Orange Polska just released their first quarter results, in which they report that "28% of 1Q postpaid sales and retentions [were] generated by smartphone devices." The number of smartphones they sold increased by 236,000 in the first quarter of this year, amounting to 12% of their total subscriber base, a 36% year-on-year increase.
The fastest-growing operator in the Polish market, Play, reports that in the first quarter 50% of all handsets it sold were smartphones. Thanks to Android, the devices have become cheaper and more affordable to people who would have purchased a slightly fancier feature phone in years past. In Poland, a strong handset subsidization culture is present – people got used to paying 1zl (US$0.33) for handsets – and the mobile operators had to apply the same logic to smartphones, which partially explains why Poland is the leader in smartphone adoption across CEE.
