America, land of the free phone with a 2 year contract that does nothing but voice and SMS and according to the latest figures that is changing. Over 10% of phone sales in Q3 2007 were due to smartphones, 165% more than this time last year. Another figure that is sure to make your head spin, only 72% of the phones sold in America have Bluetooth, a rise from 44% this time last year.
America, the third world of wireless telecommunications. In a related article, Dennis Knothe from Nokia praises the iPhone for stiring the pot:
I think the iPhone is very good for the industry (device manufacturers and web services). It has changed the publics mind, particularly in North America, that a cell phone nowadays can do so much more than these cheap, rather featureless phones that most people were used to so far. Also, people now realize that it is worth paying money for a phone, if it has the appropriate features.
Particularly with the respect to the “mobile web”, the iPhone hype encouraged many websites to optimize their services specifically for the iPhone. Considering that the iPhone has still such a small market share, this is quite an interesting feat. I think in future we’ll see more and more web services launching mobile optimized versions of their offering. I think this development doesn’t end with “iPhone optimized”, but soon will address other devices, too. I think the iPhone also somewhat helped establish WebKit as the de-facto standard for mobile browsers. Nokias S60 platform has been using WebKit for quite a while now. This is good news for web developers, because if you optimize the mobile offering of your service for WebKit, you can easily support both Nokia’s devices and the iPhone. This again should help bring more web developers on board to optimize their services for mobile access.
Here Here, as much as I hate the iPhone even I have to admit that it has become the catalyst America needed to wake up from their deep slumber.
[Via: EE Times]