Smart phones to take 80% of market in 2013

FOUR out of five mobile phones to be sold next year are expected to be smart devices, further driving demand for data and Internet services, the country’s second-biggest telecommunication firm said.

Peter Bithos, senior adviser for consumer business at Globe Telecom Inc., said 80 percent of all phones to be sold next year would be smart phones, up from 40 percent this year.

This would drive up smart phone penetration to at least 50 percent, up from just 24 percent this year.

“Half of all Filipinos will have a smart phone in their hands,” Bithos said in a briefing late Thursday. “The economy is getting better and phones are getting more exciting. People are turning over their old Nokias into smart phones,” he said.

The increasing popularity of smart phones, Bithos said, would drive demand for Internet services, further straining the country’s already-congested telco networks.

“Once people have smart phones, they do more than just talking and texting. Smart phones are a simple way of having a great customer experience in a small interface,” he said.

As more Filipinos use smart phones, demand for Filipino-developed mobile and web applications will also increase.

Globe this week launched a suite of new applications for smart phone users with devices running on the dominant Android operating system by Google and Apple’s iOS devices.

The Globe Mobile Apps are Gservices, Gcash, Gmovies and Gmessage, all designed to suit the interests and lifestyle of today’s smart phone owners, which included account management and personalized services, financial services, movies and instant messaging.

“Once again, Globe leads in innovation with the launch of our mobile applications, thanks to our genius Globe developers and experts who designed, conceptualized and produced the apps with such compelling functionalities and features,” Bithos said in a statement.

Gmovies and Gmessage are initially offered to Android users via Google Play and soon to iPhone users via the App Store. The Gservices app is available on App Store and soon on Google Play. Finally, the Gcash app is available on the App Store, Google Play and BlackBerry App World.

A recent report by Singapore-based GfK, a research firm, showed the Philippines remained the fastest-growing market for smart phones in Southeast Asia, with the number of devices jumping more than four-fold as of July from the same period last year.