Report: Cellular Handset And Chip Markets 2007

Tempe, AZ -- Forward Concepts has announced the publication of its newest in-depth study of the worldwide cellphone market and virtually all of the chips that go into them. The new 370-page study, "Cellular Handset & Chip Markets '07," gauges the performance of the top 37 handset vendors and ranks their 2006 market shares. The study provides dozens of forecasts by technology and by region through 2011 of handsets, subscribers and chips of all types.

In addition, the report provides estimates of the market shares of cellphone vendors by air technology (GSM, GPRS, EDGE, CDMA2000 1xEV, 1xEV-DO, WCDMA, WEDGE, HSDPA and even PHS/PDC/iDEN/TDMA). Even ultra-low-cost cellphones are forecast by air interface. Importantly, the study estimates market shares of chip vendors by chip type and in every applicable air technology.

Market metrics are the central focus of the study, but some key findings are:

• Europe will be the fastest-growing market for WCDMA in 2007.

• EDGE markets will continue to grow in spite of excitement in 3G.

• WEDGE will begin to dominate the 3G market, providing EDGE fallback service for the thinly populated 3G networks.

• The demand for voice-only low-cost and ultra-low-cost cellphones will constitute the dominant market volume for the next three years.

• Over the next five years, the cellphone market will experience strong growth in multiple-mode wireless peripheral chips supporting WLAN, Bluetooth, GPS, FM radio and mobile TV.

• The mainstream cellphone camera market is rapidly migrating to 2 megapixels.

• The global fragmentation of mobile TV standards will lead to strong demand for multi-standard mobile TV receiver chipsets.

• Qualcomm's MediaFLO has achieved early dominance in the U.S. mobile TV market.

• HDTV-aspect-ratio LCD displays will explode with the rapid growth of mobile TV.

• In spite of broadcast mobile TV, video streaming over the network will continue to grow with 3G rollouts.

According to the principal author, Carter L. Horney, "The cellphone continues to be the physical and market magnet that is pulling in the functionality of digital cameras, PDAs, MP3 players, GPS navigators, Bluetooth, FM Radio, digital TV, cordless phones and even smart cards, and is quickly becoming the dominant market for each and all of these functions. Companies making such stand-alone products would be well-advised to understand how their market will be affected by cellphones."

This study explores the market dynamics of each of these functions and profiles the chip providers and their market shares for each. And the study forecasts the markets for virtually all cellphone integrated circuits, including digital basebands, RF transceivers and PA's, application processors, graphics and other coprocessors, imagers, memories and chips for all the new functions being added to cellphones.

Will Strauss, Forward Concepts' president and editor of the report, said "Texas Instruments and Qualcomm continue to dominate the cellphone chip market but with new functions being added there opportunities for other vendors who target new chip types to get their piece of the market."

SOURCE: Forward Concepts