ABI: Key Forecasts Highlight Rapid Evolution of Ultra-Mobile Device Market
October 22, 2008 // Published as a news service by IHS
| |
| Electronics & Telecom Docs |
IHS sells a full selection of standards documents & collections from the industry's top organizations.
To learn more, and for a free quote, please complete the form below. |
|
| |
The fledgling market for ultra-mobile devices (UMD) - a catchall term that includes ultra-mobile PCs (UMPCs), netbooks and mobile Internet devices - is already complex and will become more complicated as it grows.
According to ABI Research, a few salient forecast numbers may serve to guide vendors and investors as they negotiate this tricky landscape.
"Total revenues earned by vendors in the UMD market are expected to increase from $3.5 billion in 2008 to nearly $27 billion in 2013," said ABI Research principal analyst Philip Solis.
This year, retail sales account for only 14% of shipments, while UMDs provided by mobile operators stand at nearly 30%; the balance is sold directly by manufacturers.
Over five years, however, that distribution mix will change significantly, analysts said. Operators currently subsidize UMDs for the sake of their potential services revenue, but they would prefer not to. By 2013, only 20% will be operator-provided, while retail sales are expected to account for 75%.
In 2013 more than half of all UMDs will have x86 processors at their heart (largely Intel's Atom), with the balance based on Advanced RISC Machines (ARM) processors, analysts said. When it comes to operating systems, Linux will outnumber Windows devices by two to one across all UMDs in 2013, despite the higher return rate for Linux products (compared to Windows products) experienced by netbook vendors today.
Some MIDs will offer cellular voice services. "MIDs without cellular voice will be seen by users as companion devices," said Solis. "They will be used in addition to mobile phones and not necessarily carried at all times. Cellular voice-enabled MIDs, in contrast, will be able to replace phones entirely. They will become the new high-end smartphones."
Source: ABI Research.