Smartphone sales in 2014, according to IDC, are expected to reach 1.2 billion. The technological revolution of smartphones has certainly arrived and been embraced, creating one of the world’s largest and most lucrative industries.
In 2013 alone, 968 million smartphones were sold worldwide, accounting for 53.6 percent of all mobile phones sold. More people are going for smartphones than basic mobile phones.
That was just in 2013, According to market research company IDC, 1.2 billion smartphones are expected to be shipped out worldwide in 2014, which would be a 23.1 percent increase from last year. This number is expected to grow exorbitantly over the next four years, reaching 1.8 billion by 2018.
Android-based phones, of which there is a massive variety, are completely dominating the smartphone market. 80.2 percent of smartphones shipped are expected to be Android, with iOS claiming 14.8 and Windows Phone only getting 3.5. Blackberry is expected to receive a measly 0.8 percent of the market share.
The iPhone will continue to be a force to be reckoned with in mature markets such as the United States and western Europe, plus Japan and perhaps a few new entrants.
But the continued growth of smartphone sales and Apple’s declining slice of Worldwide sales are due to one factor, according to IDC – the rapid expansion of smartphone use in large, previously untapped markets. The most important of these include India, Russia, Indonesia, and of course China, whose vast and rising middle class should drive approximately 30% of smartphone growth over the next three years.
With these economies powering the smartphone market in the near future, it is unsurprising to discover that cheaper Android phones are expected to outperform Apple’s more expensive handsets, which are simply out of the reach of many Russians, Indonesians, or Chinese.