Ahead of Mobile World Congress 2010, GfK-Digital World takes stock of a sector undergoing massive change

12 February 2010
International, Telecommunication

The Mobile World Congress which takes place between the 15th and 18th February 2010 in Barcelona, will allow all key participants in the global Telco industry to assess the market situation and regroup. Ahead of this, GfK-Digital World evaluates the Mobile and Smartphone sectors and focuses on what 2010 may bring.

For five years, the mobile market has maintained a positive trend in volume terms, (+48%) and for the last three has seen more than 1 billion mobile and smartphones sold annually. However, this year called time on this trend; in 2009 the overall market lost almost 50 million units compared to 2008 (-4%).

Focus on a two-speed year and the Smartphone expansion

Despite negative growth in 2009, two important aspects must be highlighted: the second half of the year saw improving global trends and a democratization of Smartphones in the majority of worldwide regions.

For example, the Asiatic mobile and smartphones market reached 456 million units sold (+1%) equivalent in value to 47.5 billion euro (-8% over 2008).  This growth is mainly due to a recovery in sales during the last three months (+7%, +9%, +16%) from October to December 2009, compared to 2008. Moreover, the excellent performance of smartphones benefited from triple-digit growth over almost all 2009 (the best month being December with growth of 226% in value over the same month in 2008).

Western Europe exhibited a similar trend with the market representing 162 million units sold (-3% compared to 2008), reaching 27 billion euro (-6%). Moreover, the 2009 evolution is also close to the Asian one. The last three months are more positive than the rest of the year and Smartphone growth (+109%) compensated for the decline of mobile phones (-25%). If the Smartphone share in 2009 is still 12% in volume for Western Europe, the share in value is close to 31% for the complete product category, double that in 2008.

According to the high worldwide growth observed for the last three months of 2009, there is reason for optimism in 2010 with moderate growth (between 2% and 3%) for the Mobile and Smartphone sector, thanks to a very dynamic Asian market.

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The findings are based on real, POS sales data from over 400,000 retailers worldwide through GfK Retail and Technology's recently launched ‘Digital World’ service. The database consists of manufacturing sales data in the US and retail sales data in the rest of the world. 

Working with the CEA, the North American industry authority, this brand new comprehensive global database allows all those with an interest in the IT, Telco and CE markets to compare, contrast and forecast their portfolios in detail for the first time.