Juniper: Smartphone shipments to hit 1 billion by 2016
by Steven Mostyn - Jul 21 2011, 07:33
The shape of the future. Image: ciccioetneo/Flickr.
If current smartphone adoption rates maintain their current momentum, more conventional mobile phone handsets may well be all-but obsolete within five years.
Moreover, new market data published by Juniper Research suggests that global smartphone shipments are likely to surpass one billion per year by 2016—which is a significant leap from the 302 million that shipped during 2010.
If smartphone consumer traction does indeed match Juniper’s shipment projections, it will inevitably help drive handset prices, which will, in turn, mean high-end touch-screen devices will replace ye olde mobile phones as we know them.
“In developed markets, many consumers will want to upgrade from a feature phone to a smartphone, but still pay a feature phone price,” outlined report author Daniel Ashdown.
“In emerging markets though, lower average consumer spending power and lack of operator subsidies will make a low price point essential,” he added,
According to Ashdown, steadily falling manufacturing costs and the associated proliferation of open-source operating systems (i.e., Google Android) will help reduce prices and attract more wide-ranging consumption.
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