Smartphone market surges to new high

Peter Dinham
Tuesday, 13 October 2009 09:12

IT Industry - Market

The smartphone market in Australia is booming, with shipments of the converged devices surging by 29 percent year-on-year in the first half of this year, and those smartphones with a touchscreen or QWERTY keyboard up by a whopping 235 percent year-on-year.

According to IDC in its latest quarterly mobile phone tracker for Australia, for the first time ever, data-centric converged devices exceeded voice-centric, accounting for 51 percent of all converged device shipments in Q1 2009, and by the end of Q2 data-centric penetration rose further to 65 percent.

IDC’s market analyst, telecommunications, Mark Novosel, said today that touchscreen and QWERTY keyboard-based converged devices have seen “phenomenal growth over the past 12 months, when the segment comprised only 25% of all converged devices shipped."

According to Novosel, traditional mobile phones, which currently comprise 66.9 percent of the total Australian mobile device market, have also performed well, growing 11.5 percent year-on-year.

“The Australian mobile market has excelled throughout the worst of the global financial crisis, now with increased optimism returning, IDC expects the market will continue performing strongly in the coming years.
 
"IDC has upgraded its five-year forecast in response to two strong quarters of growth, with Australia's converged device market now expected to grow at a CAGR of 13% over the next five years," Novosel said, adding that “the Australian dollar has recovered strongly over the past six months, meaning consumers can expect converged device prices to soften in the second half of the year, ahead of the Christmas spending season."
 
IDC also reports that the launch of the third-generation iPhone 3GS and price cuts to the iPhone 3G 8GB have propelled Apple to second place in the converged device rankings, with market share more than doubling to 21 percent of the converged device market in Q2 2009.