Downturn to crunch mobile sales
Posted 2008-08-14
Booming sales of mobile phones will be hit by the global squeeze on credit, according to experts.
Deutsche Bank and Oppenheimer & Co have cut their growth predictions, although most analysts agree the market will still increase, albeit at a slower rate.
Deutcshe Bank now says sales will climb 6.1 per cent to 1.22 billion phones in total this year – down on earlier estimates of 8.1 per cent.
Writing in a report, Brian Modoff and Jonathan Goldberg at Deutsche Bank said: “We think consumers globally are stretching out their phone replacements, holding off on purchases to pay for gas or food or the mortgage. Conditions are just going to get tougher for the industry over the forthcoming year.”
They also added their own view on how to deal with problems facing the handset sector, saying: “Driving to work last week, we passed a warehouse on fire, sending up a thick plume of black smoke.
“The thought occurred to us that there has to be a better way to get rid of excess inventory, but judging from the state of the wireless handset industry, maybe there isn’t.”
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December 12th, 2008 at 11:33 am
I also believe that people in the US are tired of spending $200, $300 or even $400 on phones that have buggy software and usually within one year are broken or not even supported anymore. People can buy a nice laptop these days for that kind of money and they last a long time. Just my $.02
Justin