Roger Fingas
Even with iPhone sales continuing to be strong, Apple is unlikely to make deeper inroads into Android's global marketshare in the near future, according to projections from an IDC research report released on Tuesday.
Android is forecast to retain an approximate 81 percent share until 2019, as the markets with the most growth potential — such as China and India — will likely remain "extremely price sensitive," IDC commented. Even if Apple were to release a rumored low-cost iPhone 6c, the firm argued, it would be hard-pressed to compete with the lower end of the Android market, which has devices costing $200 or less unlocked. Even the two-year-old iPhone 5c, based on the three-year-old iPhone 5, is priced at $450.
IDC argued however that higher profits are more valuable to Apple than pure marketshare, and that shipments will continue to rise. The company is expected to go from 192.7 million devices shipped in 2014 to 269.6 million in 2019. By contrast, the combined Android market is forecast to advance from 1.06 billion units to 1.54 billion.
Sales could increasingly skew towards larger "phablet" devices like the iPhone 6 Plus, the firm continued. Sales of phones with screens between 5.5 and 6 inches are predicted to grow 84 percent year-over-year in 2015, and account for 71 percent of shipments by 2019.
Echoing Strategy Analytics views though, IDC noted that the overall smartphone market is slowing down. Global shipments are predicted to grow just 10.4 percent this year to 1.44 billion units, below a previous forecast of 11.3 percent. China's growth for the year could be only 1.2 percent, compared with 19.7 percent in 2014.
India is the new focus of attention in the smartphone market, IDC suggested, both in terms of device sales and as a potential manufacturing base where companies can exploit low wages and other profit-boosting perks. Companies are reportedly already starting to relocate from from China and Vietnam.
In recent years the iPhone has typically been the most popular individual smartphone brand in any given country, but dwarfed by Android as a platform, given the range of supporting vendors and devices.
Charles Martin
Malcolm Owen
Andrew O'Hara
William Gallagher
102 Comments
Hey IDC...how about breaking it down to companies that actually make phones instead of the fictitious company called Android you have them competing against.
This is the same firm that predicted in 2011 that Windows Phone would overtake the iPhone by 2015. Why is anyone still paying attention to these clowns?
http://www.zdnet.com/article/idc-windows-phone-to-overtake-iphone-sales-by-2015-what-do-you-think/#!
For me IDC = I don't care ( what they say or think ) lol Android is a platform not just one company and Apple and iOS is growing in spite of deliberate copy cat attempts by numerous Android makers and Smartphone makers
IDC is on drugs again? This organization is one that tweaks their numbers to better rep their clients (Google, HP, Asus etc) needs. Show me a single model from any other manufacturer that has outsold any single Apple iphone model.....just one is all that is required. And compare apples to apples so smartphone against smartphone, not a dumbed down feature phone against a smartphone. It appears that the Android marketplace, well fragmented already, will become more fragmented as cost cutting profit searching will be required if any manufacturer wishes to increase their stock prices. The services will slowly get entrenched as the feature opposed to hardware. Look at the camera biz...that has topped out at 16-24 megapixels as larger sensors only benefit a tiny percentage of buyers/clients and increase storage needs 10 to 100 fold (= big $$$). Cellphone imaging units can only get better quality, opposed to larger sizes due to file sizes locking images to the hardware storage as uploading becomes cumbersome wifi-hogging proposition. Outside of battery issues we may have finally hit a plateau point where the hardware has become "at one" with the user requirements. Physical limits prevent it from becoming anything more.
In other news, McDonalds will continue to sell more burgers than Fatburger, In-N-Out and Five Guys.