LONDON-Smart phones will represent the fastest growing segment of the mobile handset market this year, according to Informa Telecoms & Media.
The company said year-on-year volume of smart phones will increase more than 40 percent this year. By comparison, basic phones are expected to increase 4 percent, low feature phones 19 percent and feature-rich non-smart-phones 20 percent.
Starting next year, Informa predicts basic phone sales will start to decline to about 129 million units in 2011 from 239 million units this year. Low-feature phones will start to decline in 2010 and will reach 431 million units in 2011, down from a predicted 455 million units in 2009.
In all, mobile handsets are expected to achieve 943 million units this year, up from 814.5 million units last year, said Informa.
“While the handset market continues to enjoy healthy growth, vendor differentiation is becoming increasingly complex owing to the growing number of features and functionalities these devices are required to handle,” said Malik Saadi, principal analyst at Informa.
