Ever since Apple’s iPhone hit the shelves there has been cause for concern for PC manufacturers. With the cultural icon that the iPhone has become and the increasing prevalence of smartphones which all incorporate keyboards, email, camera’s, all features also found in computers, PC giants have become alarmed. And the suggested figures do not lie either. Analyst Gartner expects the 2009 total unit sales in smartphones to reach 180 million devices, more than notebooks. By 2012 they are expected to have increased from 14per cent of handset sales to 37per cent, with their revenue becoming $191 million, more than the predicted $152 million for netbook computers.
Responding to these very current threats, Acer, Toshiba, Dell and Asus have all decided to take the market on. Toshiba and Asus have already released smartphone versions, whilst Dell’s touchscreen Mini 3i is due to launch in China any day with another released in the states next year. Meanwhile, whilst overtaking Dell to become the second largest computer manufacturer in the world, Acer has also released a range of smartphones this year. Expecting to have sold ten million devices by 2012, Acer surely hopes to emulate the iPhone’s success.
However, Gartner’s principal research analyst Roberta Cozza warned “PC vendors should realise that while convergence of technologies offers an opportunity to enter into the smartphone arena, the business models … and positioning of products is very different from the PC market. PC vendors will find it difficult to simply use existing supply chains and channels to expand their presence in the smartphone market. The smartphone and notebook markets are governed by different rules when it comes to successfully selling products.”
