Wifi Revolution

Recently, market research firm In-Stat (News - Alert) has examining various aspects of the market for mobile phones with advanced, PDA-like features—most commonly referred to as smartphones.

 

In its latest report, In-Stat focused on the numbers; specifically, how well smartphones are selling worldwide.

 

It turns out that the answer is, very well indeed. Sales of smartphones almost tripled from 2004 to 2005, and the growth doesn’t appear to be slowing down; during he first half of 2006, sales increased by 50 percent over 2005.

 

Smartphones, it appears, and holding their own in the competition with more established products like BlackBerry (News - Alert), personal information managers, and PDAs, which offer similar functionality.

 

But, In-Stat analyst Bill Huges warns, despite spectacular sales, two cautions should be thrown in about the smartphone market.

 

First, users of smartphones continue to carry around the types of devices the phones are meant to replace.

 

That first caution jibes with another finding of In-Stat recently, namely that most wireless users carry around redundant devices, and 15 percent own two phones.

 

“Also, users have been slow to add new applications to their devices,” Hughes said in a statement. “Most users have only downloaded a few applications.”

 

Looking more in-depth at the situation, In-Stat uncovered some insights that could be helpful to manufacturers and service providers trying to sustain the recent growth in smartphone sales.

 

For example, In-Stat noted that, while many smarphones sold in 2006 were designed as combo phones and PDAs, most units sold globally offer users only basic wireless capabilities.

 

Also worth noting is that fact that business users who receive smartphones from their empoyers are three times more likely than other users to carry a second wireless phone for personal calls.

 

Business users are a very important segment of the smartphone user market, as In-Stat found in a related report earlier this month—in fact, smartphones are most popular among business travelers who spend $300 or more per month on wireless services and are on the road at least 30 percent of the time.

 

Finally, manufacturers and providers should consider the operating system they offer with their smartphones. In the U.S., the market is split more or less evenly between Windows Mobile, Blackberry OS, and Palm OS.

 

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