'Global shipments of smartphones expected to total 1.49 billion units in 2018'

By Anuj Sharma - June 18, 2018
smartphone-shipments
The smartphone shipment numbers are likely to rise at a faster clip from 2019 onwards once the real-world 5G network is introduced. ....

Global shipments of smartphones are expected to total more than 1.49 billion units in 2018 -- up from 1.47 billion in 2017 -- a growth of 1.4 per cent, a report by industry consulting firm Strategy Analytics (SA) revealed.

The smartphone shipment numbers are likely to rise at a faster clip from 2019 onwards once the real-world 5G network is introduced.

The poor showing is a repeat of numbers for 2016 and 2017 when annual growth was tallied at 1.8 per cent and 1.2 per cent, respectively. This is in stark contrast to double digit growth posted in the years after 2007, when Apple first launched its iPhone.

The global research and consulting firm said the drop-in shipments and sales is mainly due to overall improvements in the capabilities of the latest handsets and a longer replacement cycle for recent phones.

Greater smartphone penetration across the globe and higher unit cost also may be having effect on consumer demand, it said.

SA, however, predicted that, starting in 2019, there may be an upshift in demand for smartphones as the much quicker and more stable 5G networks come online, requiring new mobile devices to fully take advantage of the new developments.

It said that in 2019, the worldwide market for smartphones may expand 3.5 per cent on-year followed by 4.4 per cent growth in 2020 and 4.9 per cent in 2021.

By 2023, it said growth will be around 4.1 per cent, with companies churning out 1.86 billion phones per year.  

And according to Ericsson, mobile data traffic is estimated to surge by eight times during the forecast period to reach close to 107 exabytes (EB) per month – a figure that is equal to every mobile subscriber worldwide streaming full HD video for 10 hours.  By 2023, more than 20 per cent of mobile data traffic worldwide is expected to be carried by 5Gnetworks. This is 1.5 times more than the total 4G/3G/2G traffic today.

  • Tags
  • VoLTE