Mobile Phone Sales To Exceed One Billion in 2009
Gartner has released its latest global forecast for mobile phones predicting that the milestone of one billion units sold per year will be reached in 2009. The report also states smartphones are the fastest growing category of mobile devices sold.
This comprehensive study included detailed forecasts of sales in 62 countries. It was compiled by Gartner's team of more than 20 mobile and wireless analysts based in 12 countries around the globe.
"The world's appetite for mobile phones has exceeded even the most optimistic expectations," said Ben Wood, research vice president for mobile terminals at Gartner. "Mobile phones could go on to be the most common consumer electronics devices on the planet." Gartner estimates there will be 2.6 billion mobile phones in use by the end of 2009.
The research also showed:
- In 2005, mobile phone sales will reach 779 million units, a 16 percent increase on 2004.
- More than 100 million 3G phones will be sold in 2006.
- More than 200 million smartphones will be sold in 2008.
Deeper analysis of the forecast shows that smartphones are the fastest growing category of device. "Smartphone sales broke all records in the first quarter of 2005 and we expect them to double year on year to 2006", said Roberta Cozza, principal analyst at Gartner.
Asia/Pacific accounts for most sales: one in every four mobile phones sold this year. In 2009 this will increase to one in three. Ann Liang, Gartner's principal analyst for mobile terminals in the region said, "China and India alone will account for nearly 200 million units in 2007, with the Indian market surpassing China in 2009 to reach 139 million units."
North Americans are still buying the latest models, but the bigger story is in Latin America. Hugues De La Vergne, Gartner's principal analyst for mobile terminals in the Americas, said "Sales nearly doubled in 2004 within Latin America and they will reach 100 million mobile phones a year by 2009. Brazil is the powerhouse of the region, accounting for more than a third of sales this year."
Thanks to Gaurav for the tip.
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RE: would be nice to see how they define 'smartphone'
Here's and informative recent article. They are basically saying that if it does voice well and a lot, its a smartphone. If it does it poorly its a PDA. This why they classify the Treo as a smartphone and the Blackberry as a PDA.
http://www.internetnews.com/stats/article.php/3484291
Surur
RE: would be nice to see how they define 'smartphone'
Fish
RE: would be nice to see how they define 'smartphone'
I'm not sure about all of the qualifications Gartner makes in determining what is a smartphone versus a "regular" mobile phone or cellular PDA. But I'm sure that smartphones have to have a real OS so that users can add-in off-the-shelf third-party software to their smartphone after the purchase. So there are Symbian, Microsoft, Palm, Linux and RIM-based smartphones.
I don't think Java (J2ME) based phones are smartphones, since every phone vendor has their own flavor of Java.
RE: would be nice to see how they define 'smartphone'
More bad news for Palm: PDAs are dying...
(to interpret these figures more realistically, simply delete the Symbian numbers and recalculate!)
Bottom line: Treo is STILL kicking a$$, but the Windows juggernaut appears to be picking up steam.
Take a look at this surreal thread at another site for more startling evidence that something's not quite right with Jeff Kirvin.
http://www.1src.com/forums/showthread.php?t=92694&page=6&pp=15
I was stunned to see the lack of outrage over his seemingly-deranged attacks on Foo Fighter. An apology is in order, but given Kirvin's (lack of) character, I doubt he'll ever admit to having been way out of line.
TVoR
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Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.
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The Palm Economy = Communism™
The Great Palm Swindle: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=7864#108038
RE: More bad news for Palm: PDAs are dying...
http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS00202205
http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS00203505
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Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.
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The Palm Economy = Communism™
The Great Palm Swindle: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=7864#108038
And TapWave is GONE!
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Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.
------------------------
The Palm Economy = Communism™
The Great Palm Swindle: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=7864#108038
Next on the PalmOS deathpool...
Either way, Tapwave is not long for this world.
Let's see:
HandEra
Acer
Handspring
Sony
AlphaSmart
TapWave??? ;-O
Garmin...?
Kyocera...?
Lenovo...?
Fossil...? (heh heh heh!)
Time to update this page:
http://www.palmsource.com/partners/licensee.html
Mike Cane must be ready to have a seizure right about now.
TVoR
All your Tapwaves are belong to ME. Ph33r my 1337 haxx0R sk1llZ.
------------------------
Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.
------------------------
The Palm Economy = Communism™
The Great Palm Swindle: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=7864#108038
RE: More bad news for Palm: PDAs are dying...
This pretty much confirms everything the Voice, myself and other have been saying on here for the past year.
Here's my "batten down the hatches and circle the wagons, Ma" emergency Palm OS resuscitation plan:
#1 ALL of the remaining Palm OS licensees are driftwood!! Let them ride out the terms of their contracts and/or just pretend like they don't exist anymore.
#2 Palm needs to go ahead and slyly pull the plug on PalmSource, tank their stock, and pick up the remnants for pennies on the dollar.
#3 Work out an ironclad agreement with LG (they're the ONLY ones with any clout and resources anymore) to make sure all pertinent pricepoints are covered across the board. Heck, keep Symbol along as a reminder of the good ol' days.
#4 Do some 11th hour repair work on Garnet and get Cobalt devices shipping in SOME form or another by year's end.
#5 Bring all of the remaing developers who give a rat's a$$ close to the fold (Dataviz, Handmark, SplashData etc) and threaten to CANE them if they don't provide rock-solid bundled apps with every future Palm product. Palm also needs to give better support in regards to the FrankenGarnet crazyquilt to developers (one thing I DO agree with Kirvin on).
#6 Meanwhile Palm needs to put all of their eggs into getting PoL shipped at some point in '06! It's as simple as that. Better to delay it a bit longer than have it just a fancier version of the mess OS5.x's become.
If ALL of the above fails...then sell the whole damn parcel to Lenovo/Matsu****a/LG so they can assimilate at least the Palm and Treo names (that potent combo's worth AT LEAST 31 mil nowadays, right?)!
P.S.
For the record, Voice, I'd mark Garmin off too. Other than some fancy aviation-oriented bundle (just a rehased 3600) they haven't released anything Palm-based lately but they'd still put out, what, three Windows-based units in a row? Same with Kyocera. You'd actually have an easier time walking into a store and buying a Fossil wrist PDA than you'd have going to a cellular store and buying a Samsung or Kyocera Palm-powered smartphone from any provider.
RE: More bad news for Palm: PDAs are dying...
The Tapwave announcement was written by Billy Wong, the janitor/Wi-Fi driver coder/delivery man that works at Tapwave corporate HQ.
This pretty much confirms everything the Voice, myself and other have been saying on here for the past year.
Yep. But Tapwave's demise was probably the most inevitable failure (besides Fossil) of any PalmOS licensee. I'm sure even Mike Cane could have seen this coming a long time ago.
Here's my "batten down the hatches and circle the wagons, Ma" emergency Palm OS resuscitation plan:
#1 ALL of the remaining Palm OS licensees are driftwood!! Let them ride out the terms of their contracts and/or just pretend like they don't exist anymore.
WHAT remaining PalmOS licensees? Believe it or not, no one wants PalmOS 5 or 6. And PalmOS 7 ("PalmLinux") is vaporware.
#2 Palm needs to go ahead and slyly pull the plug on PalmSource, tank their stock, and pick up the remnants for pennies on the dollar.
Already in place. We're about to see some corporate games that would have done Gordon Gekko (or Enron) proud. Remember to take notes. Posts at Palminfocenter will probably be Exhibit 1 during the trial if/when PalmSource's shareholders sue for damages. ;-O
#3 Work out an ironclad agreement with LG (they're the ONLY ones with any clout and resources anymore) to make sure all pertinent pricepoints are covered across the board. Heck, keep Symbol along as a reminder of the good ol' days.
PalmSource isn't exactly in a position to dictate terms to LG. PalmSource has bupkis. As George Costanza said in that Seinfeld episode, "I have no power. Do you understand? I need hand. I have no hand." PalmSource has no hand.
Symbol covers a unique (if you ignore Aceeca!) niche and probably could continue licensing PalmOS 4 for the next five years without blinking an eye.
#4 Do some 11th hour repair work on Garnet and get Cobalt devices shipping in SOME form or another by year's end.
PalmSource needs to outsource the OS coding to people that actually know how to code properly. The crap spewed out by those Be engineers and the buggy, fecolent PalmOS 5 kludges flushed onto the PalmOS community by Palm/pa1mOne™ suggest the Palm companies are incapable of doing such a major development project alone. As I've said before, PalmOS 5 needs to be thoroughly cleaned up, since it will be holding up the fort by itself for a while.
#5 Bring all of the remaing developers who give a rat's a$$ close to the fold (Dataviz, Handmark, SplashData etc) and threaten to CANE them if they don't provide rock-solid bundled apps with every future Palm product. Palm also needs to give better support in regards to the FrankenGarnet crazyquilt to developers (one thing I DO agree with Kirvin on).
Bundle BackupMan, TealLock, Desktop To Go, TCPMP etc, fully expose all aspects of the OS to developers - including backdoors, with examples - and ensure the developers' forum is staffed by some expert hardcore techs that know PalmOS inside out + can provide instant feedback to questions.
Mark Bercow was brought back to Palm to fix developer relations. I don't think it's working...
#6 Meanwhile Palm needs to put all of their eggs into getting PoL shipped at some point in '06! It's as simple as that. Better to delay it a bit longer than have it just a fancier version of the mess OS5.x's become.
Shipping PalmLinux on a real, stable device in 2006 is probably impossible - unless development is outsourced. Quickly. Given the endless stream of LIES we've heard about Cobalt, don't expect to ever hear the truth about PalmLinux... even after it's officially delayed.
If ALL of the above fails...then sell the whole damn parcel to Lenovo/Matsu****a/LG so they can assimilate at least the Palm and Treo names (that potent combo's worth AT LEAST 31 mil nowadays, right?)!
If you don't own the company, how can you sue Microsoft for $500 million?
;-O
P.S.
For the record, Voice, I'd mark Garmin off too. Other than some fancy aviation-oriented bundle (just a rehased 3600) they haven't released anything Palm-based lately but they'd still put out, what, three Windows-based units in a row? Same with Kyocera. You'd actually have an easier time walking into a store and buying a Fossil wrist PDA than you'd have going to a cellular store and buying a Samsung or Kyocera Palm-powered smartphone from any provider.
Actually, I was being facetious. All those companies I listed are not producing anything of any worth to the PalmOS platform. And I still am pi$$ed off that Samsung never released all those vaporware phones. And that SonyEricsson never licensed PalmOS and released a tiny PalmOS phone. Oh well - I guess my stockpile of CLIE TH55 and UX50 is starting to look like a good insurance policy these days.
TVoR
TVoR
------------------------
Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.
------------------------
The Palm Economy = Communism™
The Great Palm Swindle: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=7864#108038
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would be nice to see how they define 'smartphone'