Mobile handset market consolidation: not far away?

July 28th, 2009

ABI Research says handset “consolidation may not necessarily come from tightening shipment volumes but also from greater integration of hardware, OS and applications development. ASPs [average selling prices] for smartphones are higher than the overall average, and have supported R&D to date; but in such a competitive environment, the R&D pricetag can only go up.”   Stacey Higginbotham adds that “Apple and Research in Motion take in 31 percent and 35 percent of the mobile phone industry’s profits respectively. So the pressure on middle-tier providers such as Nokia or Motorola, which are seeing the profits on their phones fall, will force them to consolidate. The only question is, who will be a buyer and who will be a seller?”