Consumers increasingly want more sophisticated handsets, and smartphone sales are expected to grow 52% this year compared to last year, according to Gartner. Overall, 190 million units will be sold this year, accounting for about 15% of the total handset market. In 2012, Gartner predicts, smartphone sales will reach over 700 million units, accounting for 65% of all handset sales. This will represent nearly $200 billion, Gartner said.
These are strongly indicative figures and I suspect the units shipped figures are credible.
With all the subscription contracts going on, there is a major shrounding of how much it is all worth to whom.
Do I disbelieve the financial figures, well no; but like government inflation statistics … I wouldn’t bet my pension on them if I had a choice.
Is it because “people want them” or because “they break after a couple of years”?
Like my Nokia 6680, it’s two years old and it is dying. I want to replace it with one wich comes withg 5 years of warranty, if it exists.
Another reason is because (AFAIK) it’s impossible to find a cell phone anymore that just makes/receives calls, has voicemail, and text messaging capabilities. That’s all I really need personally.
Meanwhile, as cell phones are seeing all these advancements, most landline phones have been languishing for years. Cell phones these days can do everything but cook you breakfast, and they’re even making ‘smart’ universal remotes with LCD screens on them. Yet I still can’t find a landline phone with distinctive ringtones. I still gotta pay the phone company a monthly fee if I wan’t that service.
(The following are the European names for the phones they may be called different things in different parts of the world)
Nokia 12xx and 16xx series pretty much fit that description (some of them have a camera though).
Samsung has the SGH-B100, SGH-B300 and SGH-M300 which all pretty much fit your description.
Sony Ericsson has the J100i, J220i and J230i.
Now admittedly non of these are exactly the most actively pushed and marketed telephones, nor are they necessarily displayed or even carried by all big phone stores. They obviously want to you to buy something with a higher profit margin. But all the major manufacturers still have cheap and simple phones in their lineup if that’s what you’re really after.
You make good point. Biggest reason for smartphone demand might be pure fact that you can’t buy simple standard phone in future(or they are just ugly kid models). All companies are pushing more advanced features on phones yet most people don’t use them(http://blogs.computerworld.com/people_over_30_hate_cell_phones). Also smartphone definition is changing all time, I really hate that term.
When the prices drop, more people can pretend to be important, brandishing a smart phone.
Most of the people I see still use the phone for a few calls and a lot of text messaging because the inbuilt web browser is mostly useless and the data speed is slow. It seems to me that outside of doing business, most people just want to look important but have no clue how to use technology.
Still, I’m still interested in what Google and Canonical can show us in the way of mobile phones, so that smart phones are easier to use and less expensive.
I don’t know if this falls into the business camp, but being able to use localization + google map is extremely useful when you are somewhere you don’t know. I don’t have a smartphone, but the ipod touch, and thanks to its localization abilities (through Wifi, quite impressive, although do not always work), I could navigate in cities I don’t know anything about.
There are people like me (IT Consultants) who visit customers that actively prohibit the use of anything but Voice & Text on their visitors phones.
What are we supposed to do when we can no longer get a phone that does not have all this extra crapware?
Do the phone companies really think that we will enjoy being treated like smokers as we traipse outside to make our business calls.
These same customers are also paranoid about anything being connected to their networks and even getting webmail access can take the best part of a day.
Oh, I know what will happen… I’ll just go back to my trusty pager.
Smartphones pah. More like a case of emperors new clothes if you ask me.
{takes off grumpy old many tinfoil hat}
I personally love smartphones, always have done. I find it amazing that you can carry around a device which does so much. Rewind say ten years and it’s amazing what these small devices can do. I own an iPhone and i love it. It’s great to think that im always connected. I have access to maps where ever i am in the world (as long as there is a signal
I have access to google / yellow pages. Here in the uk we have a shop called argos which allows you to check stock for items and then preorder them for pick up from a local shop, it’s great i can do this before walking in and just pick the item up. I love having my emails with me and to be able to send pictures via email. It’s great that i can carry music and videos with me so if im on the train or waiting somewhere i can listen to some tune. I am a regular of this site more on my iPhone than i am on my desktop computer.
I can understand why some people might not like em, but personally what a great time to be in technology. I know sending this stuff back to edison it would have blew his mind.
I don’t use 1/2 the features of my Palm Centro — not paying $50/mo for mobile broadband — but I like the fact that it has a simple to use, well designed interface, which makes it easy to find and adjust the settings. I like that I can sync it to my PC *and* my Mac. (Makes it a snap to get the photos onto my computer.) I like that it has a real freaking keyboard on it, the better to text and/or update my address book, instead of having to push number keys between 1-3 times per given letter. I like that I can play music on it. I like that I can put documents on it. I like that I can sync a bluetooth keyboard to it and write on the fly.
It’s the smartphone I’ve been waiting for since the first smartphones appeared on the horizon.