Are cell phones no longer a growth business? At least in the fourth quarter, cell phone shipments actually declined. According to Deutsche Bank analyst Brian Modoff, shipments from the top five cell phone manufacturers (Nokia, Samsung, LG, Sony Ericsson, and Motorola) dropped 13 percent year-over-year in the fourth quarter of 2008. Unit shipments decelerated from 14 percent growth in the second quarter to 2 percent growth in the third quarter, and then finally went into negative territory in the fourth quarter.
Shipments for the top five started decelerating sequentially (quarter-over-quarter) in the third quarter, when they were down 2 percent, and then were down 4 percent sequentially in the fourth quarter. The deceleration is likely to continue through 2009.
Even Apple saw a 36 percent quarterly decline in sales of iPhones (4.4 million in the December quarter versus 6.9 million in the September quarter). And RIM’s Blackberry Storm sold only 500,000 units its first month, despite a $100 million marketing campaign.
As a result, Apple and RIM have about 3 percent market share between them, down from 4 percent in the third quarter, estimates Modoff. Still, that’s half of Motorola’s 6 percent share.
how about the cell phone accesories business?
Will it affect much?
whats next pc’s , hardware, software, games? iphone apps? hopefully these companies will have diversified there portfolio as we enter into the “Apex of Innovation Era.”
ApexLocator.com – got summit?
RIM spent $100 million to sell 500,000 units of the Storm? Cripes, that’s $200 per phone!
There are growth in other markets worldwide. Nokia, Motorola, Samsung, Sony Ericsson & LG know that. Nokia has 33% of market share in Brazil with 50 mi handsets! Important: the market is growing.
Credit crunch + market saturation + rise of netbook
I doubt netbooks have had that much of an impact.
- still growing in China, but the independent knock-off manufacturers are the ones that thrive…
These guys have barely penetrated emerging markets. Growth in China, Europe and North America is slowing, but there are opportunities in India, South America, etc. to offset the weakness in CENA.
All Mobile phones tend to look the same and have the same features now.In the old days changing your phone every year was a must to get the latest features but these days most people have 2+ yr old phones.
The phone makers have ran out of things to differenciate themselves from the competition.
Perhaps companies like Nokia should now try to make their products really work and un-clutter their menus.
It’s the artificially high prices that are killing the cell phone industry. At least in Canada, cell phone carriers were subsidized to branch out their networks and now they’re not giving back any of that money to the people in the form of low (read: reasonable) prices. Ex. It’s still $0.10 CAD a text messages for most carriers.
Sales declined during an economic downturn.
In other news: warmer temperatures said to cause ice cap meltage.
People are now thinking double before they go to spend any penny. However i hope things will get to normal
People are obviously so happy with their iPhone’s that they see no need to ever upgrade again, hence the decline… :/
our nightmares have come true, everyone has a cell phone O.o