3G and 4G handset shipments will capture more than 50
percent of total handsets shipped. Globally, a total of 1.67 billion handsets
will be shipped by the end of 2012, with a growth of 8 percent.

In the second half of 2011, tier one smartphone vendors
started redoubling efforts to promote their smartphone line-up to upwardly
mobile, aspirational smartphone owners in emerging markets.

Samsung, with its varied smartphone segmentation
strategy, has been making inroads into the emerging country smartphone market.

Apple is expanding sales channels in emerging markets,
with greater success in China than it’s having in India, but is also targeting
South American markets such as Brazil.

HTC is gaining traction in China, but developed markets
such as North America and Europe continue to be the mainstay of its ship into
markets.

RIM, despite its weakness in apps-capable smartphone
markets, continues to do well in messaging-centric emerging markets such as
Indonesia.

Nokia hopes to benefit from Windows Phone 7 Lumia series
launches in India (December 2011) and China (in Q1 2012).

The North American handset market, driven primarily by
smartphones, is proving oblivious to the Euroland debt crisis. North America is
estimated to have closed 2011 with 228 million handsets shipped, for a
year-on-year growth of 14 percent, the region’s highest YoY growth in more than
five years.

North America may only represent 15 percent of feature
and smartphone units shipped globally, but due to the high proportion of
high-end smartphone sales, it constitutes 40 percent of total smartphones sold
by value. It underscores what is at stake in the patent battles between Apple,
Samsung, Motorola, Google, HTC, Microsoft, and even British Telecom,” said
Kevin Burden, vice president and practice director, mobile devices, ABI Research.

Recently, ABI Research
said that at least half a million base stations will be installed or upgraded
for TD-LTE by the end of 2016.

By Telecomlead.com Team
[email protected]