Smartphones are heeding the call of consumers

Cheaper data plans
This spring, several U.S. carriers started offering unlimited use data use as part of a total $99-a-month plan, something that will likely continue to spur smartphone sales.

“We’ve seen several efforts to make it much easier for consumers to get hooked, so to speak, on smartphones,” said Avi Greengart, Current Analysis’ research director for mobile devices.

“The best two examples have been the iPhone plan, which has a mandatory inclusion of all-you-can-eat data in a plan for $59 a month and up, and Sprint’s ‘Simply Everything’ $99-a-month plan," he said. "Now all (major) carriers have some form of unlimited data plan.

“This is more palatable when you know what the cost is going to be upfront, and you know you’re not going to have overages that are charged to you by the byte or kilobyte.”

The iPhone and the BlackBerry are, so far, the most-wanted of smartphones.

“They’re the ones that define the two ends of the market,” said Rob Enderle, president of The Enderle Group, a consulting firm that studies technology trends.

“On one extreme end, you’ve got RIM on the corporate side, and on the other, Apple on the consumer side,” with both trying to move in on the other’s turf.

In the middle are companies like Palm, Samsung, Nokia and Motorola. Palm took the biggest hit in market share, according to IDC, going from 23 percent in the first quarter of 2007 to 13.4 percent in this year's first quarter.

Palm, Enderle said, has a new line of smartphones due in the second half. “They’ve got a complete redesign coming. It will be a make-or-break thing for them.”

Web surfing is key
The iPhone’s ability to easily access the Web is one of its most popular features.

As Greengart noted in a recent interview with msnbc.com, if you ask iPhone users what phone they had before, “more often than not, it’s a phone that had Internet, too, but they just didn’t know. Part of that is because Apple has done a very, very good job of making the iPhone Web-browsing experience a good one.”

Research done by Rubicon Consulting of 460 iPhone users found that about half of them said they had a “conventional” cell phone before moving to an iPhone. Another 40 percent said they bought the iPhone to replace their previous smartphone.

The remaining 10 percent “didn’t replace anything, meaning either that the iPhone is their first phone, or that they carry it in addition to a second phone,” the Rubicon study said.

While Apple and RIM will likely continue to dominate the field, other companies, such as Samsung, Sony Ericsson and Motorola, are looking to refresh and upgrade their smartphone offerings.

“We’re at the point where we’re seeing a lot of other folks getting into the smartphone space here in the U.S.,” said Llamas of IDC. “It’s a pretty hot market.”

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