ABI Research found out that the deployment of UMTS in Europe will increase global sales of 3G devices from 4 million units in 2003 to more than 15 million by the end of 2004.

The UMTS/WCDMA handsets currently sold generally boost enhanced colour displays, applications or media processors with advanced video encoding and graphics capabilities, dual cameras, and increased memory. Some of the phones also have integrated WiFi and GPS capabilities.

UMTS devices will have to battle on price too. Previous UMTS chipsets drove the prices of handsets up, but technologies such as 0.09u have moderated that effect. Pretty soon it will not be the UMTS modem that will add cost, but all the integrated applications and peripherals that the higher data rates enable.

The new integrated chipsets is less power-hungry providing three hours of talking, and 200 hours of standby.

With savings of this kind, the market for UMTS handsets could progress as rapidly as services become available.

From Cellular-news.