Study: Smartphone sales up in 2010

NEW YORK – Smartphone sales, as a percentage of revenue, increased to 38 percent in 2010 for carriers with revenue of more than $5 billion, up from 19 percent in 2009, according to a study by PwC.
The report, “A range of possibilities in a changing wireless landscape: 2010 North American wireless industry survey,” said prepaid plans continued to represent a “significant and growing proportion” of carrier revenue.
Demand for video streaming, the importance of service quality and the migration toward fourth-generation technologies has prompted carriers to continue investing in their infrastructure.
91 percent of the surveyed companies had launched a portal to facilitate mobile app downloads, PwC said.
“2010 was the year of data, with smartphones accounting for more than 30 percent of total wireless handset sales and delivering a higher average revenue per user for carriers than traditional devices,” said Pierre-Alain Sur, U.S. wireless-industry leader, PwC.
“However, the rising data consumption brings significant new challenges for carriers. They will need to determine how best to monetize the additional data usage among price-sensitive customers and how to finance the network improvements necessary to keep pace with demand,” he said.