Market corner - 10/02/08

Publié le 10 février 2008 par Jean Arnal

A few set of market information released this week:

Mobile Internet and broadband will be the dominant themes at this year's Mobile World Congress in Barcelona
According to Idate, the global mobile market (including, services, terminals and infrastructure) grew 11% in 2007 to $860bn. Growth was not even across continents and countries. Developing countries reported a growth rate of 26%, while western countries experienced a low 5.6% (2% in WE) highlighting there both the market saturation and the forced decline in pricing (call and roaming). Mobile services accounted for 78% of the global market, and growth is fueled by high speed mobile (3G, EDGE, HSDPA,..). Mobile data services account for 18% in WE, 19% in NA and 32% in Japan. Mobile phones are valued at $131bn (+1%) in 2007, or 15% of the global market, and 1.1bn units.
A new serious Japanese study on mobile radiation impact on health said there is no link between mobile phone usage and brain cancer. But it is just one more study in a panel with very different conclusions, so it seems too early to abandon the precaution principle.
Smartphone market: 118m (+53%) units sold in 2007, according to Canalys, and accounts for 10% of the global mobile phone market. Nokia is the market leader with almost 19m units sold in 4Q07 and a market share of 53%. RIM ranks second with 4m units sold in 4Q07 and a market share of 11.5%. Apple is third with 6.5% market share and 2.3m units sold in 4Q07, just ahead of Motorola with 2.3m units. In the US, the market leader is RIM with 41%, followed by Apple with 28%. In Europe, Nokia leads the market, ahead of RIM, HTC and Motorola.
According to In-Stat, the number of cable broadband subscribers in China will increase from 2.7m in 2007 to 8.2m in 2012, with cable modem shipments growing from 677k in 2007 to 1.6m in 2012.
FMC and femtocells would lead to fixed-mobile services (FMS), according to In-Stat. By 2011, over 100m consumers will have access to femtocell-enabled gateways.
According to TIA, US spent $208b (+10%) on wireless communications technologies in 2007.
IMS Research believes that WiMAX deployment will drive the penetration of digital TV services in Africa.
Maravedis is forecasting 100m WiMAX subscribers by early 2014, from 1.6m BWA subscribers at the end of 2007. Motorola (23%) and Alvarion (18%) are the market leaders. The market was worth $1.2bn in 2007, of which 50% in base stations.
According to UN, global mobile penetration would exceed 50% in early 2008, with over 3.3bn subscriptions, from 12% in 2000.
According to Analysys, the volume of mobile voice calls will exceed that on traditional fixed networks in Western Europe by mid-year.
According to CMP Heavy Reading, the number of households with fiber-optic network connections will grow by nearly 43% worldwide in 2008, and would reach 90m at the end of 2012.