Smartphone recycling could rise as tablet sales soar
Friday, July 15, 2011 - 08:32:54
UK mobile users could start recycling their high end smartphone handsets in greater numbers if the penetration of tablet devices continues at its current rate.
Experts had previously predicted that around 50 million tablets would be sold in 2011 but the International Data Corporation (IDC), has subsequently revised this figure upwards by a further three million units.
Tablets are portable, powerful and growing in popularity, with some suggesting that they could usurp the functions currently attributed to smartphones, such as web browsing, photography, gaming and much more.
The argument is that people will not bother investing in both a smartphone and a tablet, thus recycling their old mobile and sticking to a more basic, cheap handset in the future, while they use a tablet as well.
The alternative view is that tablets are actually supplementary to smartphones, with users keeping both to hand and accessing whichever is the most appropriate in a given context.
Indeed the IDC's predictions actually seem to contrast statistics published this month, which show that tablet sales fell by 25 per cent in the first quarter of 2011, largely due to increasing economic uncertainty.
Meanwhile smartphone sales have risen consistently as users upgrade and sell their old mobiles for a handset which can do so much more.
The scenario which seems most likely is the one in which tablets and smartphones co-exist. Apple is selling both its iPhone and iPad and while the two have striking similarities neither seems to have impacted the sales of the other.
The IDC's Bob O'Donnell believes that although tablet sales may have been slightly sluggish in early 2011, the rest of the year will see a return to growth, so it will be interesting to see whether predictions about the rise in mobile phone recycling ring true.
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