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Report: Mobile Handset Demand Fuels 336.5 Million Shipments

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Mobile Management Featured Article


February 02, 2010

Report: Mobile Handset Demand Fuels 336.5 Million Shipments

By Marisa Torrieri, TMCnet Editor


In the fourth quarter of 2009, the global handset market “ended with a pretty reasonable bang,” said Jake Saunders, vice president for forecasting at ABI Research (News - Alert), adding that his firm estimated as many as 336.5 million handsets were shipped, up 15.1 percent from the previous year.

 
“Obama’s stimulus package certainly helped save the mobile handset industry,” Saunders said. “Renewed consumer confidence in the second half of 2009 meant that shipments for the whole year only shrank 4.5 percent to 1.153 billion. Dire scenarios were mooted in early 2009. There is cautious optimism about 2010 despite the fragile nature of the global recovery. ABI Research forecasts shipments to expand to 1.2 billion handsets in 2010.”
 
Among the winners: Nokia (News - Alert) maintained 37.1 percent of the overall worldwide handset market, followed by Samsung at 20.5 percent and LG at 10.1 percent.
 
Meanwhile, the launch of Motorola’s DROID smartphone – which features Google Android’s (News - Alert) operating system -- helped the telecom manufacturer receive critical acclaim. But with increased competition, there were still some challenges.
 
“In [the third quarter of 2009] Motorola, under the direction of Sanjay Jha, has come out of its corner fighting with a refreshed portfolio,” said practice director Kevin Burden. “The DROID has received critical acclaim. However Motorola’s market-share continued to contract to 3.6.” Sony-Ericsson (News - Alert) also experienced a contraction to 4.3 percent but has high hopes that its Android-based handsets will generate renewed interest.
  
For more about worldwide mobile device markets, check out ABI Research’s “Mobile Devices Market Sizing and Share” and “Mobile Devices Market Forecast Analysis” reports.
 
Speaking of smartphones, telecom managers trying to separate off-the-clock charges with real business usage now have technology on their side.
 
Amtel (News - Alert) recently announced that its award-winning TIMS mobile expense management software platform provides segregation of mobile apps downloaded for smartphones in a corporate environment.
 
That means companies can automatically send the “charges split report” for non-approved download charges to the end users and the corporate accounting.
 
“With the popularity of mobile apps it is putting an extra burden on the corporate mobile billing,” Pankaj Gupta, co-founder and CEO of Santa Clara, Calif.-based Amtel, recently told TMCnet. “Companies are struggling to find ways to implement mobile policy and segregate the individual apps spending from the allowable corporate usage policy.”

Marisa Torrieri is a TMCnet Web editor, covering IP hardware and mobility, including IP phones, smartphones, fixed-mobile convergence and satellite technology. She also compiles and regularly contributes to TMCnet's gadgets and satellite e-Newsletters. To read more of Marisa's articles, please visit her columnist page.

Edited by Marisa Torrieri


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