About this Report
While worldwide handset shipments are expected to grow at a CAGR of 6 percent during the period 2010-2015, worldwide smartphone shipments will record a growth rate over 3 times larger.
Despite the worldwide economic slowdown, the smartphone market registered a modest growth rate of 16.4 percent during 2008-2009. In 2010, smartphone shipments grew at an impressive rate and were the growth driver for the rebound in 2010's total handset shipments. The worldwide handset market witnessed a year-on-year growth of 12.2 percent during 2009-2010, primarily driven by 76.5 percent y-o-y growth in smartphone shipments during the same period.
Smartphones accounted for 23.1 percent of worldwide handset shipments during 2010. This share is expected to approach 40 percent by end-2015.
This new market study looks at the entire smartphone ecosystem in eight fact-filled chapters:
- Introduction (Handset Market Summary; Emergence of Smartphones)
- Smartphone Market
- Smartphone Value Chain
- Smartphone Vendors
- Operating Systems
- Applications and Content Market
- Summary and Conclusions
- Appendices (including full glossary of terms)
Significant developments in the worldwide handset market over the past few years have radically altered the shape and future course of this industry. Developments that have fundamentally shifted market dynamics include the gaining prominence of Apple's iPhone and now Android-based devices (using Google Android OS), as well as Nokia's declining smartphone market share.
The major differentiating factor between smartphones and other handsets is the presence of an open Operating System (OS). The OS, through its Application Programming Interface (API), enables subscribers to install and remove third-party applications.
Operating Systems for smartphones started to gain more focus in 2010 because of the sharp rise in the adoptability of Google's open source Android platform. The popularity of an OS depends on many factors including performance of the hardware, availability of applications, and the number of Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEM) partnerships. From a negligible market share at end-2008, the Android platform became the fourth most prominent OS by market share of worldwide OS shipments at end-2010.
With competition in the smartphone market growing more intense with the entry of Android-based phones, mobile applications and content are major differentiators for vendors who are looking to increase their market share. Apart from an increase in customer base, vendors are able to generate new revenue streams and to increase their Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) through these applications.
Smartphones now have a wide appeal to users worldwide, and this increasing demand in the smartphone market has led to the entry of new players across the value chain and has obviously intensified market competition. In addition to the new market entrants, existing players have expanded their horizons by venturing into new areas of business to seize exciting opportunities.
The phenomenal growth of the smartphone market has been driven by the ever increasing popularity of smartphone devices in the developed markets of the US and Europe, along with rising penetration in the developing markets of Asia Pacific and Rest of World regions - as the availability of affordable smartphone devices and supported applications increases.
Smartphone shipments during 2010-2015 are expected to grow at an impressive CAGR of 18.1 percent, compared to a CAGR of 6.0 percent for total handset shipments worldwide.