Smartphone Stimulus
June 24, 2009
I’m not so sure recent mobile phone sales trends are much cause for concern.
According to ABI Research, the worldwide mobile phone industry is in decline, marked by an 11.9% year-over-year slide (http://tinyurl.com/nf6lg9). While there are many ways to interpret this data, the first thing that came to mind was an article I read recently in Forbes indicating that the dramatic slow in new automobile sales this country has experienced isn’t sustainable (http://tinyurl.com/bzznzx): last quarter’s new automobile sales rate, if maintained, would translate to the average car being replaced once every 23.4 years, well north of the 13 year average refresh schedule. I’d be curious to see the same data on cell phone refresh trends, but I’m guessing they’re roughly congruent.
We’ve seen growth industries come out of similar declines with pronounced enthusiasm, and I don’t see any reason to expect trends in this recovery to be much different, but I think there’s an interesting angle on all this if we focus specifically on a narrower segment of the market.
Gartner pins global smartphone sales this quarter at a 12.7% increase year-over-year (http://tinyurl.com/oy6fes), which is rather impressive next to ABI’s greater mobile phone industry analysis. There’s no doubt about it: advancing smartphone growth as a function of the aggregate mobile phone industry is inexorable.
So the real question is: when consumers begin to return to their local mall kiosks en masse, both with renewed interest in parting ways with their cash and with the acute need to replace their aging phones, will we increasingly see them opt for cheaper, functionality-thin feature phones, or will smartphones continue at remarkable rates to entice the casual caller and the prosumer, the Luddite octogenarian and the tech savvy preteen?
I’m not a betting man, but my money is on the latter. What do you think?
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There is a market for powerful smartphones and for simple, low-cost feature phones. The technical underpinnings may start to look similar in both camps, but both economics and simplicity will win out for many consumers.
A friend recently pointed out that one can buy an iPhone or BlackBerry for $99 — right in the sweet spot of feature phone pricing. True, but only half the story. The smartphone will run you over $1000/year for for voice, text, and data. The feature phone — half that. Consumers get this.
On the usability front, iPhone, Pre (and to a lesser extent, Android and BlackBerry) are powerful and flexible platforms offering touchscreens and keyboards. I’ll contend that feature overload and inferior battery life will keep many prospects away for some time. Feature phones with QWEWRTY keyboards & cameras are great for lots of voice, texting, and social networking. They are to mobiles what the Flip is to camcorders.
The distribution of phones will be bimodal. The smartphone market will put up great growth numbers (coming from a small baseline) for years to come. In 10 years time, *most* people will have a smartphone but we’ll all likely have a feature phone or two as well!
Comment by David Williams — July 5, 2009 @ 3:29 pm