CHRISTMAS RUSH FOR THE LATEST MOBILE PHONES                                  

London, 28^th October 2005
With the latest raft of mobile phones targeting the lucrative Christmas market just released, Hitwise -the leading online competitive intelligence service – today reports on which models are proving most popular with consumers.

Camera phones more popular than Music phones

Up to a third of all new phone purchases are made in the run-up to Christmas, and mobile operators are busy ramping up activity during this critical sales period.

Hitwise Search Intelligence reveals that ‘samsung d600’ is currently the most popular model, with Motorola V3 and Nokia 8800 in second and third position. Although all three models do have an integrated MP3 music player, they are essentially camera phones – the Samsung d600 has a 2 megapixel camera - indicating that this particular feature is the one consumers are most interested in. By contrast, the Motorola iPod phone (Rokr) and Sony Walkman phone (Sony Ericsson w800i) are receiving substantially fewer searches, suggesting demand for music phones is currently much smaller than for camera phones and does not immediately threaten the standalone MP3 player.

The “hot pink Razr” set to be the hot Christmas gadget

Motorola’s latest offering, the “hot pink Razr” phone, is receiving significant interest in the run-up to Christmas – with searches up 174% since the limited edition of the Razr V3 was announced 3 weeks ago. Targeting the fashion conscious female, the phone is being sold exclusively by the Carphone Warehouse from 1^st November.

Ringtones on the wane?

And despite recent research which suggests that young people will spend an average of £4,000 downloading ringtones over the next 15 years, Hitwise Search Intelligence indicates that the popularity of ringtones may well be past its peak – with searches down by 48% since the same period last year. www.ringtonesgalore.co.uk is currently the top site receiving traffic from searches on this term.

Top 10 most popular handsets searched-for, 4 weeks ending 22/10/05

Volume of searches for selected mobile handsets, 6^th August – 22nd October

About Hitwise:

Hitwise is the leading online competitive intelligence service. Each day, Hitwise measures how more than 25 million internet users interact with over 500,000 websites across 160 industry categories.

By measuring more people, more websites, more often, Hitwise provides marketers with timely and actionable marketing insights on how their online presence compares to competitive websites.  Companies use this information to maximize the return on their online investment, in efforts such as affiliate programs, search marketing, online advertising, content development and lead generation.

Hitwise collects internet usage information via a combination of ISP data partnerships and opt-in panels, and complies with local and international privacy legislation as audited by PricewaterhouseCoopers. Founded in 1997, Hitwise is a privately held company, headquartered in New York City and operates in the US, UK, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong and Singapore. 

More information about Hitwise is available at www.hitwise.co.uk

For up to date analysis on online trends, please visit the Hitwise Intelligence-Analyst Weblogs at weblogs.hitwise.com.

For media enquiries, please contact:

Jannie Cahill
jannie.cahill@hitwise.com

Tel: 020 7378 3619