OYSTER BAY, New York-Dual-mode cellular/Wi-Fi mobile phones will enjoy support among business users and could grow to as much as 7 percent of the worldwide handset market by 2009, according to new research from Allied Business Intelligence.
The firm said shipments of devices that can connect to both wireless wide area and local area networks will top 50 million by 2009. ABI said business users will drive sales of such devices due to the proliferation of enterprise Wi-Fi networks and voice over IP technology. Further, ABI said wireless carriers will grow to accept such dual-mode devices.
“Initially, of course, carriers may see this as a threat for fear of losing service revenue when these handsets are used on the Wi-Fi network,” said Phil Solis, senior Wi-Fi analyst at ABI Research. “But long term, as with most new developments, carriers will likely see dual-mode cellular/voice-over-Wi-Fi handsets as a means to differentiate their offerings.”
Already handset makers have begun to develop such devices. Nokia Corp. recently released its Symbian-based 9500 Communicator device supporting wireless wide area and local area networks, and Motorola Inc. introduced a similar dual-mode smart phone running Microsoft Corp. software.
