Global cellphone market and ecosystem study: Forward Concepts

TEMPE, USA: Forward Concepts has announced the publication of its newest in-depth study of the worldwide cellphone market and the associated ecosystem of subscribers, operators and technologies.

The extensive study, "Global Cellphone Market & Subscriber/Operator Ecosystem" covers over 50 cellphone vendors and their market shares. It also provides dozens of detailed forecasts of the cellphone market by global region and air interface technology within each region through 2014.

Subscriber makeup by population (POPs), air technology (GSM, UMTS, HSPA, CDMA-1x, CDMA EV-DO), mobile Internet subscribers and 2009 subscriber growths are provided for each of 188 individual countries.

Cellular service operators in each global region are profiled by the technologies they employ, their subscribers for each and 2009 subscriber growth.

Some of the key findings from the study are:

* Worldwide unit cellphone shipments fell by 0.5 percent in 2009, as the entire electronics market was muted by global economic conditions. We are forecasting a much healthier 11 percent growth in 2010 to 1.4 billion units.

* Unit growth varies markedly by region, with China's market forecast to grow by 23 percent in 2010, while Western Europe's will grow by a more sedate 4 percent.

* India will lead in subscriber growth this year, growing an estimated 30 percent compared to China's 7 percent.

* Apple exhibited the greatest unit growth of all cellphone vendors in 2009, with an 83 percent growth. Following Apple were Tianyu with 68 percent, NEC with 46 percent, RIM with 44 percent, Inventec with 23 percent, LGE with 21 percent, TCL and Huawei each with 17 percent, Samsung with 16 percent and HTC with 10 percent. Of course, the lesser-known companies began with smaller shipment bases.

* In smartphones, ZTE had the highest 2009 unit growth, at 160 percent, with revenues of $400 million in that category, followed by Apple's 83 percent growth, but with much higher revenues of $13.8 billion.

* Smartphones, such as those by RIM, Apple and HTC get the most press, but they only constitute 13 percent of the unit cellphone market, while so-called feature phones make up 25 percent.

* Budget cellphones, popular in India, China and Africa presently make up 23 percent of the market, while mid-range units account for the largest market, at 39 percent. We forecast that the budget market will flatten as their replacements will lead to better growth of mid-range models.