One of the key questions about where the demand opportunity for high-tech will be is about the adoption of smartphones: what will be their penetration?
One of the important considerations here is the price point:
- we’re already seeing smartphones on the $99 value menu offered to consumers
- a key and closely related question is how much do these smartphones cost, to the network operators who market them, and to the vendors who build them
A news item from DigiTimes, which follows the ODM and EMS community in Taiwan and China closely suggests that prices may be falling faster than (some had) anticipated, heralding smartphones for the teeming masses, rather than just the technological elite.
Prices for Android-powered smartphones are declining at a pace faster than expected due to competition for orders from handset makers in Taiwan and China…
Huawei Technologies has pursued an aggressive pricing strategy to push sales of its Android phones, especially through telecom channels… China-based telecom equipment and handset maker is making a second customized Android-powered phone, the Pulse Mini, for T-Mobile, which will begin to market the model in the UK in April 2010 with an unlocked price [that] represents a reduction of over 54% compared to … its predecessor, the Pulse, said the sources. Huawei began to ship the Pulse to T-Mobile in the fourth quarter of 2009.
Despite the threat from Huawei, most Taiwan handset makers insisted that they will continue to focus on medium- to high-end Android models to avoid fierce completion in the low-end segment.
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