Recession hits mobile spending in Europe

The mobile phone market in Western Europe stopped growing in Q3 2008, according to a new report from Strategy Analytics. Mobile data revenues continued to perform well but the voice market saw revenue growth slow more than expected, with revenue falling for some operators. [Press release]

Customers happy to pay extra for decent cameras on mobiles

Research company Strategy Analytics says consumers in the USA and Western Europe are most willing to pay extra for a camera on their mobile phone. Over 60% of all respondents said they'd be willing to pay extra for a quality camera on their mobile. Other popular options included a video camera, music player and removable memory cards. Customers aged 35 and older were less willing to pay extra than younger consumers. [Press release]

Mobile phone market shows effects of global financial crisis

Research company IDC says the global financial crisis is being felt by the mobile phone industry, with sales down significantly in the third quarter of 2008. Their figures show that manufacturers shipped 299 million handsets in Q3 2008, up 3.2% from last year but down 0.4% from the previous quarter. Historically, the third quarter has seen an increase as manufacturers prepare for Christmas. Average selling prices for mobiles have also begun to drop. Nokia leads the list of mobile manufacturers with a 39.4% market share, Samsung is second with 17.3%, Sony Ericsson has moved up to third place with 8.6%, Motorola is fourth with 8.5% and LG is fifth with 7.7%. Strategy Analytics has calculated similar figures; they say 303 million cellphones were shipped worldwide in Q3 2008, up 5% year-on-year, which is the industry’s weakest growth rate since 2002. [IDC press release; Strategy Analytics report]

Unlimited mobile music has strong appeal

With Nokia's Comes With Music preparing for launch - and Sony Ericsson rumoured to be announcing their own rival service this week - a new report from Strategy Analytics suggests that customers will definitely be interested. 83% of respondents used their mobile phones to play music, with 84% of respondents willing to pay for a service such as "Comes with Music". However, at the moment, just 6% of music tracks on devices are bought from online mobile music shops. The company says price and selection are the most important factors in a customer's choice of music store, and that brand loyalty is extremely low. We'll be talking to someone from Nokia about the Comes With Music service in Wednesday's Mobile News podcast. [Press release]

Mobile messaging spending to keep growing

The total spending on mobile messaging services by consumers will rise 35% in the next five years, from $65 billion in 2007 to over $88 billion by 2012. Text messages will still account for most of the spending, although - by 2012 - mobile email will account for 20% of total end-user mobile messaging spending. The figures come from a new report published by Strategy Analytics.

Global mobile sales up 15%

Strategy Analytics says 297 million mobile phones were shipped worldwide in the second quarter of 2008, a 15% year-on-year increase. Perhaps surprisingly, the worldwide growth rate is higher than it was at any time during 2007. [Report summary]

35% of touch-screen mobiles in USA will be iPhone this year

The Apple iPhone will account for 35% of the touch-screen mobile phone market in the USA by the end of 2008, according to Strategy Analytics. They reckon 18.1 million touch-screen phones will be sold in the States this year, with Apple taking a 6.3 million share. [Source: BusinessWire.com]

Half of all last year's mobiles had a memory card slot

Strategy Analytics says that 592 million phones with memory card slots were shipped worldwide in 2007, which represents 53% of all handsets. It also predicts that shipments of phones equipped with memory card slots will grow at an average 13% per year over the next five years, reaching 1.04 billion phones in 2011. The most popular format was the microSD card, which accounted for 57% of memory card enabled phones. [Press release]

5.6 billion mobiles worldwide by 2013

There'll be 5.6 billion active mobile phones worldwide by 2013, compared with 3.9 billion in 2008, according to a new report from Strategy Analytics. 80% of the growth is coming from the Asia-Pacific and the Middle East & Africa regions, although they don't contribute the same percentage to global revenue. 3G networks will account for half of all mobile subscriptions by 2013. When users with more than one phone are removed from the calculations, this means that more than half of the world’s population will be using mobile phones by early 2010. [Press release]

Motorola, Sony Ericsson and Apple all slip in Q1

Researchers at Strategy Analytics have published a report showing their interpretation of the current state of the mobile market. They say 282 million mobile phones were shipped worldwide in the first three months of the year, up 14% on the same period in 2007. LG and Samsung sales grew faster than the industry average, while Motorola, Sony Ericsson and Apple all saw their market share slip. The company says Nokia now has a 41% share of the market, although its sales to North America have fallen. [Report; press release]

Vodafone and 3 lead the UK's mobile portals

A new research report from Strategy Analytics called "UK Mobile Portals: One Click Access and Simple Layout Enhance Experience" has taken a look at the mobile internet portals operated by the UK's networks. 3's Planet Three and Vodafone's Vodafone Live! both achieved a 4-star rating (presumably out of a maximum 5 stars) for their overall portal experience, with O2, Orange and T-Mobile all receiving a 3-star rating. 3 and Vodafone performed particularly well for portal discoverability, while Vodafone was commended for its News & Info service and 3 for its Mobile TV offering. Strategy Analytics said Full Track Music and Games downloads were significant areas of weakness in terms of user satisfaction across all networks.