2011: The year of smartphones
The market for smartphones is expanding day by day: according to T-Mobile's data from the end of 2010, every third new handset sold in Hungary this Christmas falls into this category.
Today, the share of smartphones among the mobiles in use is about 15 percent in Hungary. Experts say the explosive expansion can be explained by the fact that technical conditions and human needs have now met, which could lead to a narrowing of the digital divide in the long run.
Looking at global market trends, analysts predict an international turning point in the smartphone revolution for the third quarter of 2011: 50 percent of newly purchased handsets are expected to fall into this category by then. Seeing the growth rate of smartphone penetration, 2011 will be the year of smartphones and their applications.
Just "smart"?
For an explosive spread of a device type, several conditions had to be met at the same time. “Technical conditions - such as the mass emergence of increasingly knowledgeable and increasingly user-friendly devices or mobile broadband internet access - and human needs have laid the groundwork for the proliferation of smartphones. The latter is perhaps the most important, as it is ultimately always up to the users to decide what becomes a success story. An important change in recent years is that the immediate acquisition of information and the real-time sharing of experiences have now become part of everyday life; for this, smartphones provide the fastest and most convenient conditions, be it emailing, social media presence. I can cite as an example either the use of navigation (GPS) applications or the T-Mobile newsletter application, which allows you to record any TV program from virtually anywhere by connecting the device to your home IPTV set-top box as a remote control. " Said István Király, Magyar Telekom's Deputy Chief Marketing Officer.
Smartphones could be one of the possible solutions for the XNUMXst century. one of the biggest challenges of the XNUMXst century: their proliferation can play a major role in reducing the digital divide, inequalities in access to information. According to sociologist Bence Ságvári, the level of digital literacy is closely related to the use of the Internet. For those who have not used the Internet for financial or other reasons so far, the ever-decreasing device and tariff prices will bring the World Wide Web within reach, allowing them to embark on a journey where they can reduce their backlog step by step.
The advent of smartphones has already brought about a tangible change in communication between people. According to ten years of research marked by the name of the philosopher Kristóf Nyíri, the widespread use of mobile telephony had a huge impact on community organization. At the same time, “with the help of smartphones, we are making our presence more intense. This tool provides an opportunity to return to the original state of communication, when dialogue takes place on a visual and auditory level without external control and pressure, all with the help of an external tool. ”
