On hold for iPhone?
Ramon Barquin III
Computers & Business World News
San Juan,
Puerto Rico
Apple's iPhone is not due to hit the handset market until the
summer of 2007, but its competitors are not just holding fast.
iSuppli
reports that Nokia grew its leadership position in the mobile
handset market in 2006, shipping more units than its next two
closest competitors combined.
Nokia shipped 348 million units in 2006. This compares to
combined shipments of 335.3 million units for Nokia's two
closest competitors, Motorola and Samsung.
Nokia shipped 106 million units in the fourth quarter of 2006
alone, up from 83.7 million during the same period a year
earlier.
However, the biggest wave in the market was created by Sony
Ericsson, which in the fourth quarter of 2006 posted the largest
quarter-over-quarter growth of all mobile phone makers, with
shipments rising 61.5% to 26 million units, up from 16.1 million
units during the same period in 2005.
Analysts at
ABI Research
were not impressed. Even though nearly a billion handsets were
shipped worldwide in 2006, handsets failed to "wow consumers."
"Reviewing handset shipments for 2006, you would have to give a
B+ for Effort but only C+ for Results," said Jake Saunders of
ABI.
Many end users are simply getting bored with the same old lineup
of handsets, so ABI expects to see more handsets that break the
mold.
In other words, here comes the
iPhone, and possibly a new wave of
innovation and design in the still-growing global handset
market.
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