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Tag: mobile-market

  • Mobile Phone Sales Fell in 2012 While Smartphones Thrived

    Half of last year, the research and market analysis company Gartner warned that sales of handsets are in decline, the final report for last year, which was published today, confirming the trend observed in August.

    The unfavorable economic climate that people from Gartner blame for this negative trend, has affected the sales figure for mobile phones. Producers managed to sell 1.75 billion pieces, a 1.7 percent decrease compared to performances recorded in 2011.

    The least demanded products were the featurephones, in the last three months they managing to attract only 264.4 million customers, a figure that marks a sharp drop of 19.3 percent compared to the same period in 2011.

    In the same three months of last year, smartphone sales reached a record level, the 207.7 million units representing a jump of 38.3 percent compared to the last quarter of 2011. In 2013, Gartner estimates that sales of smartphones will reach one billion and the entire mobile phone market will recover and reach a figure of approximately 1.9 billion pieces.

    Rivals Samsung and Apple have captured 52 percent of the market. South Koreans last year sold 386.4 million mobile phones, of which 53.3% were smartphones, while Apple, which is only selling smartphones, has sold 130 million handsets, an increase of 22 percent from 2011.

    According to Gartner, the Android platform has captured nearly 70 percent of smartphone market in the last quarter, followed by the iOS, down nearly 3 percent, BlackBerry OS, also in decrease, and Windows Phone, which managed to reach a modest market share of only 3 percent, but which represents almost double compared to the situation in late 2011.

  • Smartphone Market Will Remain Buoyant in 2009


    Lee Williams, chief of the Symbian Foundation, is confident that sales of smartphones will remain buoyant with growth of 12-15 per cent in 2009.

    While his forecast falls short of some estimates which predict 30 per cent increases, it underlines the growing confidence felt in the smartphone sector of the mobile market.

    This is expected to be boosted with the launch of the Palm Pre on June 6th – and the scene is all set for what is likely to be an exciting summer for the smartphone industry.

    Speaking at the Reuters Global Technology summit in Paris earlier this week, Williams said larger display sizes and more memory for media such as music were also encouraging consumers to buy smartphones.

    "For the first time people are realizing you don’t have to carry your digital camera with you and your phone, for the first time people are realizing that you can do your email and access Internet services on your mobile phone," he said.

    Williams’ comments were echoed by Frank Esser chief executive of France’s second-largest mobile operator SFR.

    He said the company was seeing strong demand for smartphones.

    This growth, couple with the contractions taking place in the wider mobile market, will see smartphones becoming increasingly widespread as mass market devices.

    A report just published shows that smartphone sales grew 12.7 per cent in the first quarter of 2009 despite sharply fallings sales of mobile phones generally – down 9.4 per cent year-on-year.

    Sehat Sutardja, chief executive of Marvell Technology, said smartphones will make up half of the mobile phone market in the next few years.

    He predicted multimedia-enabled smartphones will account for at least 50 per cent of all mobile phones in the next three to four years, and grow even more popular in the following years.

    "Smartphones today are only addressing the tip of the pyramid," he told the Reuters Global Technology Summit in New York.

    "I would say in the next three to four years, at least 50 per cent of the market will move to smartphones."

    Sutardja said this could grow to 90 per cent in six to seven years.

  • Turkish Mobile Market: Opportunity Beckons With Summer Launch of 3G Network

    INTERVIEW: Isik Uman, general manager of leading Turkish service provider Retromedya, talks to smartphone-biz.news about the rapidly changing mobile market in Turkey.
    With 3G going live this summer, the nation’s 66 million mobile subscribers are expected to take full advantage of new services – making it an appealing prospect for operators and service providers.

    Turkish consumers love their mobiles. As one of the fastest growing mobile markets in recent years, wireless penetration currently sits at 92 per cent.

    That’s pretty impressive – especially as Turkey doesn’t have handset subsidies.

    People buy their mobile phones and then choose their operator.

    Isik Uman, general manager of leading Turkish service provider Retromedya, said increasingly that decision is being driven by the demand for richer content – something that has progressed as rapidly as improvements to handsets and mobile networks.

    Build-up To 3G

    The potential for content is going to get even more interesting this summer when Turkey’s 3G network kicks in.

    And there is no shortage of hardware ready to use it.

    Even without handset subsidies, Uman said there were around 3.5 million 3G phones already being used in Turkey.

    "That’s 3.5 million potential users for it," he said.

    While there are no official figures, an estimated 300,000 iPhones have been sold in Turkey since it launched last summer.

    On top of that sales of other high-end handsets from HTC and Nokia – which has a 60 per cent share of the mobile market in Turkey – are strong.

    All this makes the country one of the more attractive markets for handset manufacturers.

    That is likely to continue as 3G is rolled out – with all the opportunities that will bring.

    Competition Intensifies

    The development is expected to pit operators head-to-head, with 3G and a host of new services – including LBS – being used as the hook with which to lure customers.

    As a result – and despite the global economic situation – Turkey’s mobile operators are projecting Turkish Lira-based growth this year.

    The country’s three GSM operators – Turkcell (37m subscribers), Vodafone (17m subscribers) and Avea (12m subscribers) – earned between them an estimated 13 billion Turkish Liras (approx. USD $10 billion) in 2008.

    But as Turkey is a large country – and requires a lot of base stations to provide coverage – average revenue per user (ARPU) is between USD $11-14.

    This hasn’t affected competition among the operators, which is fierce – especially following the introduction of mobile number portability in Turkey last November.

    More than 1 million subscribers have changed operator since it became available.

    The ability for users to switch operator has also led to the adoption of new marketing strategies from the operators, including the introduction of a subsidy-like model to retain or lure valuable customers.

    "Before we had number portability, people like business professionals, company owners, doctors, lawyers and so on didn’t want to change their mobile numbers," said Uman. "It just wasn’t acceptable.

    "Now with number portability, we will see subsidised handsets being used as a means to lure lucrative customers."

    Uman said it was also likely that flat-rate data tariffs would become more common when 3G goes live.

    He said this would obviously benefit service providers such as Retromedya.

    "We are counting on this as it will make our services more attractive and easier to use," he said.

    Retromeyda already offers content to all three operators in the form of:

    • music services
    • video content – downloading on-demand video
    • mobile games
    • interactive voting
    • mobile community and chat

    As well as providing consumer services, Retromedya also offers B2B gateway services to third party players in the market.

    Uman said these were white label services to companies that want to provide mobile services in Turkey.

    "We believe this year will be very interesting for the Turkish market," he said.

    "Commercial services will be very important and offer a big opportunity, which we are trying to address."

    Uman said there had been a lot of interest in Retromedya at the recent Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

    He said this was a reflection on the potential revenue prospects Turkey’s mobile market offered service providers.

    "We provide the infrastructure for them so they can quickly introduce their services and operations," he said.