Mobile Phone Shipments down 9%
The economic climate is being blamed for sapping the life out of the demand for new mobile phones worldwide; with the mobile phone market expecting to receive 9% less shipments this year than last year according to reports.
Nokia and Samsung have predicted a very similar outlook; which is causing the industry to brace itself to brave the decline which will be the second one since the mid 1980’s. According to reports Sony Ericsson and Motorola have already had a brutal fourth quarter and they’ve seen their shipments for the first quarter dip by 16% year on year.
The study conducted by Ovum made the point that the biggest drop in demand was for phones in the feature rich categories - although anecdotal evidence from local phone shops would suggest that this is not the case, especially in big cities. Perhaps this is due to the availability of cash for old mobile deals that abound at the moment. The largest manufacturer to be hit by this is Sony Ericsson as the vast majority of its phones have lots of features, including the ability to play music, or to take hi resolution digital photographs.
Principal analyst at Ovum, Adam Leach commented that “This has had a polarizing effect on the handset market with vendors and mobile operators focusing on two types of handset: those targeting the low-end and high-end segments,”
He also belives that in turn this has sped up the pace of replacement of 2G handsets with better, faster 3G handsets; often by recycling the old mobiles. The higher end 2G handsets have been ditched by consumers and thus have seen their shipment numbers dive.
The smartphone marketplace continues to buck the trend and is set to see exponential growth despite the recession. Mobile Internet services are being held up as the key driver for the increased adoption of the smartphones; as well as the well oiled rumour mill fuelled following that has promoted the Palm Pre, Apple’s follow up phone to the iPhone and the sequel to the Blackberry Storm.
Predictions from the analysts at Ovum are the shipments of mobile phones should begin to recover in the second half of 2009, but it will be 2012 before the levels of shipment that the industry has been used to, will return.
