Global smartphone shipments are forecast to grow by 18 percent a year to reach 1.5 billion units and to account for 73 percent of all mobile phone shipments in 2017, according to Canalys. Nearly all phones shipped in North America and Western Europe are projected to be smartphones by 2017, and even in greater China, they will account for 95 percent.
The smartphone market is expected to continue to be driven by Android and the low end of the market, with Android-based smartphone shipments likely to reach over 1 billion for a 67.1 percent market share by 2017, compared to over 470 million for a 67.7 percent share in 2012. Apple smartphone shipments are projected to grow slower than the smartphone market, leading to its market share dropping to 14.1 percent from 19.5 percent over the same period.
Microsoft, on the other hand, is projected to increase its share of smartphone shipments to 12.7 percent in 2017 from 2.4 percent in 2012, thanks to the scalability of the platform. Microsoft will benefit from Nokia gains in the short term, which announced major carrier wins in China and the US, but Chinese vendors will challenge Samsung’s dominance. Microsoft already works with Huawei and ZTE.
Canalys expects BlackBerry’s market share to slip to 4.6 percent in 2017 from 4.8 percent in 2012 if it can reverse it fortunes in the US and focus on increasing its presence in China. (Banglanews24.com)
