The mobile phones market in Germany


The market can be divided between basic mobile phones and so-called smart phones. Although more and more basic mobile phones align with smart phones, there are still some characteristics that set smart phones apart. Smart phones are mainly used by business customers and designed to simplify data communications, in particular e-mails and access to the Internet or companies’ Intranet. For this purpose they most often have a large colour screen and a real keyboard. Examples include Nokia E61 or 9500 Communicator, Sony Ericsson M600i and P900i, Palm Treo, BlackBerry handsets but also products under the operator’s brand name, such as T-Mobile MDA, O2 XDA or Vodafone VDA. On the other hand, pocket PCs or PDAs (Personal Digital Assistants), such as most PalmOne or HP products, which do not allow mobile telephony are excluded from the scope of this article. The market share of smart phones rose rapidly over the last 10 years from zero to 10% in 2006. More...

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