The latest research to investigate the ever-growing smartphone market comes from Parks Associates. It forecasts that over 2 billion people worldwide will own at least one smartphone in 2015, representing a growth in unit sales of over 175% from 2010. Global sales in 2015 alone are expected to exceed 800 million.
The company’s latest report, Smartphone: King of Convergence, says smartphone shipments jumped 70% in 2010 to reach approximately 500 million users.
Harry Wang, Director of Mobile Research at Parks Associates, said “Smartphones represent a new lifestyle. Consumer desire for that lifestyle has accelerated the traditional mobile phone replacement cycle and will drive near-term hypergrowth of the smartphone market.”
Park Associates says the most successful manufacturers were also the most innovative. It puts HTC, Samsung and Apple in that category, while noting that “companies slow to innovate” have suffered declining market share.
