Palm, which recently reported declining revenue and laid off workers, has stagnated since selling off its Palm operating system and working over an extended period on a new OS. "If they don't launch a stupendous hit early in the first half, they probably won't have enough cash," Greengart said. "I'm not a financial analyst but I look at them and say, how will they survive?" Palm is rumored to be introducing its new OS at the CES trade show in January.

In addition, Chinese competitors ZTE and Huawei could decide to pull back on their plans to enter the U.S. market, he said.

The other more established phone makers like Research In Motion, Nokia and Samsung will struggle like the rest but are solid enough to hold their own, the analysts say.

Even the iPhone will not be immune to the economic problems. "Everyone thinks that the iPhone is exempt from all the world economic forces and it's not," said Gold. "It would not surprise me to see iPhone sales come down over the next few quarters as the economy kicks in."

In addition, it's possible that the iPhone will only be attractive to a particular market segment, stunting its potential growth. "The other thing you need to ask is whether or not iPhone will appeal to a much broader audience than it already has. That isn't clear yet," Gold said.