Smart phones to make up 16% of market
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LONDON-A new study shows that the market for smart phones will continue to increase during the next several years, with global shipments growing from 14.
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(InfoWorld) - The number of mobile phone users worldwide will reach 3 billion next year instead of 2008, Nokia said, driven in part by a new trend in emerging markets. For the past year, operators and phone makers have been saying that the bulk of theirÂ future growthÂ will come from areas outside of the increasingly saturated mature markets. Nokia expects that in 2007, several regions, including China, Asia-Pacific, the Middle East, and Africa, will experience 15 percent growth. But Nokia is noticing the surprising trend of growth among customers in emerging markets who are upgrading their phones. Nokia estimates that this year, 52 percent of its sales in emerging markets will come from people who are replacing their phones, said Kai Oistamo, executive vice president and general manager of mobile phones for Nokia. Next year, that figure should grow to 60 percent, Nokia said. Oistamo, along with other senior Nokia executives, outlined the phone giant's strategies for pursuing growth in the next few years during its annual analyst meeting in Amsterdam on Tuesday. Phone users who replace their devices typically opt for higher-priced phones that offer more, Nokia finds, and that's true in emerging markets as well. In India, Nokia found that among buyers of phones that cost over â¬60 ($79), 21 percent were first-time mobile users and 41 percent were replacing existing phones, said Bill Seymour, Nokia's head of investor relations. In addition to a focus on the emerging markets, Nokia will also increasingly pursue mobile Web 2.0 applications. Computer users have demonstrated their interest in creating online content, through the growth of blogs, social networking sites and online video sites. "The significance of this megatrend to Nokia is obvious," said Nokia President and Chief Executive Officer Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo. "We are the key player in bringing this into the mobile environment." Nokia hopes toÂ extend some Web 2.0 applicationsÂ to mobile users and add value to them through location information or other offerings that are unique to mobility, he said. Nokia currently has 850 million users and around half of them have the capability to connect to the Internet, he said. "We can and we will monetize this by embracing the business models that already exist on the Net," he said. Some Nokia customers may soon access Web 2.0 applications from phones with a new design from Nokia. The company will increasingly focus on building very thin phones that don't skimp on functionality, said Oistamo. Motorola recently set off a new trend in ultra-thin phones with its successful Razr and now other phone makers like Nokia are following suit. At the event, Nokia introduced the Nokia 6300, one of its first handsets to exhibit the move toward thin phones. "It's a sneak preview of what else will come out in 2007," Oistamo said. In addition to thin phones, he expects phones that offer location-based services to also be popular next year.
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Seven Asian telecommunications firms are coming together to invest between $30m and $40m (Â£16.3m and Â£22m) in new mobile phone services and technology.
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The Finnish group Nokia was the world's leading provider of mobile telephones in the third quarter, capturing 35.1 percent of the market after 32.5 percent in the same period last year, a study by the Gartner institute has revealed.
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(InfoWorld) - New research has confirmed that India's mobile phone market is set for a period of fast growth, with revenue from cellular services expected to jump by more than 18 percent each year for the next five years. Most of the growth will come from rural areas, where only 2 percent of the population have access to mobile phones today, said Madhusudan Gupta, senior research analyst at Gartner, which conducted the research. Service providers have already started to focus on rural markets, with aggressive rates and handsets priced at under $25, he said. Cellular service revenue in India will increase at a compound annual rate of 18.4 percent between this year and 2011, to reach $25.6 billion, Gartner estimated. Cellular revenue last year was $8.9 billion. As call rates fall from their current level of 2.6 cents per minute to rates comparable to fixed lines, which are about 0.9 cents per minute, a broad swathe of additional users will start using mobile phones, Gupta said. "The fixed-line infrastructure in India is not that good, which is giving enough of space for mobile wireless to move in," he said. Revenue from data will outpace that of voice services and contribute to about one fifth of revenue in 2011, more than double its share last year, although most of that growth will come from urban markets, Gartner said. As they expand into rural areas, operators will see their average revenue per user (ARPU) fall to $59.50 per year by 2011, from $82.1 last year. Successful operators will be those that make up for the falling ARPU through economies of scale, Gupta said. Operators are likely to collaborate by sharing infrastructure and outsourcing their network management to equipment vendors, and possibly system integrators, he added. For example, Bharti Airtel, a large Indian service provider, said Wednesday it had awarded a contract worth $2 billion over two-years to Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson, to expand its network in rural areas and provide capacity management. The service providers should not be short of funds for expansion.Â Vodafone Group's acquisitionÂ in May of a controlling interest in the Indian operator Hutchison Essar, for $10.9 billion, has increased the valuation of all Indian service providers, and is helping them to attract private equity and other investments, Gupta said. The rural demand will come from businesses expanding into these areas, as well as from local businesses. Some individuals will own mobile phones, although the predominant model is likely to be a communally-owned handset, a concept already tried in some areas, Gupta said. India added 15.5 million mobile subscribers in the first quarter of this year, taking the total to 165.1 million, according to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India. Gartner expects 58 percent of the rural population and 95 percent of the urban population to be covered by mobile networks by 2011. That year, the total number of mobile connections in India will have increased to more than 462 million, according to Gartner. India's total population at that time will be close to 1.2 billion, according to some estimates.
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HTC reports it sold last year 2 million of the Microsoft-based smartphones developed to compete with iPhone.
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Blog: No one's quite sure how the much-hyped product launch will go down, but here are a few ways you might be able to make the coveted smart phone yours.
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Worldwide mobile phone sales surpassed 156.4m units in the second quarter of 2004, a 35 per cent increase on the second quarter of 2003, according to market research group Gartner, Inc.
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By Anonymous  No sooner has the market for consumer electronics devices incorporating Wi-Fi begun to gain real traction than another, based on high-speed connections via 3G cellular technologies or mobile WiMAX, is starting to take shape.
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With more than 3 million Bluetooth-enabled products shipping every week and analyst predictions that 13 percent of mobile phones sold worldwide this year will include the short-range wireless technology, the Bluetooth Special Interest Group has laid out a
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Nokia estimates 1.14 billion mobile phones were sold worldwide in 2007, 40 percent of them Nokia branded.
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Devices could be available to consumers next year, company says.
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Global smart phone shipments are set to rise dramatically over the next five years, as better devices and lower prices combine with other factors to fuel growthand meet
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Those who don't mind carrying a paperweight already have plenty of options for "smart" phones that do more than just make calls. The rest of us are stuck with a sad compromise between size and function.
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(InfoWorld) - Handheld PC vendors sold four times as many smartphones as PDAs (personal digital assistants) in the second half of 2006, and Nokia Corp. continued to distance itself from competitors. Nokia owns 42 percent of the combined PDA and smartphone market, compared to single-digit market share for Research in Motion Ltd. (RIM), Motorola Inc. and Palm Inc., according to a study released Thursday by Gartner Inc. Worldwide, that market reached 42.1 million units, a 57 percent rise from the same period last year. Most of the growth was driven by sales of smartphones, which rose 75.5 percent to 34.7 million units. In contrast, PDAs grew very slowly, climbing only 5.7 percent to 7.4 million units. Nokia could add to its lead in the second half of 2006 as it launches new models of smartphones, said Roberta Cozza, principal research analyst for Gartner. Among the smaller vendors, Motorola doubled its sales of smartphones, thanks to the popularity of its Linux-based units in Chinese markets. But RIM is set to post stronger future growth with its Pearl device, as demand for mobile e-mail spreads beyond executive users, Gartner said. At the bottom of the pile, Palm saw its sales sink 26 percent, leaving it with only 5 percent of the combined worldwide market for PDAs and smartphones. In fact, the company has launched no new PDA models to date in 2006. PDAs aren't dead yet -- they outsold smartphones in North America in the first half of 2006. But smartphones ruled in every other region, including an enormous 33 percent worldwide share sold in Japan alone. To continue this hot pace of growth, vendors must convince buyers that new smartphones offer more benefits than less-expensive enhanced cell phones, Cozza said. To make that case, they will launch new products with advanced features and rich multimedia functions, she said. If they succeed, smartphone shipments could reach 81 million by the end of the year. Â
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Next-generation Razr, smartphones, and combo devices will help firm rebound, CEO says.
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Apple's iPhone accounted for just under 2% of smart phone sales in July, making it the best-selling smart phone in the U.S., a market study says.