Smartphones are about to reach a very important milestone. According to the International Data Corporation or IDC, this year total worldwide smartphone shipments are expected to surpass that of feature phones for the first time in history.
The IDC is reporting that smartphone shipments will hit approximately 958.8 million in 2013, a 32.7 percent increase from the 722.5 million shipments made in 2012. That figure — 958.8 million — should be more than feature phones this year. The analysts forecast that smartphones will account for 52.5 percent of all cell phone shipments by the end of the year.
IDC realizes that this is a very significant event as well. “2013 will mark a watershed year for smartphones,” Ramon Llamas, Research Manager for IDC’s Mobile Phones program, proclaimed. “If you look at the number of vendors who support both feature phones and smartphones, many of them have not only successfully transitioned their product portfolios to highlight smartphones, but smartphones have become their primary value proposition going forward.”
“Looking ahead, we expect the gulf between smartphones and features phones to grow ever wider,” Llamas later added. Indeed, the smartphone market is still more than capable of growing. In markets such as India and Russia, feature phones still dominate by 80 percent and 51 percent respectively. Since the negative trend of feature phones doesn’t seem to be slowing down, little by little smartphone shipments will eat away at the remaining feature phone share.