Smartphones on track to reach 1.03 billion units in 2015

Smartphone shipments will more than double from 478 million in 2011 to 1.03 billion in 2015, according to a new report from IHS iSuppli. By then, smartphones will comprise the majority of all cellphone shipments at 54.4%, up from 32.5% this year.
Highlighting the dramatic shift to a smartphone-driven market, the firm notes that smartphones only accounted for 15.8% of the mobile handset market in 2009, just two years ago.
To reach that scale, of course, the fastest growing category will be low-end models, which IHS projects will rise at a compound annual growth rate of 115.4% between 2010 and 2015. The mid-range and high-end smartphones are expected to sustain a compound annual growth rate of 16.4% during that same period.
“With their affordable prices, low-end smart phones are attractive to first-time users and to consumers in emerging economies where subscriber levels are rising at the fastest rates of all regions of the world, such as China, India, South Asia and Africa,” said Francis Sideco, senior principal analyst of wireless communications for IHS. “Low-end smart phones often are sold with inexpensive tiered data plans that target consumers who do not yet need full-featured services. This further reduces these phones’ total cost of ownership, making them attractive to vast numbers of entry-level consumers.”