| Analyst pegs enterprise smartphone market at 20 million |
May 31, 2007
The handheld "mobile office" market will cease to be a significant driver of "mobile deployment activity" within two years, the 451 Group predicts. Contrary to other analysts, 451 sizes the enterprise market for smartphones and other "converged" mobile devices at around 20 million units, and believes it will remain small.
In its report, the 451 Group uses the term "mobile office" for the activity of using a mobile device to access email, contacts, to-do lists, and calendars, along with the ability to receive, view, send, and in many cases work on files such as documents and spreadsheets. By "mobile device," the 451 Group means smartphones and other converged devices (such as the Blackberry), as well as feature phones that can also handle mobile email (such as the Motorola Razr), but not laptops, notebooks, or ultra-mobile PCs.
The study, titled "The Unbound Office," contends that the mobile office market is simply too small to support many vendors.
"While several vendors peg the global market for mobile users at roughly 600 million, The 451 Group's estimate of the market for enterprise users is just one-tenth of that, or 60 million," the group said. "Of that total, [451 Group] analysts believe the overall upper market range for mobile email utilizing smartphones and other converged devices (e.g., BlackBerry, Treo, Motorola Q, etc.) is closer to 20 million premium-level users."
451 classifies the remaining 540 million non-enterprise mobile device users as either: - "Prosumers" -- representing about 5 percent, or 27 million. 451 believes that about a quarter of these will turn to RIM, Microsoft, or IBM. That leaves about 20 million left over for the rest of the vendors to go after.
- Pure consumers -- the remaining 95 percent just aren't interested. Their existing accounts, with text messaging, are good enough.
"Is this enough of a marketplace to generate sufficient revenue for the existing mix of vendors?" asks Tony Rizzo, 451's Director of Research for Enterprise Mobile Technology Practice. "We don't believe so. While there is room here for a few third-party vendors, the mobile office market does not look to us to be quite the 600-million-user marketplace that it might seem at first glance."
Berg Insight, meanwhile, recently forecast worldwide smartphone shipments to grow at a 28 percent compound annual rate, reaching 365 million units in 2012. For its part, Microsoft recently said that it expects to ship 20 million licenses for Windows Mobile 6-based devices in 2008.
Additional information on the 451 Group's 110-page report is available here.
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