15 August 2008

Mobile Device Market In Flux

Mobile devices are the biggest selling consumer electronics products in the world, yet this arena should not be viewed as a “comfort zone”, according to a market research company webcast.

“Three or four years from now, no mobile device vendor – no matter what their market position today – will be in a ‘comfort zone’,” commented  market research company ABI Research’s vice president and research director Stuart Carlaw, in a new webcast available on the firm’s website.

“The mobile device market is expanding, not consolidating, and shows increasing micro-segmentation. Disruptive influences abound,” added Carlaw.

“The advent of wider mobile broadband access, the drive to maximize data revenue, the desire to push smartphone operating systems down into mid-tier handsets, and rapid innovations in user interfaces will all make the mobile devices of 2010 radically unlike those of today,” explained Carlaw.

ABI Research predicts that as technologies evolve and market trends emerge, we will see the user interface advances pioneered by Apple’s iPhone continue, with wider use of accelerometers and the addition of haptic feedback to touchscreens.

ABI Research also believes that Mobile Internet Devices (MIDs) will become an important market segment, and vendors will increasingly look to diversify their product and service offerings.