Smartphone shipments to maintain positive growth to 2021

IDC’s forecast claims this will increase from 1.47 billion to 1.7 billion units shipped 

Global smartphone shipments are expected to maintain positive growth through 2021, from 1.47 billion to 1.7 billion.

This is according to a new forecast from analyst IDC as part of its Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker.

In 2016, the market experienced its first-ever single-digit growth year with shipments up 2.5 per cent, but it believes the combination of new user demand and a stagnant two-year replacement cycle will keep the market at a five year CAGR of 3.3 per cent.

IDC Worldwide Quarterly mobile Phone Tracker program vice president Ryan Reith said: “The big inflection point that everyone is watching for is when the smartphone market experiences its first year-over-year decline,”

“At the end of 2016, we estimated that about half of the world’s population was using a smartphone, which leaves plenty of room for additional first-time users.

“Despite very high saturation levels in mature markets like North America, Western Europe, Korea, and Japan, we still see the majority of users replacing their handsets roughly every two years. We expect these trends will hold through the forecast.”

In regards to operating systems, IDC added that over the past couple of years, Apple has generally held 14-15 per cent share and Android 85 per cent, with the rest spread around “a few dying platforms”.

It claims this is unlikely to change through to 2021with android’s share rising marginally to 85.5 per cent and Apple’s dropping slightly to 14.4 per cent.

The post Smartphone shipments to maintain positive growth to 2021 appeared first on Mobile News Online.

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