Wireless carriers are heading into the all-important holiday selling season, flashing new handsets designed to dazzle consumers and riding sales trends which have been building over the past year.
The Apple Inc. iPhone craze has, as expected, prompted interest in touch-screen technology-and competitors are taking note.
Sprint Nextel Corp. responded with the HTC Touch, which is set to debut on Nov. 4. Consumers who didn’t jump on the early iPhone bandwagon may do it during the holidays and give AT&T Mobility another iPhone-fueled boost, according to Allan Keiter, CEO of wireless shopping site MyRatePlan.com.
Yutes
The age of wireless customers is also getting younger, according to Gregg Kuperstein, president and CEO of retailer Wireless Toyz, which operates nearly 200 stores in 23 states.
“It’s not 17-year-olds, it’s 13, 12, 11, 10-year-olds that are pulling their folks in by the hand, pointing out handsets and making very passionate pleas,” said Kuperstein.
Slackening rules
Kuperstein also said that new flexibility from national wireless carriers on allowing changes to services plans without extending contracts, and pro-rating early termination fees, could also make consumers more likely to upgrade their phones.
“We’re seeing increased demand and desire for increased freedom and flexibility . over their wireless experience,” Kuperstein said.
He said consumers are aware that they’ll most likely have to pay full price for a phone if they don’t sign a new contract, but are willing to do so if they don’t have to lock themselves in for another two-year term.
Among other likely trends:
● Continued consumer interest in smartphones. Wireless Toyz reported that since the introduction of the iPhone, its sales of smartphones and advanced feature phones-such as Research In Motion Ltd.’s BlackBerry, Palm Inc,’s Treos, and the Motorola Inc. Q-have been on the increase. That trend is expected to continue during the holiday season, and carriers are certainly catering to the demand, with new smartphones such as the HTC Tilt from AT&T Mobility, released earlier this month.
● More and better music players and cameras. Music is a much-promoted feature, with Verizon Wireless introducing its new Juke music phone for the holiday season. Keiter also noted that the quality of cameras in wireless phones are moving into the three-megapixel range with devices such as the Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. Fin from Helio L.L.C.-and that the cameras soon may reach a point where they could replace basic digital cameras.
● The color trend still looms bright. Keiter said that introducing the handset in new colors reflects the role of cellphone as fashion accessory, as well as extending the life of the phone model. Color has become enough of a factor in the purchase decision that MyRatePlan.com allows shoppers to search by phone color.
● Look Ma, no hands. Kuperstein said that interest in Bluetooth handsets remains high, driven in part by regulatory rumbles around the country requiring calls from automobiles be made using hands-free devices. Headsets, he said, have evolved from an optional accessory to “part of an automatic purchase, just like . a charging device.”
● Memory cards make their mark. Keiter said that consumers are increasingly interested in cards to store their music on, and more phones have the capability to accept expandable memory cards. ABI Research recently concluded that removable memory cards will generate more than $7 billion in sales this year, outdoing headsets by $2 billion. The research firm predicted that memory cards will be the highest revenue-generating mobile phone accessory for the next five years.
Wireless Toyz sponsored a recent survey conducted by Consumer Insights to see which phone features are used by a majority of wireless customers.
Although the interest in smartphones and advanced features is rising, the survey found that the features most widely used are also some of the most basic and widely available across devices. Nearly 80% of consumers said they used caller ID; about 58% used their phone’s camera, and 56% made use of ringtones. Text messaging was close behind ringtones, with use from 55% of the survey respondents.
