Global Mobile Phone Shipments Slowing Down - cappsandiflamboy

The hot mobile phone commercialize appears to be cooling down.

According to a forecast released Wednesday by IDC, 1.8 billion mobile phones will be shipped around the world this year. That's a four-percent addition over 2011, but the worst increase since 2009.

IDC pegs the growth slowdown to reductions in shipments of "feature phones"–industry jargon for anything that isn't a smartphone.

Shipments of feature article phones–which represent more than 61 percent of total shipments–will decline by 10 percent this year, IDC said. Many owners of the verbalise-and-text devices are holding on to their old mobiles because they're concerned about ambiguous economic conditions, information technology explained.

By line, smartphone shipments continue to burn chrome. IDC predicted smartphones will grow by 38.8 percentage this year, to 686 million. Those shipments are being impelled past factors such as high carrier subsidies, dropping average marketing prices and component costs, redoubled awareness and gimmick diversity, and lower-cost data plans among.

"The smartphone march won't be equally lively this year as information technology has been in the past," said IDC Senior Research Psychoanalyst Kevin Restivo said in a statement. "The mobile phone user transition from feature phones to smartphones will continue in a gradual but unabated style."

Humanoid Expected to Dominate in the Short Term

Global Cellphone Shipments past OS Source: IDC

Over the next five years, smartphone shipments will be dominated by units lengthwise Google's Android operating arrangement, IDC predicted, although it expects its portion of global shipments to decline from 61 percentage in 2012 to 52.9 percent in 2022.

IDC also forecasted that shipments of Windows-based smartphones and Apple's iPhone leave represent in a dead heat aside 2022, with both having about 19 percentage of the market. IT aforesaid that Windows shipments will be fueled by Nokia's strong presence in rising markets.

Although Orchard apple tree's share of shipments will decline slenderly over the next five years, shipment volumes will keep on to get importantly during the period, IDC noted. It added that emerging market growth is of the last importance if iOS is to reach market share.

"Underpinning the smartphone market is the constantly shifting OS landscape," observed IDC Senior Inquiry Psychoanalyst Ramon Llamas.

"Humanoid wish maintain leadership throughout our forecast," Llamas continued, "while others will gain more mobile operator partnerships (Apple) or currently encounte themselves in the thick of a stellar transition (Blackberry bush and Windows Phone/Windows Waterborne)."

"What remains to be seen is how these different operating systems–as fortunate as others–will define and shape the user experience beyond what we realise today in order to attract new customers and promote replacements," he added.

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