Annual Global Mobile Shipments To Reach 1.5 billion By 2011

Posted by Mike Slocombe on 26 July 2006 at 5:06 pm | Tagged as: Platforms, Mobile, Cellular

Annual Global Mobile Shipments To Reach 1.5 billion By 2011 Global sales of handsets are set to reach 1.5 billion in five years, according to a new report by IT research firm Analysys.

The “Evolution of Mobile Handsets to 2011 and Beyond” study forecasts that mobiles will evolve into three broad categories, comprising voice-centric, converged-function and specialist handsets.

After imbibing deeply on a large bowl of buzzwords, report author Dr Yanli Suo-Saunders exploded into a frenzy of tech-speak, “The handset market is transforming as traditional voice-centric devices diversify with the incorporation of a range of multimedia functions.”

“Future handsets will develop into voice-centric, converged-function and specialist categories, driven by increasingly segmented consumer demand,” he continued, as we grappled to sync up with his mindshare paradigm shift.

The good doctor reckoned that voice-centric handsets will remain the largest single product category in emerging markets; while developed economies will see converged-function and specialist handsets taking the lead in 2011.

Annual Global Mobile Shipments To Reach 1.5 billion By 2011 Ball rubbing
After giving their crystal ball a good rub, the report authors predicted that annual global handset shipments will reach 1.5 billion in 2011 - up from just over 800 million in 2005 - while voice-centric handsets will still make up more than half of shipments in emerging markets in 2011.

Converged-function handsets look set to become a mainstream product in developed markets by 2011, hogging over 30% of the market, with a range of specialist handsets looking to be the biggest sellers in the majority of developed economies by the same time period.

Analysys