What will it be for next year?

We are at the tail end of 2005. What will it be for us next year? Let’s look into my crystal ball….Oh! my crystal ball is made in Malaysia, its still does not have a good roaming capabilities, hence most of the forecast is local contents. So here is a list of prediction as below, just for fun.

TV
As you walk into an electrical shop you could see that most of the TV that is on display is either an LCD TV or Plasma TV. I could foresee that by end of next year, LCD and plasma TV will fully replace the conventional TV in electrical shops. This is due to my anticipation that LCD TV price will drop further. Now you could get a branded 32 inch LCD TV for Rm8,000, by end of next year it will goes down to Rm 5,000 to RM6,000. I have seen a 3d version of LCD TV in Bangkok. I guess this will be introduced into our Malaysian Market soon, most likely for advertising purpose.

Mobile Phone
The just announce proposal to reduce the cost of SMS, MMS and mobile phone calls will be a driving force for mobile service provider to branch out to other services to brings in the money. 3G has been introduced for some time but it has not been fully exploited and use widely as the cost of owning a 3G phone is still high. However I anticipate that the mobile service provider will subsidize heavily and drive down the cost of owning 3G phones as their earning depends on the usage of such services. Hence they will put a carrot in front of the consumer in the form of cheap 3G phones. Once the consumer bought it and starts to use it, it will be a stable flow of profits for them. It will be the case of I fork out Rm100 once but after that you will give me back Rm100 every month. Another reason it’s the size of 3G phones. It’s big and heavy that is a disadvantage as it has alienated almost half of its potential customer, the ladies. I guess next year will be a year whereby smaller 3G phones will be introduced.

PDA phone will also going to be a hot item. As PDA phone starts to pack in the capability such as mega pixels camera, Wireless or WIFI connection, it will at least have a strong following in terms of the StarBuck patron. I foresee next year the major players might join in the fun and more new PDA phone will be introduced. This will result in a lot of Starbuck patron bringing out their PDA phone to surf instead of a 5 pounds notebook.

Petrol Price
Will most likely increase further as the government is finding ways to fund the country, be it new projects or revive whatever sensitive projects or other subsidies. I guess it will increase for another 15 to 20 percent by end of next year.

War or Major Terrorist Attack
Will there be another major war such as in Iraq now. Or will there be another 9/11, Bali Bombing, Embassy Bombing, underground station, or ??? Very hard to say, my crystal ball is not clear on this as it does not have roaming facilities but I can safely say as long as there is differences in terms of view on issues such as political, religion, distribution of wealth, feeling of discrimination and etc. There will still be unpleasant events happening in the world. The world will only achieve peace when all its occupants lives as one which is as humankind.

Is there anymore? Let me think first, in the mean time I am dreaming of an interesting metal in black...