Sales of mobile phone handsets will increase to a massive 850 million units this year, according to a survey by analyst iSuppli. This is up from c. 810 million units in 2005, but a massive doubling of the market size since 2002.
This makes the mobile handset business simply the biggest consumer electronics category in the world. As a comparison, TV sets sell a mere 200 million units.
All is not quite sweetness and light however as the total market by value is expected to drop this year as the average price per handset falls. However, they expect this to stabilise in 2007, followed by a period of renewed growth.
Image from Oxfam.
and i would say 90% of those phones are feature and basic phones, not fancy smartphones. also, i would say that most of those phones (sms and voice) will be sold in bric (brasil, russia, india, china) and most of those buyers won’t have a pc.
hello? that’s a set up for great opportunities.
According to Morgan Stanley’s Global Telco Outlook (http://www.morganstanley.com/institutional/techresearch/pdfs/MS_Global_Telecom_Outlook101705.pdf), 500 of the 800 million phones sold include a camera. Charlie, is this wrong? It certainly seems high.
If not: PC-less, yes, but PC-less potential media producers…