Americans Abandoning Feature Phones at Rate of 500,000+ Per Week

By Paul Thomson :: 8:49 PM

Over the past year, about 31 million cell phone users in the U.S. abandoned their feature phones. Feature phones are defined as mobile phones which are not considered to be a smartphones, but have additional functions over and above a basic mobile phone, such as basic e-mail retrieval and messaging features.

According to analyst data from Asymco, over the past 24 months over 60 million users switched. In recent months, over 550,000 users switch every week and this rate of advancement, from feature phones to smart phones, has been relatively unchanged since late 2009.

While some of this abandonment has to do with demand for smartphone services much is also due to a decreasing supply of non-smart phones. Retail shelf space allocated to smartphones is nearing 100%.

With shrinking shelf space and an accelerated decline in the feature phone product category, quite possible that by 2015 the last feature phone will make its appearance in the US.