Annual sales of low-cost mobile handsets will rise by 22% to over 700 million in the next five years, according to a new report from Juniper Research. Much of this growth – and the majority of new mobile users - will come from emerging markets. By 2014, almost a quarter (24%) of all global mobile phone sales will be low-cost devices sold in the Africa & Middle East area.
However, smartphone sales are also due to increase. Juniper Research says 27% of mobile devices shipped worldwide in 2014 will be smart devices – up from 13% last year. And a report from the Yankee Group confirms the trend, calculating that 41% of consumers will buy a smartphone when they change their handset. Their figures are even more optimistic than Juniper’s; they reckon 38% of handsets will be smartphones by 2013. [Juniper Research; Yankee Group]