Feature Phones Still Beating Smartphones
A recent report released by The NPD Group, a market research company based in Port Washington, N.Y., shows that while smartphones get most of the buzz, their inferior regular cell phone counterparts still rule the landscape.
The attention that smartphones have been receiving isn’t all misled – 28 percent of new handset sales in the second quarter were made for smartphones (“handsets that are sold with their own operating systems”), reflecting a 47-percent increase from the same time last year.
Regular cell phones, or feature phones, saw their sales decline to 72 percent in the second quarter, down 5 percentage points from 77 percent last year.
“Despite their ties to pricey data plans, the rich Internet access capabilities of smartphones are attracting consumers wooed by lower device prices,” said Ross Rubin, director of industry analysis at The NPD Group.
Overall, handset sales rose 14 percent in the second quarter compared to the same quarter in 2008, according to the company. Sales revenue increased 18 percent during that same time.
The average price of all mobile phones was $87 in the second quarter, reflecting a rise of 4 percent year-over-year.
The LG enV2 and Samsung Rant led the way for feature phone sales. The Apple iPhone 3G and RIM BlackBerry Curve were the best sellers in the smartphone realm.
Wi-Fi capability is quickly flooding the market as 20 percent of all new handsets are ready with this capability, a three-fold increase from last year.
Twenty-six percent of both feature phones and smartphones came with touch screens in the second quarter, while 35 percent of handsets came equipped with QWERTY keyboards.
Rubin noted that applications for feature phones are lagging behind those of smartphones, adding that “With the price gap between smartphones and feature phones narrowing, to remain competitive feature phones need to develop a better Web experience, drive utility via widgets, and sidestep the applications arms race.”
Sources:</strong
http://www.npd.com/press/releases/press_090819.html
