Tuesday, 22 July 2008

‘08 Strong Year for Mobile Phone Market

Apple’s second-generation iPhone is expected to play a vital role in shaking up the world’s mobile handset market in 2008 says ABI Research. “2008 should still be a very good year for the global mobile phone market...

Apple’s second-generation iPhone is expected to play a vital role in shaking up the world’s mobile handset market in 2008 says ABI Research.

“2008 should still be a very good year for the global mobile phone market. While Q2 performance figures are still preliminary until finalized at the end of July, early indications do not point to an aggressively weak quarter,” said Kevin Burden, research director at ABI Research.

ABI expects some “impressive” mobile phone product launches between now and late 2008, which will help the world’s mobile handset markets close out the year with strong sales.

A study conducted by the research firm revealed that Apple’s latest 3G iPhone -- which went on sale 11th July 2008 and sold 1 Million units within the first three days-- is generating as much buzz as its predecessor. Blackberry maker Research In Motion (RIM) is also expected to debut new models in the second half of this year.

According to ABI, such “iconic” models generate a lot of interest around the handset industry and get consumers thinking about replacement.

“Historically, the second half of the year has always outperformed the first, and despite nearly global economic problems, a second half lift is still expected, although likely lower than the near 20% increase the worldwide market has seen in recent years,” said Burden

The strongest drivers for new handset adoption are apparently the design trend over the last two years towards greater simplicity.

“A lot of advanced technologies and applications have been built into phones…but there have often been technical or ease-of-use barriers that prevented wide adoption. The trend now is about making better use of what we have rather than introducing a flood of new services and network features. That’s going to go a long way towards ensuring users’ acceptance of new phones and new applications,” said Burden.

The study also revealed that many usability issues will also be progressively worked out as the industry increasingly moves towards standardized operating systems.

Proprietary real-time operating systems can be painful to manage for operators as well as for users which means “open” operating systems will continue to migrate down phone vendors’ product lines, increasing the penetration of devices using standardized and predictable platforms and boosting overall ease of use.