News
Research firm expects global shipment growth to slow to 3.1%.
IDC this week lowered its 2016 outlook for global smartphone shipments due to the continued slowdown in mature markets.
The research firm said it expects shipments to reach 1.48 billion, up 3.1% on 2015. In March, IDC predicted that 2016 shipments would grow 5.7% to 1.5 billion. By comparison, smartphone volumes last year grew by 10.4%.
IDC said the U.S., Western Europe, and China are likely to see low single digit growth this year, while Japan and China will contract by 6.4% and 6.9% respectively.
"The mature market slowdown has some grave consequences for Apple, as well as the high-end Android space, as these were the markets that absorbed the majority of the premium handsets that shipped over the past five years," said Ryan Reith, programme director for IDC’s worldwide quarterly mobile phone tracker, in a statement on Wednesday.
Indeed, Apple is in for a bumpy ride, if IDC’s predictions turn out to be accurate.
The company expects iPhone shipments to fall by 2% in 2016, compared to its previous prediction of a 0.1% decline.
Microsoft’s recent announcement of further cutbacks and selloffs at its phone hardware division haven’t done its prospects any good either: IDC expects Windows Phone shipments to fall to 11.2 million in 2016, compared to its earlier forecast of 23.8 million.
Android is still expected to grow, albeit at a lower rate. IDC predicts that shipments of handsets powered by Google’s OS will grow by 6.2% to 1.24 billion. In March, IDC said Android volumes would grow by 7.6% to 1.25 billion.
