Smartphones Drive Japanese Smart Handheld Market

Computergram International, July 28, 1999

Smartphones are driving the growth of the portable device market in Japan according to a new report from International Data Corp (IDC). Despite the high profile of Windows CE-based personal digital assistants and palmtop devices, smartphones - devices that combine a mobile phone with an address book and often, an embedded browser - have captured the imagination of the Japanese consumer.

IDC says that 323,200 smartphones were shipped in Japan in 1998 and expects this figure to double in 1999. In contrast, PDA shipments actually declined in 1998 to 311,800. Overall, IDC envisages just under 10 million smart handheld devices to be shipped in Japan by 2003, and expects that half of those units could be smartphones.

Part of the reason smartphone take-up is so strong in Japan is because the CDMA standard for digital wireless mobile phones is rapidly becoming a de facto standard in Asia. According to figures put out by the CDMA Developers Group there are nearly 200 million CDMA subscribers in Asia and that number is expected to grow by 300%.