled Android phone. The service, available for $65 a month, brings Leap’s unlimited music option to prepaid smartphones.

Samsung Vitality

Cricket launched Muve Music’s unlimited music offering for feature phones earlier this year for $55 per month. The new service will allow users who purchase the new Samsung Vitality, operating on the Android 2.3 Gingerbread platform, or another Android-powered phone Cricket to download an unlimited number of full-track downloads of their choosing directly to the phone. The service includes unlimited text, talk and web.

Leap has managed to double the number of Muve users to 200,000 in just two months.

“We saw within our customer base a real love of music but weren’t having a very good experience with digital music services. That became a unique opportunity to do something innovative in the space with the customers that had never been done for,” said Cricket vice president and general manager of Muve Music, Jeff Toig, in an interview withFierceMobileContent.

“The existing digital music world was build for the computer and ported to the phone and not a customer who is enabled for a cash ecosystem,” said Toig.

Toig explained that Muve felt confident about moving into the mobile music space after the success it had selling ringtones and saw this as an opportunity for growth. Customers were downloading over 400 songs a month, Toig reported, over Leap’s 3G service.

“We created this as a download service not as a streaming service because a download service is a better experience and better on the network,” said Toig.

Unlike with Apple’s iTunes or Amazon’s music store, the Muve service does not require a user to have a credit card. The music service is billed as part of the overall wireless service so the “customer feels like it is free in their plan,” said Toig.

Following in the footsteps of other music services like Spotify, Muve Music formed partnerships with the major record labels including Universal Music Group, Warner Music  Group, Sony Music Entertainment and EMI Music.

Also of note is that Muve’s service can be used internationally. Toig confirmed that since music is downloaded directly to the device, usually in 10-20 seconds, rather than streaming from a separate server, the music can be played even in areas without wireless service or in other countries.

“As long as I’ve got my phone I’ve got my service. So if you are paying your bill you get all your features,” explained Toig. “If you have paid your bill on the first day of the month, and on the tenth day of the month your phone will work, even if you are overseas. It’s easy.”

Leap Wireless competitor, MetroPCS  announced an all-you-can-eat ad-free music service in August in partnership with Rhapsody.

“I will say any time a competitor tries to copy your innovation, you know you’re onto something good. As a headline it’s flattering that they’re rushing to produce something similar,” said Toig.

The service plans to launch nationwide later in 2011.

Mobile app market exchange appbackr has revealed it has now sold US$1 million worth of apps through its marketplace and has been seeing quarterly sales growth of 149 percent.

appbackr is a developer and backer community founded in 2010 that provides funding and distribution for the most innovative mobile apps. Developers work with appbackr to secure funding to finance their app development work and then to market and distribute the finished apps. Backers can pre-buy wholesale copies of apps and receive retail revenues when apps go on sale.

The company has also unveiled its SmartApps algorithm-based analytics tool for identifying and predicting which Android – and soon iPhone – apps have the greatest potential to make it big on the marketplace. SmartApps combines reviews, presale data and comparative analytics to obtain the results.

Using this tool, the company has come up with the Android Smart10 which lists the apps with the greatest potential. An iPhone Smart10 is due next month.

MTS, Russia’s largest mobile operator, claims that its range of own-brand devices makes it the country’s fifth-largest handset vendor, the firm’s VP and Chief Commercial Officer, Mikhail Gerchuk, told Mobile World Live in an exclusive video interview.

Gerchuk (pictured) said that MTS-branded devices currently represent about 20 percent of sales via the operator’s retail stores, making them the fifth most popular Russian handset brand after Nokia, Samsung, LG and Sony Ericsson. “We expect… to become the fourth-largest handset vendor this year,” he added.

The operator’s own-branded devices are mainly Android-based and include handsets and tablets. It also offers the iPhone, though Nokia devices remain its most popular. “Our objective is to give customers choice and to let customers decide which platform to choose,” said Gerchuk. He noted that current smartphone penetration at MTS was around 15 percent and forecast to rise to around 25 percent by the end of the year.

MTS is also pushing its own brand in the apps space, including via its own Russian-language apps store which boasts “several thousand” titles and supports operator billing.

“We have about ten of our own MTS-branded applications that cover [the] most important parts of the customer experience,” said Gerchuk. These include a location-based app (MTS Navigator), an app that allows customers to keep their personal information in the cloud to restore to a new device if their phone is lost (MTS Second Memories); and a mobile payments app (MTS Easy Payment).

According to the latest Wireless Intelligence data, MTS is the largest operator in Russia on 71 million connections at end-Q2, giving it a 32 percent market share.