A new report by ABI Research predicts that some
impressive mobile phone product launches between now and late 2008
will help the world’smobile handset markets close out the year with strong
sales.
Explained ABI research director Kevin Burden, “2008 should still
be a very good year for the
global mobile phone market. While Q2 performance figures are
still preliminary until finalised at the end of July, early
indications do not point to an aggressively weak quarter.
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.”
Apple’s 3G iPhone and the imminent new BlackBerry models will be
at the vanguard of driving sales and these will likely be joined by
other handset vendors’ products aiming to compete for both market
and mind share. ABI believes that such 'iconic' models generate a
lot of interest around the handset industry and get consumers
thinking about replacement. It also says that one of the strongest
drivers for new
handset adoption is the design trend over the last two years
towards greater simplicity.
“A lot of advanced technologies and applications have been built
into phones,” added Burden, “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.”
ABI cautioned though that many usability issues will need to be
progressively worked out as the industry increasingly moves towards
standardised operating systems. Proprietary real-time operating
systems can be painful to manage for operators as well as for
users. “Open” operating systems will likely continue to migrate
down phone vendors’ product lines, increasing the penetration of
devices using standardised and predictable platforms and boosting
overall ease of use.