The evolution and market impact of smartphones

Smart phones, what exactly are they? What differentiates smart phones from feature phones is their ability to do multitasking and run applications. First, there were PDAs (Personal Digital Assistant) which had functions like e-mail, web connectivity, to do list and few other computer-like functions while cell phones were used for calling and messaging mostly. A Smartphone is a combination of PDA and feature phone.

Changes over the past five years

Apple, to begin with, played an important role in bringing smart phones to the level where they were made available to mass consumers. That was three years ago. However, smart phones are the entity which existed in one form or the other since almost 19-20 years from now. The main difference between the earlier ones and the more recent ones is that the earlier ones were primarily used as enterprise devices and were too expensive to be acquired by most consumers. Nevertheless, with the emergence of smart phones in the mass consumer market and the widespread success of the I Phone, the carriers realized that they could capture the interests of their consumers for long periods by massively financing the latest, more advanced and superior smart phones. What started out as clunky monochromatic gadgets have now transformed to today's lustrous multimedia devices capable of supporting high definition videos and applications of all sorts. So there is no denying the impact, that I Phone has made on the society. Taking into consideration the fact that it has transitioned what was once an idiosyncratic gadget for nerds to nearly a necessity of life.

In revenue contributions worldwide, smart phones now go far beyond the share of feature phones. Gartner reported in November 2010 that the Smartphone sales have doubled over a period of one year and now they signify around 19% of total mobile sales. From the prior year the shipments of smart phones has increased to 72.1% whereas the shipments of feature-phones burgeoned only to 32% as compared to the year 2009. In March 2011, Insight reported some data which showed that worldwide Smartphone shipments increased by 74% from the year 2009 to the year 2011. The journey that began in 2007 when Steve Jobs introduced I Phone, factually lead to a gigantic revolution. Back then, Jobs had said that I Phone is literally five years ahead of every mobile phone. His words proved to be true and the endless stream of inventions began. In 2007, Google offered the first Android operating system, which was launched in 2008. Furthermore, inventions like I Pad came into being. Companies like Samsung, Nokia, HTC, LG etc. launched their own smart phones of various types. This competition is providing the world with superior, more advanced smart phones and other such inventions in every passing year.

Next five years

Industry is booming and I think laptops and digital camera industry will face a hard time and sales would drop because smart phones are getting cheaper and better with passage of time. When Nokia first introduced 6600, it was around $330 and now a 60$ phones offer that kind of functionality. According to Coda Research Consultancy in 2010, the expected sales were 234 million units and expected level of sales in 2015 is about 619 million units. Real time information sharing Wi-Fi and high-speed internet are considered the main reasons of such massive growth spurt. PC makers will ultimately have to shift towards smart phones as Dell introduced its first android-based Smartphone known as dell streak in 2010. Acer did the same by introducing Liquid AI. In the end, PC and Smartphone market will blur, merge, and result in formation of bigger integrated mobile internet device.