Wireless Market Coming to a Halt

New market analysis says the wireless market is about to come to a halt, and it’s all because of the abundant iPhone sales from late 2011.

iPhone sales, Bloomberg says, may have placated consumers’ need for a wireless plan.

The big players in the carrier market like AT&T and Verizon Wireless can expect to see a decline in customers. The downturn will also likely yield device makers looking to fight for consumers.

Ergo, carriers will seek other revenue gains, most likely in the form of “weaker players” as described by Chetan Sharma of Chetan Sharma Consulting in Issaquah, Washington.

“To offer the iPhone, for instance, carriers already pay Apple about $600 per phone and then collect $199 from retail customers, subsidizing the difference with revenue from monthly service charges,” according to the report.

The iPhone did exceptionally well in 2011, and as a whole, iOS did better than all Macs sold.

“The iOS platform as a whole reached 316 million cumulative units at the end of last year. The iOS platform overtook the OS X platform in under four years and more iOS devices were sold in 2011 (156 million) than all the Macs ever sold (122 million),” said Horace Dedlu of Asymco.

The iPhone did well in the last legs of 2011 as the device became available on more carriers, relative to its exclusivity to AT&T when it first hit the market. Price was another driving factor for its impeccable sales. Consumers on a budget were able to get the iPhone 3GS for free from carriers. The iPhone 4 is available for as little $99 with a two-year contract for those who want something a bit nicer, and of course for those who want the latest and greatest handset can spend $199 or more to get the iPhone 4S.

From a consumer standpoint, there's one reason why iPhone sales are exploding: it’s the most desired handset in the world. From China to the U.S. to the U.K., consumers and enterprise users want to get their hands on the one and only Apple iPhone.

“The huge fourth quarter fueled by the iPhone took all the air out of the first quarter,” said Philip Cusick, a JPMorgan Chase & Co. analyst in New York. “It’s a saturated market.”

AllthingsD.com reported that according to a survey by the by Consumer Intelligence Research Partners, the iPhone 4S was by far the most popular version of the device, yielding over 37 million iPhone device sales in the fourth quarter of 2011.