iPhone sales bringing up US mobile phone spending

Bloomberg today reports that Americans are splurging on mobile smart phones like they never have before and are catching up to their European and Asian counterparts in handset spending.

Carolina Milanesi, an analyst at Gartner said:

"The iPhone has made the U.S. consumer appreciate the value of the mobile phone. North America is the only region where the average phone price will increase this year. Last year, mobile handsets sold in Japan cost 74 percent more than in North America. In Europe, they were 10 percent pricier. ''

Apple has been on a tear of late leaping Windows Mobile devices in US Sales and browser market share. Waterloo, Ontario-based Research in Motion, makers of the recently tricked out Blackberry models of smartphones, is expected to reveal strong earnings this week as well. Both Apple and RIM stocks have doubled this year.

Nokia, Motorola, Sony Ericcson and Samsung expect to capitalize on this new American willingness to spend on status symbol-type phones. It will be hard to unseat the market leaders who also have updates coming in 2008.