LONDON: In the second quarter of this year, Tier One handset vendors enjoyed year-over-year unit shipment growth of between 15 and 22 percent. ABI Research estimates that 301 million units were shipped during the quarter and therefore reaffirms its forecast that the mobile device market will deliver 13 percent growth to take 2008 annual shipments to 1.3 billion units.
“If there is an economic slowdown, no one bothered to tell the mobile device buying public,” said ABI Research Vice President Jake Saunders. “In particular, consumers in emerging markets in Asia, the Middle East, Africa and South America shrugged off inflation fears to sign up as mobile phone users. These healthy gains in net subscriber additions are stimulating replacement and upgrade sales. In developed markets, handset purchases tended to be flat, but those consumers who did purchase dug deeper and paid out more for coveted higher-end handsets and smart-phones.”
In terms of market share, Nokia has passed the 40 percent threshold for the first time (40.3 percent). Samsung secured second place with 15.2 percent, while Motorola barely managed to keep ahead of LG with its 9.3 percent versus LG’s 9.2 percent, and both edged out Sony Ericsson (8.3 percent). There is a distinct possibility that LG might overtake Motorola by the end of 3Q 2008, putting Motorola into fourth place.
Apple’s iPhone has rewritten the rulebook. Nevertheless, despite the expected successes that the Tier One handset vendors garnered in 1H 2008, Nokia’s overall market share is likely to hold for now, as it refreshed its portfolio in the mid-tier and high-end categories and has pretty much cornered the ultra low-cost handset market. The future though, could belong to any company.
Mobile devices are the biggest-selling consumer electronics products in the world, with more than one billion shipping every year. However, the market is in a state of rapid flux. “Three or four years from now, no mobile device vendor — no matter what their market position today — will be in a comfort zone,” said ABI Research Vice President and Research Director Stuart Carlaw, in a new webcast available on the firm’s website. Developed and developing markets for these devices are being shaped by divergent forces. Developed markets in particular are typically highly saturated, highly competitive and highly segmented, with strong product innovation.
“The advent of wider mobile broadband access, the drive to maximize data revenue, the desire to push smartphone operating systems down into mid-tier handsets, and rapid innovations in user interfaces will all make the mobile devices of 2010 radically unlike those of today,” Carlaw added.
As the technologies evolve and market trends emerge, we will see the user interface advances pioneered by Apple’s iPhone continue, with wider use of accelerometers and the addition of haptic feedback to touchscreens. Mobile Internet devices (MIDs) will become an important market segment, and vendors will increasingly look to diversify their product and service offerings.
“The mobile device market is expanding, not consolidating,” noted Carlaw, “and shows increasing micro-segmentation. Disruptive influences abound.”
In an illustrated audio webcast available on ABI Research’s website, Carlaw delves into the trends that will determine the mobile device market’s future shape and direction, including a feature set explosion, the effort to drive “smart” operating systems into the mid-tier, and specialization in handsets’ basic designs. He examines the impact of mobile broadband and of advanced user interfaces. He concludes by highlighting the future importance of MIDs and the trend for vendors to diversify their business models. The Evolution of the Mobile Devices Market webcast is available for viewing at www.abiresearch.com/webcast_detail.jsp?Web=003. Free registration on the website is required.