The economic downturn will have a significant impact on mobile phone shipments in 2009; Ovum predicts the volumes will be down globally by 9.1%. The downturn has artificially extended replacement rates for handsets during 2009.The consultancy expects that all regions, even those in emerging markets, will be hit to some extent by the downturn. Shipments will start to recover from 2010 onwards, although it will take until 2012 before global volumes are back to the level seen in 2008.
Ovum further predicts that 2009 will witness the collapse of the market for mid-tier handsets.
“This has had a polarizing effect on the handset market with vendors and mobile operators focusing on two types of handset: those targeting the low-end and high-end segments”, says Adam Leach, devices principal analyst at Ovum and co-author of these forecasts. “This in turn has quickened the replacement of 2G in favour of 3G handsets, with high-end 2G handset shipments suffering the most from the shift”.
http://www.ovum.com
