Camera phones on the rise, 3G still struggling

A report from analyst Canalys has pointed out that cameraphones are taking off while 3G handsets are still undesired, at least in the Europe, Middle East and Africa region. This isn’t indicative of much, considering that until recently the only 3G player in the region was new entrant “3”, which could hardly have been expected to gain enough customers to make an impression in the overall mobile market for the area in under two years. What is more interesting is the indication that people are buying cameraphones because the handsets they want happen to have a camera – not because they wish to take photos with their mobiles. “According to Canalys many users of camera phones are using the camera to personalize their phone with their own wallpaper and photo caller IDs, not to send MMS messages to other users. Carriers only make money on the latter.”

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