OSLO, Norway-Sales of handheld computing devices, including personal digital assistants (PDAs) and smart phones, rose 3.5 percent in the final quarter of 2002 in Sweden, reversing a slide that began in 2001. Swedish consultancy IT Research credited the swing to innovative multipurpose phones like Sony Ericsson’s new P800.
The handheld market peaked in Sweden in 2000, and sales have steadily declined since. The sudden shift is attributed to new products like the P800, according to IT Research’s market analyst David Larsson, who notes that smart phones were the biggest growth sector in Swedish handhelds. Palm and its operating system increased its share to 37 percent.
The P800 was a surprising sales success in general in Sweden, signaling that fully featured next-generation phones are the products to watch.
The P800 accounted for 25 percent of December turnover for the Dialect chain, according to financial newspaper Dagens Industri, noteworthy because the phone only appeared in shops a few days before Christmas.
GEAB The Phone House, Sweden’s largest independent outlet, revealed that the P800 made up 13.6 percent of its December turnover. GEAB Marketing Director Daniel Lindholm said he had never seen such an expensive phone sell so well.
“Nokia and Sony Ericsson still largely dominate (the Swedish market), but now that telephones are beginning to come with cameras, music and videos there are good opportunities for Panasonic and Samsung, who are big in this sector, to move in,” Lindholm said.
With multimedia units being such a draw, the strong entry of Asian phones into the market is a logical development.
Vodafone’s Live! program was a great success and the service’s flagship Panasonic GD87 became the first Japanese mobile to make it into Vodafone Sweden’s top-10 sales list, at number four.
Vodafone chose three phones for its Live! launch, and went to Japan for two of them, with the Sharp GX-10 completing the Asian duo. The Nokia 7650 is the only European-built phone to make Vodafone’s Live! cut so far in Sweden.
