Three declares feature phone market 'dead'

Mobile operator Three has revealed that a whopping 97 per cent of all its contract sales in September were for smartphones, declaring demand for feature phones all but "dead".

Phil Sheppard, the firm's director of network strategy, also revealed that a huge 75 per cent of the pay-as-you-go devices it sells are smartphones, despite the fact that they can cost up to £500 on a SIM-only deal.

"We have seen massive growth in the use of smartphones and internet-capable phones in the last 14 months. The feature phone market is dead," he said at a Westminster Forum event on Thursday.

The figures are an increase on the 92 per cent sales of smartphone contracts in December 2010 and 50 per cent sales of smartphones on pay-as-you-go deals.

The numbers are perhaps not surprising given the trend of consumers favouring smartphones, but the scale of the demand is somewhat staggering, and V3 is left wondering about the hardy three per cent doggedly sticking to their feature phones.

Perhaps it's the same people V3 noticed at the VMware event in Copenhagen who were carrying around a basic, indestructible Nokia to make calls, and using their iPhone for everything else because of the unpredictability of smartphones for voice calls.

Of course, there will no doubt be those who prefer to stick with feature phones given their simplicity, while figures from the larger network operators may give a better insight into the true demand for such devices.

But it won't be too long before the idea of playing Snake on a Nokia 3310 becomes as outdated as the mangle or horse and cart. One to tell the grandchildren about.