Smartphone market to slow to single-digit growth – IDC

Mostly, the IDC blames slowing growth in Asian/Pacific markets (excluding Japan), along with Latin America and Western Europe. Because of the sheer size of the market, the economic slowdown in the Asian nation is putting a damper on global growth. As a result, shipment growth in China is only forecast to be in the low single digits. With over four billion potential smartphone users around the world, there is still lots of growth potential for companies like Apple and Samsung, but much of the market share will be eaten by local companies such as Xiaomi and, according to IDC, Cyanogen Inc.

That will depend on capturing value-oriented first-time smartphone buyers as well as replacement buyers, Reith notes. Now, while 50 percent growth is certainly movement in the right direction, IDC calculates that, in 2019, that higher unit volume will only grant Microsoft 0.1 percent more market share.

IDC also expects vendors to turn more to new financing and trade-in options in order to drive replacements, also in more developed markets as Apple has done with the latest iPhone.

According to Scarsella, Apple has already taken the lead with its iPhone Upgrade Program, and other vendors are expected to follow suit in the coming months. These plans will be speeding up the upgrade cycle through trade-in and incentives.

By operating system, Android devices are expected to maintain their dominance over the global market share, growing from 81 percent in 2015 to 82 percent within the 2019 forecast period. I don’t mean to be unkind, but Microsoft’s mobile effort has been an expensive endeavor that has failed so far to attract material market penetration.

It is still a bit early to tell whether Microsoft will manage to grow its smartphone market share. Apple could then target emerging markets with cheaper devices. The challenge in 2-3 years’ time could be excess inventory in the developing markets that refurbished iPhones are sold into.

The OS market share for iOS is expected to remain around 14-15 percent annually.

In 2015, the average selling price of Windows Phones will be $148, which is $71 lower than Android’s ASP of $219.

Wang said Chinese vendors have became a dominant force in low-and mid-end markets and may soon break into the premium sector.

Windows Phone, IDC says, will grow only slightly between 2015 and 2019, from 2.2 percent to 2.3 percent, shipping between 31.3 million and 43.6 million units in the years, respectively.

Windows Phone’s cause hasn’t been helped by Microsoft’s decision to focus Windows 10 on PCs and tablets, though Llama does predict that the company will eventually find partners willing to build smartphones running the new OS.