Actually, 400 M this year is a little low

Actually, 400 M this year is a little low

Posted Sep 1, 2004 21:34 UTC (Wed) by gilb (subscriber, #11728)
In reply to: Actually, 400 M this year is a little low by AJWM
Parent article: Cell Phones: Don't Count Linux Out (Business Week)

Sorry that didn't come across as I intended. The 600 M handsets for 2004 is not unreasonable estimate, after all they did 157 M in the first quarter, which is clearly on pace for 600 M this year.

The stats are (from Gartner):
2001 - 407M
2002 - 432M
2003 - 520M

(Note that 2001 was a very bad year, it was the first year that sales didn't increase year over year. It had been averaging 60% CAGR.)

The above are all "actual" numbers, not predictions. The analysts have to estimate the numbers sold, but the are accurate to probably +/-5%.

These sort of predictions for the next year are taken pretty seriously by the suppliers and vendors, so the analysts don't do the usual "hockey-stick" approach to predicting volumes.

600M of any complete product is an insanely big number and yet the cell phone manufacturers will likely hit it this year. (PCs, including laptops are about 150 M/year, cars worldwide are around 40-50M/yr).

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