Turning point for the US smartphone market?

AGA7d

1. Market penetration is 90% - post-paid market still in slide
Latest VZ CC: "Although total wireless market penetration is above 90%...Verizon is not giving up on its post-paid business, which still generates about 85 percent of revenue for the wireless business... new subscriber growth has slowed. Going forward, Verizon will be focusing on wringing out as much revenue from its existing customers as it can. Already about 30 percent of its customers are using a smartphone or multimedia phone that requires a data plan."

2. Pricing down - decline likely will accelerate
NOK cutting price 18%; VZ cut its Palm Pre from $150 to $50; iPhone may not be immune - "Falling AT&T Iphone sales might lead to lower prices 4/10/2010"; For RIMM: "4/10/2010-Declining BlackBerry Pricing - BlackBerry Pricing has not declined much for the last few years and has remained stable at around $340. However, in Q4 2009 and Q1 2010, the BlackBerry phone pricing did decline to around $310. We believe BlackBerry pricing will keep declining at a gradual rate to reach around $220 by the end of Trefis forecast period." Actually it is happening across the board as more competition coming - MSFT/DELL are newcomers with deep pockets.

3. Watch for RIMM - the biggest market share
New bold and curve should help pricing for a little while, but its stock price dropping showed that it may not be able to hold its market share - the implication is that RIMM will get more aggressive on pricing which it had tried in late 2009.

Overall, this may be the best time to unload some smartphone makers.

AGA7d

Also, the carriers did not reap much benefits from the smartphone boom - just look at the latest ATT/VZ earnings. If they wanna flex muscles and demand a bigger pie, the makers may have to give in.

ranchgirl

Thanks for the analysis