GSMA, the global body of mobile operators, projects that by 2020, two out of three mobile connections worldwide will be via a smartphone. The GSMA’s research wing, which conducted this study, forecasts that smartphone connections worldwide will see a three-fold growth until 2020. The study is titled ‘Smartphone forecasts and assumptions, 2007-2020’.
The three market leaders – China, United States, and Brazil – are trailed by India. The study puts the number of smartphone connections in India (as of June 2014) at 111 million. The study also observes that in the next six years, nearly four out of five smartphone-based mobile connections will belong to the developing world.
It was in 2011 that the developed world was overtaken by developing nations, as far as smartphones go. In 2014, this emergent market has assumed a greater share of the smartphone connections worldwide. The developing economies now account for two out of every three smartphones globally.
The report also brings into focus the increasingly dominant role played by Asia Pacific in the smartphones market. According to the estimates of this report, the nearly 50% of all smartphone connections worldwide can be traced back to Asia Pacific. This is despite the fact that the penetration of smartphones in this region is lower than 40%.
According to GSMA’s chief strategy officer Hyunmi Yang, a global wave of innovation has been sparked by the advent and increasing popularity of smartphones. The report ascribes this proliferation of smartphones to several factors, such as: the price erosion of smartphones’ average selling price (ASP), bundled smartphone offerings from operators, and demand for smartphones in the low-end category.
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