Thought Garage

The great slim looking Nokia N75 has just been released into the wild on ATT (Cingular) network and is the first high-end, UMTS 3G, Symbian S60 3rd Edition smartphone to launch on ATT’s (Cingular) network. The news on the street says that these very cool looking N75 phones are selling like hotcakes. It looks like Nokia may have a hit here in the USA market with a series 60 smartphone.

 

 (Source)

India, I would rather say, fast catching up in the Wireless telecom market by quickly adding new connections. Naturally, India will become the second largest wireless market in terms of Number of connections, it is interesting to see how it fares in revenues.  While 484mln is very optimistic number by any standards, 300 mln is quite reachable.  

India in 2006 emerged as one of the world’s fastest-growing wireless telecom markets, with the number of mobile-phone service subscribers in the nation growing to 149.5 mln, up from 85 mln in 2005. And the number of new subscriber additions continues at a torrid pace. Monthly mobile subscriber additions averaged 5.5 mln in 2006, and exceeded 6 mln per month by the end of the year. iSuppli projects that the wireless service subscriber base in India will rise to 484 mln by 2011, more than three times the 149.5 mln in 2006. The growth in wireless subscribers is fueling explosive growth in demand for new phones in India.

Source: » 149.5 mln mobile subscribers in India | IT Facts | ZDNet.com

No surprise, in UK 80% of new mobile sold in UK are Camera Phones. Bundling of new functions like MP3 Player and Camera is the way to go for Mobile Phones. Consumers don’t prefer to carry a device for each function and carry them all along. Instead they prefer to have all those functions in a device that they ALWAYS carry anyways.

85% of UK consumers are using text messaging to stay connected to their peers at all times and more than 80% of new phones sold are camera phones, Telephia reports. MySpace is the site receiving content from the highest number of mobile consumers, with 21% of mobile uploaders saying that they have sent content there.

Source: » 80% of new mobile phones sold in the UK are cameraphones | IT Facts | ZDNet.com

As per an IDC report, in US Mobile Content and Application Downloads still accounts to only 13% of Content revenue for Q42006. About a half (48.8%) of  this revenue is still coming from Messaging. 

There were 236 mln US wireless subscribers by the end of 2006. Wireless data revenue totaled $4.8 bln for Q4 2006, which equates to roughly 13.5% of average revenue per user (ARPU) or $6.74 per subscriber/customer per month. Of the total data revenue, 48.8% came from messaging in comparison to 13.0% from content and simple application downloads and 38.2% from other business- and consumer-oriented services and content, IDC says.

Source: » 236 mln wireless subscribers in the US in 2006 | IT Facts | ZDNet.com

 As per a report by CDC, 

More than a quarter of young adults have only cellphones, making them the leading edge of a strengthening move away from traditional landline telephones, a federal survey showed Monday.

One in four people aged 18 to 24 had only cellphones, as did 29% of those aged 25 to 29, the study showed. The percentages declined with age after that, with 2% of those 65 or over having only cellphones.

The trend away from landline phones affects the telephone industry, 911 emergency service providers, and government and private polling organizations, which rely heavily on random calls to households with wired telephones.

Source: Cellphone-only use growing among youths – USATODAY.com