For The First Time Ever, Smartphones To Outdo Feature Phones in 2013
Bangalore: Smartphones are reported to be catching up more in sales than feature phones this year. Also, 50.1 percent of the mobile phones to be sold will have smart operating systems which would be 66 percent by 2017, predicts the bean counters at IDC.
What wonders us is the shift from feature devices to Smartphones. Smartphones were too expensive earlier and western markets used to sell them by offering subsidies. But the technological innovation has created a shift. People can now buy Smartphones with same specifications as Nexus One for $200 less. Even Smartphones with single 1 GHz core processors and 5 mega pixel cameras can be bought at a very cheap price.
China is presently the world’s biggest consumer country for Smartphones. The population in this country is more just as we combine the population of Europe and the U.S. As population in China has recently climbed the socioeconomic ladder, they can afford Smartphones now unlike how it was just a flight of fancy before.
After China, America is the next biggest Smartphone consumer with 137.5 million. But it is nowhere near China. Many of the devices to be sold in America will be subsidized super phones, but China will see sub $200 Smartphones by local dealers and most of these phones will be Androids.
Android Smartphones being as cheap as $99, making Google proud or not, is what we should see now.
