Add to del.icio.us     Digg this

Aug. 21, 2008

Wireless industry researchers at the NPD Group say that consumers in the United States are buying 13.1 percent fewer mobile handsets than in 2007.

However, NPD numbers reveal that overall revenue from those sales is down only 1.92 percent to $2.41 billion because of higher selling prices.

Overall, the steep decline from a year ago was only partially anticipated and is caused by the general slumping economy, not by industry factors.

“The overall number of units was the lowest we had seen since we began tracking the units three years ago. The severity of the decline was somewhat surprising,” said Ross Rubin, NPD's director of industry analysis.

The top handset sellers in the U.S. for the second quarter of this year were Motorola with 211percent, Samsung and LG with both la little over 19.9 percent, Nokia at 8.9 percent despite being the globally dominant seller at more than 39.85 percent, with RIM (Research in Motion) trailing on the low-end at slightly under 6.9 percent.

Other companies divide the rest of the market share, but NPD doesn't track enterprise sales.

Overall, LG and Samsung are gaining market share because those companies acted quickly in response to the recent trend in touchscreen phones. NPD plans to start tracking touchscreens ob Sep. 15 it said.

But Smartphones were 19 percent of all phones sold to U.S. consumers in the second quarter, up 9 percent from 2007. “It’s key these days for wireless carriers to get more advanced handsets to consumers in order to pursue the network services that they’re rolling out,” Rubin said.

That wasn’t an issue in the old world of voice-centric phones, but it is today.

Other phone trends on NPD’s radar screen include alternative operating systems, phones with multiple SIM card slots, flash memory, near-field communications and Wi-Fi.

NPD found that the current average selling price of a consumer phone in the United States is pegged at $84.

Add to del.icio.us     Digg this

    This article was featured on Business 5.0.

Source: NPD.