The US smartphone landscape in the US has, for the most part, been dominated by two kinds of devices — Treos and BlackBerrys — sold to a narrow group of enterprise users and prosumers. Certainly other devices have been sold to other types of users, but not in very high numbers. But I spoke to Symbian’s VP of US operations, Jerry Panagrossi, at CTIA last week, and he told me why the company thinks that’s about to change.

Much of what’s held Symbian-powered and other smartphones back in the US has been price sensitivity: consumers here are conditioned to phones being sold a particular way, which means for them, free or very cheap phones sold through operators. It’s been rare for phones in the consumer market to be able to attract buyers in droves when they’ve carried a premium price, and these successes have been driven more by fashion (ie the RAZR) than features. This is driven by carrier marketing, which to this point has focused on grabbing new subscribers. But Panagrossi says that Symbian’s market models indicate a correlation between market saturation and smartphone uptake, since carriers are forced to try to maintain sales growth by marketing higher-value services, rather than just going all out to win new subscribers. 75% penetration — which the US should hit very soon — represents the tipping point, he says.

The company’s experience with NTT DoCoMo in Japan bears this out — Symbian (along with Linux) is one of DoCoMo’s preferred handset development platforms, and sales of Symbian devices there have grown significantly over the last several years. Western operators, like Vodafone, are increasingly settling on smartphone platforms to standardize their handset portfolio and push the devices more squarely into the mass market. US operators aren’t any different, Panagrossi says, and as they turn their attention to more data services, they’ll start pushing more smartphones — which can also allow them to shift the subsidy models away from being solely based on voice spending.

The big Symbian news from CTIA was that Cingular will soon sell the Nokia E62 for $150, the lowest price point of any Symbian device at launch in the US. While some would say that the E62’s lack of 3G and WiFi connectivity when compared to its sibling, the E61, cripple the device, it’s not likely to matter here — especially not at $150. That’s a huge price point, cheaper than the Motorola Q on Verizon, and significantly cheaper than Treos or BlackBerrys. This is really the first time a US operator has set up a Symbian device to do well in the US, and with such aggressive pricing, it’s likely Cingular will put a decent marketing push behind the E62 as well. But the low price emphasizes its value (and that of other smartphones) to operators — it’s going to deliver data users, with a good chunk paying a decent monthly fee for email access. That’s an important step for Symbian, and S60 too: to prove to US operators that their devices drive higher ARPU. Granted, this is still an enterprise-/professional-focused device, but the data usage, standardization and customization benefits it offers can translate to the consumer market as well.

[tags]mobile, symbian, smartphones, e62, nokia, s60, treo, blackberry, cingular[/tags]