“The cellphone manufacturers are getting slammed by the global economic crisis. Worldwide shipments are expected to decline for the first time since 2001,” Mary Jane Irwin reports for Forbes.
“Worldwide, cellphone shipments growth will drop by 1.9%, says IDC. But despite the doom and gloom recently espoused from Motorola, Nokia and Qualcomm, who have had to revise 2009 guidance or adopt cost-saving measures, there is a bright spot: The Apple iPhone is safe,” Irwin reports. “U.S. smartphone sales shipments surged 75.7% in 2008 compared with a 9.8% decline in the traditional mobile handset market. This year, after all, has been huge for smartphones with the release of the iPhone 3G…”
“With consumers saving cash, it is unlikely they will be upgrading their handsets with the same intensity, but IDC predicts shipments will continue to grow by 3.1% and jump to 28.2% in 2010,” Irwin reports. “Worldwide, smartphone shipments are expected to increase by 8.9% next year. Meanwhile, non-smartphones will decline by 11.0% in the U.S. during 2009, forecasts the firm. Worldwide shipments are expected to fall by 3.5%.”
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “James W.” for the heads up.]
But what about the BB Storm?
It actually makes sense. The iPhone saves you money in that it’s a full-featured iPod, a smartphone, a wi-fi web browser, and a fairly advanced gaming system. For some users, it could replace four devices.
——RM
iPhone for the most part is selling to net new converts to Apple. The Blackberry Storm, Bold, etc. are selling to existing Blackberry users. RIM just reported figures showing 6.7 phones sales but a net increase of 2.6 million Blackberry users. Look at their financial announcement. That means 5.1 million were replacements. SO the iPhone is having a much bigger impact until the iPhone v3 comes out!
@jX
It was downgraded to the BB Fart, and dispersed with the wind…
Macbliss…. hahahah! Of course.
I’m still on my 1st Generation $600 iPhone that I waited in line for on June 29, 2007… and it still blows away anything brand new on the market today as we go into 2009… except of course the iPhone 3G.
“SO the iPhone is having a much bigger impact until the iPhone v3 comes out!”
By the time the next iPhone comes out all the BB users will be ready to switch.
I guess no one here would actually listen to the conference call where RIM said they have been slammed with Storm orders and can’t keep up. They also said 75% of Storm buyers are new to the BB platform. Given the debate around return rates, and the fact that I personally think the big button sucks, I’m skeptical, but they are still very positive on this. They even raised their device sales for this quarter to 7.5 – 8 mln units from 6.7 mln this last quarter. And they said they have already booked virtually all of those orders. So iPhone might be siphoning off some of the growth, but in this environment, to put out that guidance, and be more confident in it than I have ever heard is either really balls-sillie, jus plain stupid, or they actually see that platforms like BB and iPhone are where the growth is at the expense of dumb phone makers. Interesting all the way around.
@jX
My original iPhone, purchased at the same time as yours, is also chugging away faithfully. I was just noting a couple of days ago that in the year and half I’ve been using it, I’ve turned it off maybe six times. I’ve dropped on concrete at least that many times without ill effect. The phone that tempts me away from my 1st gen iPhone will be a pretty special device.
BB has a lock in the corporate world, just like MS. They are almost as good as MS monopoly. They won’t sell a ton of Storms, since its a stupid device with a “big ass button”, but the corporate locks will provide them revenue.
I noticed they fail to mention that Blackberry (all models) are being sold by various providers expect the storm. The people I have spoke with that have the Storm do not really like the button, finger pressure stress is the noted reason. A few have returned it because the feel was not acceptable to the keyboard.
Considering that the iPhone is sold by ATT and in only one model, it is doing quite well. So well, that all the other phones are compared to it- with number of sales by all providers.
First model Steve brought out was the hot knife through the butter of the cell phone world. Not bad at all.
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