March 13th, 2005
13% of all phones sold in Western Europe in 2005 to support WCDMA
IDC forecasts smartphone growth approaching 70% in 2005 in Western European market, increasing smartphones’ total proportion of the market beyond 6%. 3G service launches by Vodafone and Orange and the subsequent increase in 3G handset development saw explosive YTY growth of almost 850% in Q4 2004, driving the proportion of WCDMA handsets to 6% in 2004 compared to 1% in 2003. IDC forecasts WCDMA handsets to increase to around 13% of total mobile phone shipments in 2005, particularly in light of service launches from T-Mobile and O2 in Q1 2005 and new 3G handsets such as the 6680 from Nokia and Sony Ericsson K600i. However, GPRS is forecast to remain the dominant standard for the total mobile phone market, in contrast to GSM, which is expected to continue its decline in competition with a growing selection of low-cost GPRS-based, and increasingly EDGE-based, handsets.
Alex is a software engineer in the San Francisco Bay Area. ITFacts is created and updated by a group of statistics-obsessed individuals.
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