News

posted on 04 July 2008 08:48

Research firm Strategy Analytics thinks that shipments of phones equipped with removable memory card slots (slotted phones) will grow at an average 13% per year over the next five years.

Its report, "Removable Memory Card Forecast: Slotted Phone Penetration Exceeded 50% of All Phones in 2007", reveals that 592 million slotted phones were shipped worldwide in 2007, representing 53% of all cellphone shipments. It reckons there will be 1.04 billion slotted phones shipped in 2011, over 81% of total cellphone shipments.

The microSD and microSDHC formats are now the most popular memory card format capturing nearly 57% of slotted phone shipments in 2007 compared to the MMC format. The microSD format is expected to hit peak penetration of 86% in 2011, after which it will face competition from other, new, high capacity systems, such as the Universal Flash Storage (UFS) format.

It's thought that demand for high capacity cards to store music, images, video and data will trigger significant growth in the high capacity microSDHC format during 2008 and 2009. Strategy Analytics expects strong growth in embedded memory, too, over the next few years, but the benefits of being able to upsize your capacity and transfer your data to a new phone make memory card slots an essential requirement for all mid-to-high end phones.

Steve Entwistle, Strategy Analytics' VP for Strategic Technologies, said: "Penetration of slotted phones is already over 85% in many developed countries. We are now seeing significant growth in emerging markets where demand for music and camera phones is taking off."

The Strategy Analytics five-year forecast report provides detailed shipment and installed base figures for slotted phones in 6 regions and 23 countries worldwide, covering all SD, MMC and Memory Stick formats.

^{[Paul Roberts, news editor.]}