iPhone, BlackBerry Become Cell Phone Design Changers
11:12 am, December 11th, 2008, Ed Sutherland
The iPhone and BlackBerry have helped erode the market for inexpensive flip phones as Apple and RIM reshape the handset market, a new report said Thursday.
Touchscreen phones now amount to 10 percent of handsets, nearly triple the 3.6 percent of phones in use each month during 2007, according to ComScore m:metrics.
Phone designs including a fixed QWERTY keyboard, such as the BlackBerry Curve, now comprise 22.6 percent of the market, up sharply from 9.5 percent a year ago, the report said.
If touchscreens and QWERT keyboards are winning, the traditional clamshell design is less visible. Flip phones, which once controlled nearly 78 percent of cell phones, now is found in slightly more than half of handsets – 51.5 percent, according to ComScore.
Along with design, the iPhone and RIM handsets are raising the price of cell phones. Phones costing $50 or lower have dropped from 53 percent of handsets to about 45 percent, the report suggested. Phones priced $100 to $149 – which includes the BlackBerry – now make up 13.4 percent of handsets, up from 9.1 percent in 2007.
The iPhone’s impact has been less drastic with phones priced $149 to $199 and $200 to $299 rising by one point to 6.6 percent and 5.6 percent.
The result of design and price changes can be seen in market shifts, such as the falling fates of low-priced handset makers Motorola and Nokia.
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