Blacks Play Key Role in Smart Phone Battle

Published March 5, 2011 by TNJ Staff
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Smart phonesVerizon?s CEO stated earlier this week?that iPhone 4 sales are the best in the company’s history. In fact, the communications company is selling more phones during its launch than any other previous release. In addition, more than 60% of the purchases have been made online rather than in retail outlets and further projections remain strong.

In fact,?industry analysts predict 500,000 sales during the first pre-sale alone. Deon Gordon, an executive at InfoMedia says, “Apple greatly benefits from product cohesion. In other words, people already know what to expect. Consumers only have to familiarize themselves with one operating system, one interface, one device, one screen size and so on.? ?Without taking anything away from Google,” he continued, “the same simply cannot be said about their Android-powered phones. Potential customers would have to do more research, since technical details and specifications will vary from phone to phone to make an informed decision. It’s enough to give the average buyer a good bit of hesitation before clicking the order button. And it’s a fairly good reason why the iPhone will continue to see more online sales compared to their rivals.”

But given that statistics released just this week show that Android-powered phones are now the #1 sellers in the U.S. and the #2 preferred devices (just behind BlackBerry) by African-Americans, with only 15% of that demographic preferring iPhone, according to Nielsen, it seems there is a break between perception and reality. Nielsen also noted in this same report that African-Americans represent the smart phone industry’s best opportunity for growth given the continual expansion of the population as well as the fact that it out-indexes over the mainstream in actual smart phone ownership. This, coupled with the fact that research from Target Market News showed that African-Americans spent $9.4 billion in mobile phone service in 2009 (up 30% from the previous year), should make both device manufacturers and mobile phone carriers such as Verizon take great notice should they want to continue future business growth and market share in this industry.

As the smart phone battle continues, expect to see even more extended strategic alliances and business partnerships that should prove advantageous to the consumer market.?

Follow Lauren on Twitter @mediaempress

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TNJ Staff