Cell Phones Sales Skyrocket: Camera Phones, Color Displays are Drawing More Buyers

[Jason Dunn]

http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,113788,tk,dn120803X,00.asp

"The worldwide market for cell phones is outstripping even the most enthusiastic predictions from the beginning of the year, as consumers continue to snap up handsets at a dizzying rate, according to research released Monday by Gartner. Handset vendors sold 132.8 million units in the third quarter of this year, up 22 percent from last year's third-quarter shipments of 108.8 million units, says Ben Wood, an analyst with Gartner based in London. Gartner calculated the figures using the number of units sold to end users, rather than units shipped into the channel. 'The total market is on fire,' he says. 'We had predicted about 470 million units for the year, but it's going to be about 500 million this year.' "

Mobile phones remain a booming business, the shining star in an otherwise mostly-flat tech sector. There's obviously a lot of opportunity here for Smartphone vendors to see some serious gains, and I'll be very interested to see sales numbers come Q1 2004. I wonder who the big winners will be, and how many of those sales are smartphones, feature phones, or basic phones? My feeling is that the time of the smartphone hasn't truly arrived yet - it's still a very "edge" technology in general.

[Jason Dunn]

http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,113788,tk,dn120803X,00.asp

"The worldwide market for cell phones is outstripping even the most enthusiastic predictions from the beginning of the year, as consumers continue to snap up handsets at a dizzying rate, according to research released Monday by Gartner. Handset vendors sold 132.8 million units in the third quarter of this year, up 22 percent from last year's third-quarter shipments of 108.8 million units, says Ben Wood, an analyst with Gartner based in London. Gartner calculated the figures using the number of units sold to end users, rather than units shipped into the channel. 'The total market is on fire,' he says. 'We had predicted about 470 million units for the year, but it's going to be about 500 million this year.' "

Mobile phones remain a booming business, the shining star in an otherwise mostly-flat tech sector. There's obviously a lot of opportunity here for Smartphone vendors to see some serious gains, and I'll be very interested to see sales numbers come Q1 2004. I wonder who the big winners will be, and how many of those sales are smartphones, feature phones, or basic phones? My feeling is that the time of the smartphone hasn't truly arrived yet - it's still a very "edge" technology in general.

[Fitch]

I'm sure there have been dozens of articles written on the virtues of cameras, but is this really a feature that is drawing consumers? Nobody I've talked to has desired this feature. The color screen, I'll agree with, but the camera? Could it be that they're not adding much to the price of the phone, so they just get opted 'for'?