IDC projects Apple unlikely to make market share gains against Android in coming years
Even with iPhone sales continuing to be strong, Apple is unlikely to make deeper inroads into Android's global marketshare in the near future, according to projections from an IDC research report released on Tuesday.
Android is forecast to retain an approximate 81 percent share until 2019, as the markets with the most growth potential -- such as China and India -- will likely remain "extremely price sensitive," IDC commented. Even if Apple were to release a rumored low-cost iPhone 6c, the firm argued, it would be hard-pressed to compete with the lower end of the Android market, which has devices costing $200 or less unlocked. Even the two-year-old iPhone 5c, based on the three-year-old iPhone 5, is priced at $450.
IDC argued however that higher profits are more valuable to Apple than pure marketshare, and that shipments will continue to rise. The company is expected to go from 192.7 million devices shipped in 2014 to 269.6 million in 2019. By contrast, the combined Android market is forecast to advance from 1.06 billion units to 1.54 billion.
Sales could increasingly skew towards larger "phablet" devices like the iPhone 6 Plus, the firm continued. Sales of phones with screens between 5.5 and 6 inches are predicted to grow 84 percent year-over-year in 2015, and account for 71 percent of shipments by 2019.
Echoing Strategy Analytics views though, IDC noted that the overall smartphone market is slowing down. Global shipments are predicted to grow just 10.4 percent this year to 1.44 billion units, below a previous forecast of 11.3 percent. China's growth for the year could be only 1.2 percent, compared with 19.7 percent in 2014.
India is the new focus of attention in the smartphone market, IDC suggested, both in terms of device sales and as a potential manufacturing base where companies can exploit low wages and other profit-boosting perks. Companies are reportedly already starting to relocate from from China and Vietnam.
In recent years the iPhone has typically been the most popular individual smartphone brand in any given country, but dwarfed by Android as a platform, given the range of supporting vendors and devices.
Android is forecast to retain an approximate 81 percent share until 2019, as the markets with the most growth potential -- such as China and India -- will likely remain "extremely price sensitive," IDC commented. Even if Apple were to release a rumored low-cost iPhone 6c, the firm argued, it would be hard-pressed to compete with the lower end of the Android market, which has devices costing $200 or less unlocked. Even the two-year-old iPhone 5c, based on the three-year-old iPhone 5, is priced at $450.
IDC argued however that higher profits are more valuable to Apple than pure marketshare, and that shipments will continue to rise. The company is expected to go from 192.7 million devices shipped in 2014 to 269.6 million in 2019. By contrast, the combined Android market is forecast to advance from 1.06 billion units to 1.54 billion.
Sales could increasingly skew towards larger "phablet" devices like the iPhone 6 Plus, the firm continued. Sales of phones with screens between 5.5 and 6 inches are predicted to grow 84 percent year-over-year in 2015, and account for 71 percent of shipments by 2019.
Echoing Strategy Analytics views though, IDC noted that the overall smartphone market is slowing down. Global shipments are predicted to grow just 10.4 percent this year to 1.44 billion units, below a previous forecast of 11.3 percent. China's growth for the year could be only 1.2 percent, compared with 19.7 percent in 2014.
India is the new focus of attention in the smartphone market, IDC suggested, both in terms of device sales and as a potential manufacturing base where companies can exploit low wages and other profit-boosting perks. Companies are reportedly already starting to relocate from from China and Vietnam.
In recent years the iPhone has typically been the most popular individual smartphone brand in any given country, but dwarfed by Android as a platform, given the range of supporting vendors and devices.
Comments
Hey IDC...how about breaking it down to companies that actually make phones instead of the fictitious company called Android you have them competing against.
This is the same firm that predicted in 2011 that Windows Phone would overtake the iPhone by 2015. Why is anyone still paying attention to these clowns?
http://www.zdnet.com/article/idc-windows-phone-to-overtake-iphone-sales-by-2015-what-do-you-think/#!
Android is a platform not just one company and Apple and iOS is growing in spite of deliberate copy cat attempts by numerous Android makers and Smartphone makers
This organization is one that tweaks their numbers to better rep their clients (Google, HP, Asus etc) needs. Show me a single model from any other manufacturer that has outsold any single Apple iphone model.....just one is all that is required. And compare apples to apples so smartphone against smartphone, not a dumbed down feature phone against a smartphone. It appears that the Android marketplace, well fragmented already, will become more fragmented as cost cutting profit searching will be required if any manufacturer wishes to increase their stock prices. The services will slowly get entrenched as the feature opposed to hardware. Look at the camera biz...that has topped out at 16-24 megapixels as larger sensors only benefit a tiny percentage of buyers/clients and increase storage needs 10 to 100 fold (= big $$$). Cellphone imaging units can only get better quality, opposed to larger sizes due to file sizes locking images to the hardware storage as uploading becomes cumbersome wifi-hogging proposition. Outside of battery issues we may have finally hit a plateau point where the hardware has become "at one" with the user requirements. Physical limits prevent it from becoming anything more.
In other news, McDonalds will continue to sell more burgers than Fatburger, In-N-Out and Five Guys.
Nope, just reporting what they are paid to fabricate.
Android is forecast to retain an approximate 81 percent share until 2019,
What is supposed to happen in 2019? Nobody can predict the future that far out. If they said 2016 that might be more realistic but what does Apple care if they are still growing sales and taking all the profits?
You would have to be out of your mind to believe anything from IDC. These idiots just make up junk. How they are still in business is a mystery to me.
They are in business because they are paid to do these reports. Find who commissioned this report and you will understand what it means.
Has any projections by them been remotely accurate?
Blackberry at 15%, almost at the size of iOS. Windows ahead. Android at 45%.
Look even back then it was clear it was a 2 horse race.
So we can expect that android will collapse given IDCs record.
As a collective, they sell a lot of phones. Individually, they don't have the profits. Without the profits there will come a time where individual manufacturers will be squeezed out of the market.
Let's just say they must live in Opposite Land lol
Exactly.
Market share is calculated by adding up all smartphone sales from all manufacturers... and then seeing what percentage each company had for the quarter or year.
But Apple is one company versus hundreds of other companies. The iPhone has never had a high market share because of the sheer volume of non-Apple phones being sold.
If 1 billion smartphones get sold in a year... and Apple sells 200 million iPhones in a year... they would have 20% market share. Sounds low, right?
Except... they sold 200 million iPhones! That's actually great! The only other company who can move more volume is Samsung... but the bulk of their sales are cheap smartphones.
In fact... most of the "smartphone" market is made up of super-cheap Android phones.
So you've got Apple's $700-$900 iPhones lumped into the same category as $50-$100 Android phones.
And guess which price range of phones sells in more volume and thus has more market share? It's not Apple.
Apple had never chased volume. They make certain types of products and price them accordingly. As such... they don't sell as much as everyone else combined.
But they don't have to.
IDC. Market share predictions.
HA HA HA. Good for an afternoon chuckle.
At least they acknowledge (finally) that Apple couldn't give two @#!$ about market share. Never has, never will.
I also want to know out of that BILLION count for Android devices how many are flagship devices, how many are mid range devices and how many are POS rinky dink free phones that are still running Ice Cream Sandwich or even Froyo. Not exactly fair to compare a free POS Android device in a third world country running Gingerbread that's only used for voice calls to an iPhone 6 running iOS 8 chewing through 5 gigs of wireless data month. Everyone knows Android flagship devices haven't sold squat, iPhone 6 vs. Galaxy S 6, Apple sells in days what Samsung does in months. It's not even close.
Also want to know if they're including non-phones in their numbers, I don't recall if IDC ever did it but I know one of the Android-fanboy stats companies lopped in tablets into the number of Android activations which also included every conceivable media player HDMI stick out there that ran Honeycomb.
Samsung Mobile has been losing profits for seven straight quarters now. Forbes even called the S6 a flop. HTC is literally considered worthless. Motorola who? Xiaomi is just taking market share from Samsung and HTC that Apple didn't get. 75% of initial trade ins in the month up to iPhone 6 launch were Android phones.
Tell me again how this so called mythical company called "Android" is beating Apple.
Lay off the sauce IDC.Go home, you're saying stupid crap.
I guess my response to IDC would be... so what?