By Kat Asharya | Tue Aug 24, 2010 3:45 pm |
Smartphones will make up over half of Asian handset sales by 2015, with estimated 477 million units to be sold, according to an industry report.
Research firm Frost and Sullivan said smartphones would total about 54 percent of the Asia-Pacific market in five years. Demand for data services would also surge resulting in a revenue boost for carriers, generating over $38 billion by 2015, up from over $1.3 billion a year ago.
"Smartphones are critical to every operator's mobile broadband business case, as a smartphone user's ARPU, or average revenue per user, typically increased by 25 to 100 percent after adoption depending on the market," said Marc Einstein, industry manager of Frost and Sullivan. "The Asia-Pacific market is particularly interesting for smartphones as there has been significant uptake in emerging markets like China, India and Indonesia, even among prepaid users."
The popularity of the iPhone and BlackBerry have sparked Asian consumer interest in smartphones, which has also been driven by the rise of mobile social networking.
Despite the report's optimistic figures, telecoms still face obstacles in broadening their market. Around 80 percent of Asian customers use prepaid cards, which can't be used with most smartphones. The company also said a lack of public Wi-Fi in emerging Asian markets may also hinder the wider adoption of these devices.
These conditions haven't hampered the surging Asian consumer interest in smartphones, however, and industry reports like the one issued by Frost and Sullivan indicate the demand for these devices will only continue to skyrocket.
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