Nokia's Asha outselling Lumia more than two-to-one

January 15th, 2013, 23:32 Posted By: wraggster

Budget smartphone line significantly outperforming manufacturer’s premium handset.
The demand for budget smartphones appears to be on the rise, after Nokia’s recently published quarterly results revealed that its cheaper Asha device is outselling its flagship Lumia handset at a rate of more than two-to-one.
Nokia’s quarterly figures showed that of the 14 million Lumia and Asha smartphones sold, only 4.4 million were made up of the premium device.
The growing demand for less expensive smartphones recently sparked rumours that Apple is planning to introduce a more affordable iPhone model to the market in the near future.
Ian Fogg, principal analyst at IHS, told the BBC: "We forecast that by 2016, 31 per cent of the global overall handset market will be low-end smartphone.
"An entry-level smartphone is very different from a high-end smartphone," he explained. “Smaller, cheaper devices have processors from two or three years ago, they have small screens with low resolution, and weaker cameras. They can all do email and the web but gaming and browsing is a much better experience on the higher end phones."
In the UK, entry-level smartphones are available from as little as £29.00, while at the higher end of the market, Apple’s iPhone 5 retails for around £529. And with Apple operating at the premium end of the spectrum, one certainly wonders whether it would be wise for the firm to make the move into lower-cost devices.
"Apple makes high quality products, it doesn't make cheap products," Fogg added. "That doesn't rule out Apple creating a cheaper iPhone that still has high quality components. Look at the iPod range - they started with a premium price product, then they added the mini, the Nano, the shuffle - they went to a range of products hitting different price points."

http://www.mobile-ent.biz/news/read/...-to-one/020311

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