Forecasting Handset Sales Just Got Harder
Posted Tue, 26 May 2009 05:43:22 EDT by Jake Saunders
A week or so back completed an update to ABI Research's Mobile Handset forecasts. It was never easy but you cannot take the forecasting process for granted.
On a historical basis, forecasts have had the classic exponential sigmoidal curve. Yes, handset sales are a function of net increases in subscribers... but then not every "newly" reported subscriber is a true "new" subscriber. We have had prepaid subscriptions for a while now but at least you had to carry around 2 mobile phones! Dual SIM (even triple SIM!) phones are increasingly proving popular in Emerging Markets like China, India, Russia. Even end users in Developed Markets are taking an interest. Why the interest? End users wish to minimise interconnection costs (national or even international). Therefore we will need to be increasingly wary of Net Additions in reported subs by operators.
Then there is the replacement market. When someone hands in their old phone for that $50 rebate, not always is the phone destined for the traditional form of recycling (bashing it to pieces and reovering the metals and plastics). These old handsets can get packed into shipping containers and shipped out to Emerging Markets where the handsets are reconditioned, repackaged and sold onto new end-users (or existing end-users) who want greater functionality or a more fashionable phone (well OK, last year's fashion phone).
Forecasting handset sales really keeps you on your toes.