August 3, 2005
The third world now comes first...
Forget the latest feature-rich smart phones - the real action is happening at the other end of the mobile phone market, says Futurity Media's Stewart Baines. All players are piling headlong into low cost mobiles in the hope that the three billion people who currently could but do not use a mobile phone will soon be able to embrace the 21st century. Silicon.com reports.
"Last month, the GSM Association announced the second phase of its Ultra-Low Cost (ULC) mobile phone initiative, aimed at making cellular more affordable in the developing world.
... The GSM Association is pretty convinced that cheap handsets equal new customers. "At the right entry level, we believe there is the potential for over a hundred million new connections per year," GSMA chairman Craig Ehrlich told Radioactive.
The market, of course, hardly needs incentives to drive prices down. All of the major vendors are concentrating on trimming the costs of their low-end handsets because that's where the majority of the growth will be. Nokia's recent results showed a sharp dip at the high end, with the strongest growth from low-end products where competition is fierce."
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