Analyst Gartner expects that the global smartphone sales will continue to slow and will no longer grow in double digits. Worldwide smartphone sales are expected to only grow 7 percent in 2016 to reach 1.5 billion units, droping from 14.4 percent growth in 2015. The latest forecast from Gartner shows that the smartphone sales are on pace to total 1.9 billion units in 2020.
The slowdown is expected as the smartphone market has reached 90 percent penetration in the mature markets of North America, Western Europe, Japan and Mature Asia/Pacific. Furthermore, users in these regions are not replacing or upgrading their smartphone as often as in previous years.
At the same time, smartphones are being kept in use for between 2.2 and 2.5 years, affecting the demand for replacement handsets. To add to this, mobile operators have moved away from subsidies providing a "free" smartphone every two years, which has led to more varied upgrade cycles.
Gartner expects India to be the largest market for smartphone growth. Gartner estimates 139 million smartphones to be sold in India in 2016, growing 29.5 percent year over year.
Roberta Cozza, research director at Gartner
The smartphone market will no longer grow at the levels it has reached over the last seven years. Smartphone sales recorded their highest growth in 2010, reaching 73 percent.
Annette Zimmermann, research director at Gartner
Sales of feature phones totaled 167 million units in 2015, 61 percent of total mobile phone sales in India. In this saturated yet highly competitive smartphone market, there is little growth expected in China in the next five years.
