Enabling feature phones

Global sales of mobile handsets in 2006 were expected to approach 1billion units, according to market research firm Gartner. First time users in China and India boosted last year’s healthy sales. Units sold in emerging markets already exceed the sales of glitzy phones in Japan, Korea, America and Europe. “In the West, the market is saturated and more than half of all mobile phone sales are replacements,” said Will Strauss, president of market research firm Forward Concepts. It is this emerging handset market – the ‘next billion users’, served mainly by the 2.5G GSM standard – that excites handset and cellular ic makers alike. Texas Instruments’ ceo Rich Templeton chose a conference in China to announce the company’s latest handset ic – the OMAPV1035 – for just this reason. The GSM/GPRS/EDGE ic delivers features associated with smart phones, but at a price more suited to emerging and mass markets. “It is all about adding performance and features into a smaller form factor,” said Eric Mazzoleni, pictured, feature phones line manager in the 2.5G business group at TI’s wireless terminals business unit.