Plain old cell phones just fading away

LOS ANGELES – As a fashion colour, grey is the new black, thin batteries are in and you’re not in vogue if you don’t have the latest ringtone.

As the US wireless market grows, the cell phone is evolving into a phone in name only as calling becomes almost secondary to a host of other functions. After years of trailing Japan and Western Europe, where cell phones have long had colour screens, e-mail, music, video games, cameras and other accessories that make American cell phones look backward in comparison, handset makers are finally pushing a new generation of units on the domestic market that offer the full range of functions available elsewhere.”From the consumer perspective … it makes no sense to go for a low-end handset,” ABI Research analyst Kenil Vora said.”The definition of low-end shifts from monochrome handsets to phones with a little bit of something on it”.Qualcomm Inc, whose CDMA network technologies serve as the basis for two of the four largest wireless carriers in the United States, said recently its rapid growth was being driven by demand for phones supporting features like colour screens, cameras and multimedia capabilities.Such features — once considered “advanced” — are now increasingly mainstream, especially as prices fall.CDMA-compatible phones with colour screens can be had for as little as US$30 and with cameras for US$100.As prices fall and demand rises, Qualcomm Chief Operating Officer Tony Thornley told Reuters recently, the market for plain old phones — no colour, no camera, no music or downloadable games — is drying up in the United States.”I think that that part of the market is going to decline quite rapidly,” he said.”I think black-and-white screens are going to go the way of the black-and-white television very rapidly”.The cameras in the new generation of phones in particular are improving — Thornley said Qualcomm’s road map for its chips supports resolutions of 4 megapixels by 2005, and predicted that flash and zoom would become increasingly common.Most camera phones now use 0.3 megapixel cameras.In the coming years, Thornley said, the most simple of phones were only likely to have any kind of market share in places like India and Latin America, where low-cost cellular is crucial.CELL PHONE NO LONGERQualcomm is not the only company seeing such a shift.Motorola Inc., the world’s second-largest cell phone maker, has said that the landscape is changing.”Certainly, the whole concept of cell phones is no longer,” Chief Executive Ed Zander said on a recent conference call.”It’s becoming an information appliance and you’re adding the kind of capabilities — Web access and the kind of camera capability and some of the future products — (so that) consumers are looking at this thing as more than just making a phone call”.Brokerage Smith Barney recently estimated that, entering 2004, half of all cell phones shipped would have colour displays, and citing IDC, said as many as 100 million camera phones would be shipped in the year.ABI’s Vora said that with major handset makers like Samsung Electronics and Nokia already shipping anywhere from 50 per cent to 90 per cent of their phones in colour, monochrome looked to die out worldwide by 2008.- Nampa-ReutersAfter years of trailing Japan and Western Europe, where cell phones have long had colour screens, e-mail, music, video games, cameras and other accessories that make American cell phones look backward in comparison, handset makers are finally pushing a new generation of units on the domestic market that offer the full range of functions available elsewhere. “From the consumer perspective … it makes no sense to go for a low-end handset,” ABI Research analyst Kenil Vora said. “The definition of low-end shifts from monochrome handsets to phones with a little bit of something on it”. Qualcomm Inc, whose CDMA network technologies serve as the basis for two of the four largest wireless carriers in the United States, said recently its rapid growth was being driven by demand for phones supporting features like colour screens, cameras and multimedia capabilities. Such features — once considered “advanced” — are now increasingly mainstream, especially as prices fall. CDMA-compatible phones with colour screens can be had for as little as US$30 and with cameras for US$100. As prices fall and demand rises, Qualcomm Chief Operating Officer Tony Thornley told Reuters recently, the market for plain old phones — no colour, no camera, no music or downloadable games — is drying up in the United States. “I think that that part of the market is going to decline quite rapidly,” he said. “I think black-and-white screens are going to go the way of the black-and-white television very rapidly”. The cameras in the new generation of phones in particular are improving — Thornley said Qualcomm’s road map for its chips supports resolutions of 4 megapixels by 2005, and predicted that flash and zoom would become increasingly common. Most camera phones now use 0.3 megapixel cameras. In the coming years, Thornley said, the most simple of phones were only likely to have any kind of market share in places like India and Latin America, where low-cost cellular is crucial. CELL PHONE NO LONGER Qualcomm is not the only company seeing such a shift. Motorola Inc., the world’s second-largest cell phone maker, has said that the landscape is changing. “Certainly, the whole concept of cell phones is no longer,” Chief Executive Ed Zander said on a recent conference call. “It’s becoming an information appliance and you’re adding the kind of capabilities — Web access and the kind of camera capability and some of the future products — (so that) consumers are looking at this thing as more than just making a phone call”. Brokerage Smith Barney recently estimated that, entering 2004, half of all cell phones shipped would have colour displays, and citing IDC, said as many as 100 million camera phones would be shipped in the year. ABI’s Vora said that with major handset makers like Samsung Electronics and Nokia already shipping anywhere from 50 per cent to 90 per cent of their phones in colour, monochrome looked to die out worldwide by 2008. – Nampa-Reuters