Thursday February 19, 2009
Mobile Social Networking Drives Adobe Flash Lite Use
London, UK - February 18, 2009 - The popularity of social networking sites like YouTube and MySpace is driving the success of Adobe's Flash Lite technology on mobile handsets. Flash Lite's Version 3.0, which enables mobile users to access the popular sites, helped the total number of Flash Lite enabled handsets to reach more than 960 million by the end of 2008, according to the latest figures from the Strategy Analytics report, "Flash-Enabled Handset Forecast." By the end of January 2009, one billion Flash Lite-enabled handsets had been shipped worldwide.
Despite the global economic downturn, Flash Lite adoption among handset vendors is expected to grow strongly throughout 2009. The total number of shipments almost doubled in 2008. Shipments are currently running at over 40 million units per month and show no signs of slowing, proving that the right "carrot", in the shape of the added functionality provided by newer versions of Flash Lite, can still attract plenty of attention, and plenty of cold, hard cash.
Stuart Robinson, director of the Strategy Analytics Handset Component Technologies Practice, and the report's author, noted, "Version 3 and subsequent versions are setting the standard for high-performance Flash Lite applications, although there is continuing high demand for Flash Lite v2.0 and 2.1 in Asia."
Stephen Entwistle, Vice President for the Strategic Technologies Practice at Strategy Analytics, added, " High-end, high-fashion handsets like the LG Prada and Viewty, although supporting Flash Lite, are not "addressable," and thus do not support the highest and most desirable functionality of the technology, i.e., the ability to support third-party applications or web browsers."
