Though wireless is probably better positioned to weather a historically weak economy than many other industries, it's not bulletproof by any stretch of the imagination -- and following years of double-digit year-over-year growth, a slowdown of some sort is all but inevitable. The extent of the slowdown is a subject of endless debate among analysts, with some suggesting year-end contraction as low as 3.5 percent and others saying the market could slow down by as much as 10 percent or more, but one thing everyone seems to agree on is that smartphones are best positioned to continue to grow. Interestingly, the changing economic picture seems poised to entrench the big players like Nokia and Samsung and put the little guys even further behind, with Nokia -- despite its forecast of negative growth in '09 -- possibly adding to its already
immense share of the global market. Sucks to hear that mobile sales are going downhill along with everything else, but hey, at least smartphones are continuing to win big, and 2009's shaping up to be another breakout year.
posted January 5th 2009 1:05PM
Just thought I'd let you know that you have a typo in the headline, Chris. Other than that, nice job on the AT&T network write up.
Yikes! Fixed, thanks.
I wanted to like Samsung. I just got off the phone with them and they suck .
Im a tech support person and they are ridiculous and rude. They know nothing. i hope they go under.
Nokia and Samsung are in good position. Nokia(around $9,800 millions last year), like Apple has been making huge porfits for years and got cash to spare.
I'm not actually sure how Samsung as a parent company is doing, but the mobile phone side just now is doing better than ever. They are lacking badly on smartphones while some of their devices are actually pretty good at least looking at outside they do lack support (for example in S60). They just need to make a name in smartphones as people are most probally going to take the Nokia equivalent even if Samsung might arguably have better one. But they cant keep their hands on every OS like they are trying now. They arent in many cases as polished even if the shell and features are damn good. Still from the big ones i would say Samsung was the winner in 2008.
I guess for the luck of the 2 big ones there's 2 old ones that arent doing that good. it's a just a pitty that Motorola actually got one of the best if not the best 5mp camera on a phone with Z5(and in a really competitive price), but no one just buys Moto anymore in many parts of Europe Or Asia. Actually here in Germany it's hard to find Moto phones anymore. Motos smartphone future really depends on how will Android take off. it has been silent in the Android side, but Moto could make some really nice hardware and we might have a winner. Thought i doubt Moto can go back to fight with Nokia in emergin market as size and volume matters there and Moto just dosent have coin to spare there. They did try it this year with Samsung thought by selling half free and did some damage to Nokia in emergin market, but will it make them any good in a long run. Time will tell.
Hopefully next year is more interesting in smartphones because this year really was one lackluster. What's the next step with the 3th iphone, is there "iphone nano"?, how will the Symbian Foundation take off and what's the points with the 5800 and N97s Symbian v9.4(5th edition) when already 2 years advertised Symbian v9.5 should be coming this year so is it just couple of phones and will Android come something big?
Samsung could easily marginalize HTC with smartphone products that look good AND deliver. So far, HTC has been crippling themselves walking the underperforming Qualcomm chipset path so they're ripe for the picking.
Don't know what Nokia is doing, but the N96 nor the N97 is a typical flagship quality product from them.
A solid solution that takes full-advantage of the hardware, long battery life, good ergonomics, and bullet-proof usability are easily within reach as long as the Sony fallacy of good hardware/bad software is avoided.
Apple has defined what the mobile platform should be able to do, tantalizing with real mobile gaming, so it's just catch up for the rest at this point.