Apple’s iPhone shipments could help double the performance of the overall global smartphone market, according to IDC, which sees huge demand among consumers for the new iPhone models. IDC expects iPhone shipments to grow 17.3% in 2015.
Apple growing in declining market
The demand for Apple’s smartphones has been continuously growing in 2015, and the company’s share of worldwide smartphone shipments will most likely grow to 15.8% or equivalent to 226 million units. Apple will gain the leading position with this projected growth in the total smartphone market, which for the first time will grow in the single digits (9.8%).
IDC said that Android will continue to remain the leading smartphone platform, but the growth in shipments of Android devices will be merely 9.5%, which is lower than the market average. The share of iOS devices in the worldwide market will continue to be around 14% to 15% for the next year and might shoot up when the company releases new iPhones.
The struggle for Microsoft’s Windows Phone platform does not seem to end. According to IDC’s estimates, shipments could drop 10.2% in 2015 with just a 2.2% share or 31.3 million units in overall shipments. Though Apple has made incremental gains in the U.S., the majority percentage of worldwide market share will continue to remain with Android, IDC expects.
Which markets are seeing growth?
To properly reflect the slowing growth in the smartphone market, IDC updated its previous forecast, especially in China where growth is expected to be in the low single digits. Latin America, Western Europe and the rest of the Asia Pacific region (excluding Japan) are a few other areas where growth has stalled. In Africa and the Middle East, shipments are expected to see growth rates as high as 50% year over year. With such high growth rates, they will surpass markets like India and Indonesia, which were previously seen as “hot markets.”
In mature markets, the sale of replacement devices will help in bringing growth, and replacement cycles are expected to speed up because of the increasing financing and trade-in options from programs like Apple’s iPhone Upgrade Program, says IDC. This will also ensure that top-of-the-line devices reach consumers sooner.
On Thursday, Apple shares closed down 0.93% at $115.20. Year to date, the stock is up by over 4% while in the last one month, it is down by over 6%.
