Plenty of Room Left Yet for Smartphone Growth
According to UBS analyst John Hodulik most every American has a smartphone, and that, along with slowing smartphone upgrades, doesn’t bode well for smartphone manufacturers. But is that really the case?
Nope, says Asymco’s Horace Dediu, who points to recent comScore survey data as evidence that there’s plenty of room left for growth in the U.S. smartphone market. According to comScore, 41 percent of U.S. mobile phone users don’t yet own a smartphone. That’s 98 million people (over the age of 13).
Almost 60 percent smartphone penetration in the U.S. is hardly a saturated market, though it’s clearly headed in that direction. As Dediu observes, smartphone adoption rates in the country remain high, with nearly 583,000 consumers switching to smartphones each week.
Globally, there’s even more room for growth. Smartphone penetration isn’t even half of what it is in the States. Indeed, according to IHS, worldwide smartphone shipments this year will hit 897 million units, up from 712 million in 2012. And by 2017 they are expected to hit 1.5 billion.