“The cellphone industry is poised for its first major shake-up since the beginning of the decade as the global economic downturn hurts sales of handsets and components, leaving some companies better protected than others,” Amol Sharma and Sara Silver report for The Wall Street Journal.
“One bellwether of the slowdown is Nokia Corp., which makes one in four cellphones sold world-wide. The company warned last week that it expects tepid demand during the holiday season and a shrinking global handset market next year as consumers cut spending,” Sharma and Silver report.
“The downturn won’t affect all handset makers equally. Those with high-end smart phones with the latest features, like touch-screens and fancy Internet capabilities, are forecast to weather the storm best,” Sharma and Silver report.
“Among the companies better positioned for the shake-up include BlackBerry-maker Research In Motion Ltd., which this week is releasing the touch-screen Storm through Verizon Wireless. Apple Inc., whose iPhone continues to sell rapidly around the world, also is situated well. Analysts also cite HTC Corp., maker of the touch-screen G1 phone, the first based on Google Inc.’s Android software,” Sharma and Silver report. “Motorola Inc., of Schaumburg, Ill., and Sony Ericsson are among the companies that could have a tougher time.”
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “James W.” for the heads up.]
Nokia expects “tepid demand” because consumers are cutting spending. Actually more folks maybe moving to iPhone and Crackberry and replacing their Nokia mobiles with Apple and RIM products.
“… one thousand persons waited for hours to get their hands on an iPhone 3G” in Venezuela.
http://macdailynews.com/index.php/weblog/comments/19124/
There were more people in Venezuela getting an iPhone that that G1 phone had in the USA! The me too BlackBerry touch will be the same.
I was one of those who dumped nokia for a iPhone, Also, I used to have the company’s crapberry, but I dumped also since we have VPN and Exchange. so there is no need for two phones if you already have the iPhone (the crap berry was used just for email, no radio and no phone).
Don’t forget, everyone: Until Friday the “Storm” is still vaporware. Ignore all postings about how wonderful–or horrible–or mediocre–or whatever it is–until it falls into the hands of real world users. Not anal-ysts, not paid shills, not media outlets, not “reporters,” not spokespeople, not company employees, not RIM-jobbers, NOBODY.
A week from today, we’ll see what this vaporous thing is really made of. (Oh, and don’t forget how well the “Bold” did in Britain recently.)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/scienceandtechnology/3358770/Orange-suspends-BlackBerry-Bold-handsets-over-software-glitches.html
I love Apple products but Blackberries are almost as good for e-mail weenies.
RIM will not die as easily as Microsoft’s Windows Mobile.
@ MDN your link only links to the first paragraph of the article, not the whole article.
@ Jeremy
That’s just a teaser – the full article requires a paid subscription.
Too often the teaser is what MDN links to.
What insightful analysis. Basically, handset makers with models that are selling quite well right now, are expected to keep doing well. Handset makers with sales declining right now, will continue to have declining sales. The only thing he left out is “or something new happens, making this insightful analysis look stupid”.