Handset market updates

According to Merrill Lynch's recent 'Global Handset Industry Update', it is widely expected that India and China will significantly drive future market growth within the industry, with both nations expected to achieve a combined handset growth of 21% CAGR from 2005 until 2010.

The result of this is that the combined marketplace of both India and China is predicted to account for 26% of the global handset market in 2007, up from 16% in 2005.

With regards, cellular market penetration, India is predicted to reach 35% by the year 2010, an increase of 7% in 2005. Which means that Indian mobile subscribers will reach 411 million by 2010, an increase of 76 million from 2005 records. In comparison, China's penetration rate is predicted to reach upwards of 50% by 2010, up by a significant 29%. These predicted statistics are in-line with the general belief of analysts that both India and China are set to explode as the potential of their consumer markets are finally being realized.

The latest example of this emerged last week where a Chinese distributor bought $1.6 billion of handsets from Motorola Inc., beginning what it is assumed will become a trend amongst Chinese and Indian mobile distributors eager to cash in on their emerging consumer driven marketplace.

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