RIM's BlackBerry and Apple's iPhone faired particularly well in the first quarter of 2008. In fact, as reported in the Wall Street Journal, North American smart-phone sales are up 106% from this time last year. Advertising campaigns and promotions are largely responsible for this surge, and some analysts predict that the marketing investment will allow sales of smartphones to continue to increase.
The increase in sales is related to the growing addressable market for smart-phones. Recently, smartphones have started to spread out of the business world and into the hands of students and others who generally didn’t use them in the past. Getting and sending email using these thumb-optimized devices is popular among the fashion-conscious and somewhat well-to-do spouses, teens and twentysomethings.
The advertising campaigns and new products target this new market, and introduce mobile email to a whole new class of user. Because the phones are becoming more oriented to accommodate everybody, look for the sales to increase in the future.
