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pixies
Another thing is the rapidly evolving OS and apps render the older smart phones ...
Patk0317
I am wondering how many of these will be upgrades and how many are new ...
Smartphone sales to grow 17% in 2012, says analyst
Peter Clarke
4/26/2012 7:30 AM EDT
LONDON – Mobile phone handset shipments worldwide grew 6.5 percent in 2011 to 1.51 billion units compared with 12 percent growth in 2010, according to Will Strauss principal analyst with Forward Concepts. The market research firm predicts an 11 percent growth rate for 2012 taking unit shipments to 1.68 billion units.
However, smartphones will continue to take an increasing share of the handset market and are expected to grow 17 percent to the 502 million unit level in 2012, or nearly one third of the handset market. As a result unit shipments of so-called feature phones will continue to be squeezed and only grow by 1.6 percent.
At the same time cellular-enabled tablet computer shipments are expected to grow 40 percent to 95 million units in 2012.
In 2011 three Chinese suppliers of handsets moved into the top ten list, according to Strauss. These are Huawei, ZTE and TCL. The top three in unit shipments were Nokia, Samsung and Apple. However in revenue terms the order was Apple, Samsung and Nokia, Strauss said.
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chanj
4/26/2012 12:29 PM EDT
Does the drop in growth from 12% to 6.5% represent smartphone market is getting close to saturation?
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TingLu
4/26/2012 6:27 PM EDT
I believe that is overall cell phone growth, not smartphone. Smartphone should grow at much higher rate.
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wilber_xbox
4/26/2012 12:52 PM EDT
with this healthy growth rate of smartphones, there is pretty good price competition ahead. Tablet however is more or less one company show.
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Sanjib.Acharya
4/26/2012 1:39 PM EDT
Just curious to know....how does this analysis for future growth done, especially during an uncertain time? Based on what information? Do the analysts consider the growth projection data from the major manufacturers? What else?
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Dave.Dykstra
4/26/2012 10:44 PM EDT
I wonder how much of the less than expected overall growth for 2011 was due to people who don't see a need for, or want to learn to use, a smartphone who just didn't bother to upgrade because they just want a phone and consider what they have to be quite adequate.
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selinz
4/27/2012 12:02 PM EDT
With the pricing structure pushed by the service providers, it makes sense to get a new phone every 2 years. What's amazing is how many iPhone owners that I know that can't bear waiting for another 6 months to save $200+ dollars... We're really getting to the point now in the US where the growth is associated with younger and younger kids getting phones!
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pixies
4/30/2012 5:16 PM EDT
Another thing is the rapidly evolving OS and apps render the older smart phones useless in a short few years.
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goafrit
4/27/2012 1:55 PM EDT
I think the rate should bump up to 30%. There is no other direction than North. And we are just starting on this. Most emerging markets are still using feature phones. Smartphone will be coming to them soon.
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Patk0317
4/29/2012 10:12 AM EDT
I am wondering how many of these will be upgrades and how many are new customers? I am thinking about upgrading but will wait to see what iPhone5 has in store before doing so.
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