Smartphone sales rise in the US, the thriving segment is prepaid though – Part 1

The normal believe is that packaged smartphones account for most sales in the US. The current data revealed that smartphone market  grew exponentially but in a different market segment. Prepaid wireless  market accounted for most the earnings in the US smartphone market.

Though post-paid market was a big player in the sales but the figures remained more or less stagnant compared to year-ago numbers.

The statistical analysis firm NPD Group unveiled in a report that the smartphone sales to post-paid customers remained dead straight in the US, second quarter. On the other hand, prepaid market surged past the 90 percent mark in the same quarter showing an exponential increase in sales. The total market rose up to 9 percent in all.

“As the smartphone market matures, and as growth slows, carriers have been smart to aggressively market some of their best current smartphones on a prepaid basis to a new set of customers, in order to keep sales humming along,” NPD analyst Stephen Baker said in a report. “Prepaid smartphones are no longer just cheap, also-ran options, focused on older and less capable phones.”

Samsung has been a big beneficiary of the growing prepaid market because of its broad selection of phones and strong brand, Baker told the media.

Apple didn’t enter the U.S. prepaid wireless market until June 22, when Cricket Communications, a unit of Leap Wireless, began selling the iPhone 4 and 4S. Sprint Nextel’s prepaid service Virgin Mobile USA started selling those Apple phones on June 29.

“You’re starting to see the emergence of a prepaid iPhone market in the U.S.,” Baker said. “That’s clearly going to be a big opportunity for Apple, because it’s an area where a year ago they had nothing.”

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Posted by Usman Khalid on Aug 9 2012. Filed under Sci-Tech. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.