Fashion and Style in the Mobile Handset Industry
14 June 2005 by axxxr
In developed mobile markets, consumers are becoming more sophisticated in their selection of handset, and this is driving a market for stylish and fashionable mobile phones.
London based, research consulting firm ARCchart shows that there will be sufficient consumer demand to support the sale of 23 million fashion handsets by 2010 in their new report.
There was a time when companies such as Nike, New Balance and Reebok produced 'running shoes'. Now these pieces of footwear sell in fashion boutiques, and vintage lines can trade for huge market premiums. The mobile phone is following a similar path, and fashion boutiques have become the point of sale for handsets from Siemens/ESCADA, Nokia/Versace, Vertu and the now defunct Xelibri. In addition, fashion designers such as Kimora Lee Simmons, Diane Von Furstenberg, Anna Sui and Vivienne Westwood have readily extended their design expertise onto handsets from Motorola and Samsung. www.arcchart.com
This report examines the state of fashion and style in the handset industry, including: Examination of previous marriages of fashion and technology, including Apple's iPod Overview of the handset market, examining the platform providers, ODMs, OEMs and the operators Analysis of the fashion and style strategies currently employed by Tier One handset vendors Case studies of Xelibri, the Siemens ESCADA venture, Vertu and the Vodafone Ferrari handsets The opportunities and challenges for operators in distributing fashion and branded handsets Study of the brand conflict between operator brand, vendor brand and fashion brand Fashion phones driving the market for multiple handset ownership Analysis of the handset opportunity for fashion and brand companies Scenarios of fashion companies entering the handset market, including concept handset designs Anology between consumer behaviour in the wrist watch and handset market Forecast of the consumer demand for fashion handsets as the mobile phone market matures
Answers and opinions are provided with respect to the following essential questions:
What are the factors driving fashion onto the mobile handset? What fashion strategies are helping handset vendors support sales and margins? Why did Siemens' Xelibri fail and why is Siemens ESCADA more successful? What are the prospects for Nokia's Vertu? How can operators benefit from distributing fashion and branded handsets? What strategy should operators adopt when dealing with fashion handsets? How will handset subsidies affact the sale of fashion phones How can the fashion handset GUI drive operator ARPU? Is there an opportunity for pure fashion companies to independently launch fashion handsets? What are the benefits and barriers for these companies? What will be the future consumer demand for fashion phones? 
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