Smartphones Grow While Mobile Phones Drop
Smartphone business on the up according to a report from IDC, they have confirmed that smartphone shipments continue to grow as overall mobile phone shipments continually decline.
Apparently global mobile phone shipments dropped some 15.8 percent in Q1 of 09 with 244 million handsets shipped as compared to 290 million in Q1 last year.
Obviously the mobile phone market is beginning to feel the tightness of the economic downturn, however, in the case of smartphone business, smartphone shipments grew some 4 percent in Q1 of 09, and therefore it appears that smartphone continue to defy the present economic conditions.
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Assuming it’s technically possible, mobile operators should offer the equivalent of a dial-up connection (unlimited, slow data rate) for entry-level smartphone users. This would provide budget-conscious users access to basic data services (email, IM chat, etc.) and, if/when their financial situation improves, they can upgrade to a higher data rate for more premium services (audio/video streaming, fast web browsing, etc.).
The key for operators should be to get EVERYONE on smartphones. Once there, there are plenty of opportunities to up-sell other services.