According to preliminary results from IDC Canada’s Mobile Phone Tracker, the Canadian mobile phone market shrunk by one per cent in the second quarter, a result IDC calls a dramatic sequential improvement which suggests the Canadian cell phone industry could be on the mend.
According to IDC, handset manufacturers shipped 2.36 million units in Canada in Q2, which is just slightly off the 2.4 million units shipped in the same quarter one year ago. And compared year-to-year, the smartphone segment grew by 49 per cent during the quarter.
According to Kevin Restivo, lead analyst for IDC Canada’s Mobile Phone Tracker in Canada, the improved Q2 number can be attributed to an increase in new products entering the market, a stabilizing economy and a rebuilding of channel inventory.
“The market is slowly recovering from a rocky start,” said Restivo. “The rebound last quarter can be partly attributed to the growing popularity of the QWERTY slider messaging phones and smartphones with consumers. These form factors helped the market improve upon the disastrous first quarter.”
With a rocky start to the year which saw shipments drop by 23 per cent in the first quarter, IDC Canada is still projecting a four per cent drop in shipments for 2009, compared to 2008.
