2024 Smartphone Shipments To Be Up 6.2% y-o-y

Smartphone shipments are forecast to grow 6.2% y-o-y in 2024 to 1.24 billion units fuelled by pent-up demand for upgrades after two years of steep declines, says IDC.

2025 will see the start of a period of low single digit growth  – 2.6% CAGR for 2023-2028 -. held back by increasing smartphone penetration, lengthening refresh cycles, and headwinds from rapidly growing used smartphone market.

“While GenAI continues to be a hot topic and top priority for many vendors, it is yet to impact demand significantly and drive early upgrades.” says IDC’s Nabila Popal, “while we continue to believe GenAI will revolutionise the user experience in the years to come, more investments are needed to increase consumer awareness and introduce a ‘must have’ feature that will rush consumers to the store and create that super cycle which everyone is waiting for. For now, we expect GenAI smartphones will take their place in premium flagship devices and keep moving down in price tiers to rapidly grow to 70% of the smartphone market by 2028.”

Rapid Android growth of 7.6% year-over-year focused in APeJC, Latin America, Middle East and Africa and China, primarily in low end devices, is pivotal to the 6.2% growth this year.

In contrast, iOS is expected to grow a modest 0.4% in 2024. Despite record breaking performance in emerging markets like India, Apple faces challenges in large markets like China, US and Europe.

In 2025, iOS is expected to grow by 3.1% y-o-y, outpacing Android’s forecasted 1.7% growth over the same period.

“New foldable phone models continue to grab headlines despite the low volumes in the market,” says IDC’s  Anthony Scarsella, “in Q3, foldables declined by 7.4%, even as most of the world’s prominent vendors launched new models. Still foldables will grow 10.5% in 2024 and maintain a double digit growth through 2028 with a five-year CAGR of 15.9%. However, the pace of growth is slowing down as Chinese vendors (who are driving this segment) are realigning focus and investments towards GenAI smartphones. Durability concerns and lack of unique use cases are also dampening growth.”