Healthy Growth for European Mobile Phone Market

November 22, 2006 – 2:47 pm

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I must admit that this news is a bit shocking to me. I thought that in Europe everyone has a mobile phone connection and the market there does not have any room for growth. Well, it is true that the European mobile phone market is not growing at a very fast pace like the Asian market but it is growing at a healthy rate. Irishdev.com reported:

According to IDC’s latest European Mobile Devices Tracker, the Western European mobile phone market, consisting of traditional mobile phones and converged devices, grew by 9% year on year in 3Q06, with shipments reaching 44.1 million units compared to 40.5 million units in the corresponding period of 2005.

“The third quarter of 2006 saw the Western European mobile phone market continue to exhibit healthy growth year on year as further intensification of competition in the high-end feature-phone segment, driven by the proliferation of media and specifically imaging-oriented handsets in highly innovative form factors, maintained healthy renewal cycles in combination with strong prepay traction at the low end,” said Jean Philippe Bouchard, senior research analyst, European Mobile Devices.

Europeans are quite well off compared to the rest of the world. All the countries of Western Europe have high per capita income. So, they have the purchasing power to buy new handsets, connections and content. Here in Asia, most of us cannot think of having two handsets at the same time but many Europeans can easily afford it.

The condition of mobile phone market reminds me of the growth of Internet. In the developed world, now, all the people are connected to Internet but that does not decrease growth of Internet market in the rich countries. Instead, we can see new forms of income potential of Internet all the time. I guess that mobile phone is heading for the same future.

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