Community update: The 850 MHz issue

[Nkoli]

On 11/6/07, hank williams <hank777 at gmail.com> wrote:

>
> 1. did I say it was not possible to exist as a company without the US? No.
>
> What I said was that a plurality of smart phones are sold in the US.
> It is a major market. And a huge amount of OS work is done in the US.
> To design a phone that specifically cant really be sold in the US is
> dumb. It cuts out a huge potential market. And given the high level of
> competition, loosing 20 - 30% of your market opportunity is
> potentially deadly.
>

< A bunch of unresearched Americanist BS snipped >


Seriously, dude, I don't know how you could have gotten that idea that
people in the US comprise a semi decent amount of the smart phone market. We
don't. We're not even close to the top 5. I stopped being amazed a long time
ago at how few people in the US are aware phones can be used for anything
other than making calls and downloading ringtones. Don't even get me started
on the topic of unlocked phones.

Check your facts and assumptions Hank. As of 2006, symbian S60 phones made
up about 70% of the smart phone market. Nokia, the maker of most symbian
phones practically withdrew from the US market for a few years, which meant
that if you wanted a Nokia smart phone in the US, you had to get it unlocked
and unbranded... which again, most US consumers aren't aware that phones can
be obtained from anywhere other than their cellphone companies. Nokia only
just started making a bid back into the US market these past few months. So,
there went almost 70% of smart phones that the majority of the US market
were not even aware existed.
Here<http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_zdext/is_200610/ai_n19417023>'s
a link giving the 70% figure in 2006. I vaguely recall an article I read
this year saying symbian phones were down to maybe 56-62% of smart phones,
but either way, it's still a very significant amount.

You say smart phone in the US and people automagically think windows mobile,
treos, crackberries. US consumers may buy a large number of these phones
(maybe even up to the 20-30% you mentioned), but that's only about 30-40% of
all smart phones available. This
article<http://www.cellular-news.com/story/20959.php>compares smart
phone adoption among recent buyers as of the time of writing
in different countries - US adoption was pretty abysmal back in 2006. While
I'm sure it's increased since then, 20-30% is still a very far stretch. I
think 8% would be more accurate.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.openmoko.org/pipermail/community/attachments/20071106/3cdb8c11/attachment.htm