Prediction 2: The end of the clamshell phone's dominance - 2009 Predictions

The seemingly-endless parade of phones the handset makers put out this past fall in the wake of the iPhone 3G had one thing in common: they were relatively thin touchscreen phones. What they were not was anything that resembled the Motorola RAZR. In fact, as if to herald the demise of that era of phones, the iPhone 3G knocked the RAZR out of the top spot on the NPD Group's list of top consumer phones, a position it had held for the past 12 quarters.

And while clamshell phones will still be sold as low-to-mid-tier phones by all of the carriers, smartphones will dominate and we predict the clamshell design will fade out. As users demand more functionality and the ability to surf the web on their phones, these longer, thinner, single-screen phones--modeled after the iPhone 3G--will become the norm. Simple flip feature phones that characterized nearly all of the handset landscape as little as five years ago will see their era of dominance come to an end.