Despite the growth of networks and carrier-grade telecom equipment based on the IMS (or IP Multimedia Subsystem (News - Alert)) architecture, the greatest hurdle to full-scale market acceptance remains at the client or end-user level. While network service providers (NSP) and telecom equipment vendors (TEMs) continue to speak highly of “a third screen” and beat the drum of mobile TV, only a small percentage of the total base of cell phone users operate handsets with multimedia content capabilities.

 

“At the end of the day, it’s about handset replacements. You’ve got to go through the typical handset replacement cycles,” explained Linda Barrabee, senior analyst at Yankee Group.

 

However, a new study shows that cutting-edge mobile phones are penetrating the wireless market of Asia – a region that is widely recognized as early adopters of new technologies. In-Stat reported on Wednesday that phones integrated with various multimedia and rich-data functionalities are rapidly increasing their market share.

 

The report showed 53.4 percent of the 252.3 million mobile phones shipped in the region in 2005 had camera functions. The gains were in part due to plunging price of such models in emerging markets.

 

“Digital cameras, including both digital still camera and video camera, will remain the most popular function of cutting-edge phones,” says Victor Liu, In-Stat analyst. “By 2009, 67 percent of mobiles sold in Asia Pacific will have camera functionality.”

 

The In-Stat report also found that phones with music-playing capabilities accounted for 23 percent of phones sold. That compares with global average of 13.6 percent. By 2009, the functionality and quality of music playing on mobile phones will be greatly enhanced, with music phones likely to be in direct competition with stand-alone music players.

 

In addition, mobile digital broadcasting TV phones and cellular phones with alternative wireless broadband connectivity were introduced to early adopters in South Korea and Japan in 2005.

 

The report comes at the same time that a Informa Telecoms & Media study put the IMS market at roughly $4.5 billion by the year 2010.

 

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Robert Liu is Executive Editor at TMCnet. Previously, he was Executive Editor at Jupitermedia and has also written for CNN, A&E, Dow Jones and Bloomberg. For more articles, please visit Robert Liu's columnist page.