Global smartphone market growth predicted to be the lowest ever this year
Research firm Gartner predicts that global smartphone market growth will be slowest ever this year. Hit the link to find out why!
The global smartphone market is going to be a rough one for companies starting from this year.
According to research firm Gartner, global smartphone sales will grow single-digit for the first time this year due to flat growth in China and North America. Gartner estimates that 1.5 billion units of smartphones will be sold by the end of the year, which constitutes a 7% growth from 2015.
"The double-digit growth era for the global smartphone market has come to an end," said Ranjit Atwal, research director at Gartner. "Historically, worsening economic conditions had negligible impact on smartphone sales and spend, but this is no longer the case. China and North America smartphone sales are on pace to be flat in 2016, exhibiting a 0.7 per cent and 0.4 per cent growth respectively."
While emerging markets will continue to grow, the rate is slower than expected as 150 million users are expected to delay their upgrades to smartphones in emerging Asia Pacific. Gartner noted that emerging countries such as India will stimulate new growth. On the other hand, mature markets such as North America and Japan will see an extension of phone lifetimes among users.
"As carriers' deals become more complex, users are likely to hold onto phones, especially as the technology updates become incremental rather than exponential," said Annette Zimmermann, research director at Gartner. "In addition, the volumes of users upgrading from basic phones to premium phones will slow, with more basic phones being replaced with the same type of phone."
There are already emerging signs from phone makers on the market saturation for smartphones. Earlier this year, Apple CEO Tim Cook said he expected sales of iPhones to decline in Q2 for the first time since 2007. Industry sources also told DigiTimes that chip orders from Apple have slowed down this quarter. The changing market environment forced Samsung to cut its smartphone shipments this year and shifted its focus to budget phones.
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