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This time last year the mobile telecom giants were predicting a 10% drop in volumes for 2009 citing the dreadful economy. During Nokia’s Q3 2009 financial earnings call, held on October 15, the company said they expected “industry mobile device volumes to be approximately 1.12 billion units in 2009, down approximately 7% from approximately 1.21 billion units … for 2008.” The analysts at Gartner paint a different picture, they say mobile phone sales will hit 1.214 billion units, only 0.67% less than 2008 figures. Why such a huge discrepancy? Blame the pirates.
“Although the grey market or ‘white label’ is not a new phenomenon and has been generated by Chinese device manufacturers who do not have a licence to sell and manufacture devices without a valid international mobile equipment identity (IMEI), today grey-market sales are no longer limited to China,” said Carolina Milanesi, research director at Gartner. “All manufacturers will have to compete with grey-market players as they expand into emerging markets in Asia/Pacific, Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Latin America and bring a lower weighted average selling price (ASP). The grey market will affect Nokia’s market share the most.”
Nokia’s estimate of 10% growth for 2010, which they gave at Capital Markets Day earlier this month, is in line with Gartner’s estimate of 9% growth. Gartner also says that 14% of the mobile phones shipped in 2009 were smartphones, up 23.6% compared to last year.
Things are looking a lot better than most people expected, and that’s groovy.
About The Author
Stefan Constantinescu
Stefan Constantinescu (@WhatTheBit on Twitter) has loved technology since as far back as he can remember. It started with computers, but in the past few years his passion has turned to mobile devices. As a mobile phone enthusiast who lives and breathes devices that connect to the internet, he knows he is not alone with this radical fascination of all things wireless. He is strongly opinionated and enjoys a good debate so leave comments in his posts and he’ll get back to you! Stefan began blogging as a hobby in the fall of 2006 and joined IntoMobile in the summer of 2007. Later he got a job at Nokia in March 2008, but as of June 2009 he has rejoined the IntoMobile team. He is currently based out of Helsinki, Finland.
