samij

Is User Apathy About Smartphones Becoming Apparent?

maybe you should familiarize yourself with the concept of seasonality of sales :)

well you mentioned "the Wow factor of the iPhone" as a reason for "apathy about smartphones" so let's take a closer look:

quarter iphone sales symbian sales growth from year before
4q07 2,139m 7,8m units
1q08 1,703m 2,6m units

it's apathy when symbian sales growth alone is 2-3 times that of the "wow factor" phone sales, and the symbian phones are sold 10x more than iphones? hmmm, yeah right...

Mobile Handset Volumes: When is the Point of Inflection?

one further thing to consider is how the seasonality affects the mobile phone sales: during 4q the sales volume comes from europe and usa (holiday sales), while in 1q the asian markets are of importance (chinese new year being the key). 3g is less important in the product mix in asian markets, while in european markets such a feature is taken for granted.

so for 1q mobile phone sales the 2g chip manufacturers are to be watch for indicator, while 4q those indicators were found from 3g chip manufacturers forecasts.