China ready to slap down US in smartphone wars In another sign of the shifting balance of power on the global technology stage, China is set to steam ahead of the US to become the leading market for smartphone shipments in 2012, while the UK will be overtaken by India and Brazil by 2016, according to analyst IDC. The firm’s latest Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker …
Is this really surprising?
Brazil and India have bigger populations than the UK. (3 times and 18 times)
China has a bigger population than the US (4 times)
Just about no phone company makes "dumb" phones any more, and within a year or so I suspect it will be impossible to find a teleco offering anything that isn't a smart phone or a related device (slate, tablet etc.).
So by definition they will over take us, and its nothing to do with us being technologically backwards or them suddenly becoming more technologically advanced.
Really?Really?
I take it you haven't seen the £6 ones in Tesco's?
I have a "dumb" Samsung next to me, the wife has a "dumb" Nokia (who by the way still make way more dumb ones than smart ones.
Of course definition of dumb is subjective. As my dumb phone has a 1 month standy by, several hours talk time, never drops a call, has great voice quality and hardly ever has no signal, how dumb is it?
When my faithful T630 died suddenly a couple of years ago, just as I was about to do 48hrs of heavy travel, I spent £25 on a K330 - brilliant phone, built in camera for reference shots and £10 of that went on £10 voda credit! Not that I used it, bought it from Carphone Warehouse and as the phones come unlocked shoved my o2 contract sim in. It's been leant out a few times to people when their smartphones (mainly sony ericsson units) have been in for repair. And if my iPhone blew up it would become a usable temporary phone. Shame there's no support for syncML (o2 bluebook gets my numbers backed up to it via that) on it but maybe a java app would fix that.
When Britain or the US buy way more of some shiny toy than everyone else the headlines scream about our evil consumerism and how bad it is for the world + dog etc.
Now the emerging countries are jumping on the bandwagon the tone of the article is such that we are made to feel somehow lacking as we are not consuming as much as they are?
Should I feel guilty or pleased Britain is slipping back in its ravenous desire for disposeable tech?
That was pretty much my impression of the article too.
Something else missed in the article. UK & USA are probably saturated. Very few first time buyers and maybe the recession is affecting upgrades. Whereas Brazil, India and China are not just growing economies but many of the buyers there will be first timers.
Megaphone because...well....bleedin' obvious really.
China has a population _an order of magnitude_ bigger than the US. Even with a smaller percentage of the population able to buy them, that's still a lot more potential customers.
Besides, the US market is saturated and most of the sheep, er, customers are glued to their little smartphones and tablets watching streaming of network TV episodes and movies (at a much higher cost than they could have seen them in the first place).
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