Ultra Low Cost Handset Shipments Surge to 48 Million Units in 2007

A report from Strategy Analytics says that rapid product development from leading semiconductor players will enable 48 million Ultra Low Cost Handsets (ULCH) shipments by the end of 2007. Chris Ambrosio, Director of the Wireless Device Strategies (WDS) service, states, "In addition to Texas Instruments and Infineon, other chipmakers, including Freescale, Qualcomm and Philips, have rapidly made single chip solutions available. These new products will meet the dual needs of driving new subscriber growth in emerging markets and creating a stronger profit opportunity in entry-tier segments for small handset vendors."

Bonny Joy, Analyst in the Wireless Device Strategies Service, adds, "While current interest from operators appears quite low, Push-to-Talk (PTT) could potentially be one of the applications to drive subscriber growth in the medium term. This solution would arguably have a higher value, even in 2.5G flavors, to ULCH user segments."

Additional findings in this report include:

• Motorola remains the leader in this segment with 80 percent share of ULCH shipments;
• Colour, FM radio and speaker phone will be common features in ULCH devices by 2011.

Posted to the site on 16th October 2006