The Recession Means Less Bling Bling On The Ring Ring

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed)
Jul 24th 2009 at 8:01PM

In the nearly five years that Luxist has been around we've seen a lot of expensive cell phones. But could we be reaching the end of an era? Wired's Gadget Lab chronicles the shrinking market for luxury cell phones. Bang & Olufsen which made the Selene phone got out of the mobile phone market last year. Recently Motorola, which makes the Aura, has scaled back its luxury phones canceling the Ivory E18, which was expected to sell for around $3,000.

Frank Nuovo, former chief of design for Nokia and current head of Vertu, maker of some of the world's most expensive phones, isn't scared. He says that the concept is the same as a fine watch or car and that there will continue to be a market for these types of phones. Vertu offers a wide variety of phones from the subtly luxurious to attention-getting phones like the ones made in partnership with Boucheron which are studded with a variety of gemstones. The company is proceeding apace, the latest handset, the Carbon Fibre Ascent Ti will sell for $9,800 when it comes out in August.

One thing the article doesn't mention is those in the phone bedazzling business, those who take existing phones and cover them in gold or set them with diamonds. There aren't any figures on how these businesses are doing in the recession but given the drop in jewelry sales it may be that these businesses are also experiencing similar lowered sales.

Tags: mobile phones, MobilePhones, vertu