According to a new report by ABI Research, global handset shipments will increase 29% from 1.7 billion in 2012 to 2.2 billion in 2016. As you can imagine, most growth will come from smartphones sales, with this market becoming larger than the ultra-low cost, low-cost, and feature phone segments combined by 2016. To put it in numbers, the total shipments of non-smartphones will grow from 1.08 billion in 2012 to 1.09 billion in 2016, while smartphone shipments will grow from 643 million to 1.1 billion over the same period.
This change will put feature phone makers under tremendous pressure to shift their portfolio to affordable smartphones. Among the companies already embracing this strategy are Chinese players like Huawei and ZTE, which will be a key driving factor for the growth and innovation in the sub-$150 smartphone segment. The low-cost smartphones, in case you wonder, are set to grow from 45 million shipments in 2012 to 170 million in 2016…
And as usual, you can get additional information from ABI Research’s website.