Low-cost smartphones aimed at the mass-market will outsell premium devices designed for advanced users by 2016, according to research from Informa Telecoms & Media.
The telecoms and media intelligence firm predicts that handsets costing between $200-$300 will become increasingly popular across the globe as economies of scale push down production costs. Some 81% of all smartphones shipped in 2011 were sold at a wholesale price above $300, according to Informa. This proportion is expected to decline to below 50% in 2016.
Smartphone manufacturers like Apple, HTC and Samsung shipped 157.8 million units in the final three months of 2011, according to IDC. The majority of these would have cost resellers considerably more than $300. The iPhone 4S will typically cost north of $500, depending on the model purchased and volume.
Cheaper devices will be particularly attractive to networks in emerging markets as they will be easy to subsidise and support the rollout of mobile internet to the masses. Sales of these cheaper handsets will increase from 41 million in 2010 to over 206 million units by 2016. Android, Symbian and BlackBerry are the only platforms that currently support smartphones under $300 (£200), with market shares of 48.5%, 38% and 13.5% respectively last year. Nearly two-thirds of Symbian’s total sales in 2011 were generated by devices in this price range.
Informa said smartphone wholesale prices will need to fall below $200 to create mass-market appeal in emerging markets. Smartphone handsets costing less than £200 are expected to account for 24% of the market in 2016, up from just 5% forecast for this year.
Malik Saadi, principal analyst at Informa, said: “China will be the largest market for smartphones in this price segment, with a potential market share of 20% of the global total in 2016, while India will be the second-largest single market for these phones with 14%. Sales of this type of device in Western Europe and in North America will be very small – the shares of these regions are not expected to exceed 4% and 3%, respectively.”
Smartphones costing $100 dollars or less are not expected to hit the market until 2013 at the earliest, but Saadi warned sales of these devices would be challenged by smarter feature-phones that will increasingly offer a decent internet experience at lower price points. Annual sales of sub-$100 smartphone handsets are not expected to exceed 60 million units a year before 2016, as manufacturers struggle to integrate key internet applications on cheaper devices.
|
