If you think the smartphone world is crowded with the likes of Android, iPhone, and Windows Phone dominating the lion’s share, you’re right, but it looks like it may get even worse, especially for emerging markets such as China and India.
New findings from tech analysts at Juniper Research reveals that the smartphone market will see new emerging players, such as Asha, Sailfish and emerging HTML 5 based OS players such as Firefox OS begin to gain ground in niche areas.
The market globally is expected to continue to be dominated by Android and iOS, while Windows Phone continues to gain traction according to the IDC, but the new players will eat away some of the market share and contribute to the overall rise in fragmentation.
The Juniper Research report argues that the new low-cost contenders will take away important niches – focusing on cost innovation and utilizing local knowledge – in synergy with the next generation of consumers, which may begin the slow decline of the current global OS elite.
In terms of smartphone shipments, Apple and Samsung will continue to dominate the global market, shipping 17% more smartphones in 2018 than were shipped globally by all vendors in 2012. The new Juniper report found that Apple and Samsung’s global smartphone shipments will hit nearly 800 million by the end of 2018, compared with 677 million last year. Apple will see sustained growth in the emerging markets over the forecast period, with the company expected to announce a budget iPhone when it announces the brand new iPhone 5S on September 10th.
The average price of smartphones is also expected to fall as new low-income demographics are reached. With any luck, we could see high-quality budget smartphones such as the Nokia Lumia 520 emerge victorious so we don’t have to deal with low quality devices on a low budget. Only time will tell.