Forecast: 96% of handsets will be smartphones by 2016

If you haven’t jumped feet first into the world of mobile marketing, there’s no better time than now.

According to Google, the mobile Web is growing eight times the speed of the Internet, showing how digital marketing is quickly becoming a mobile-first world.

Last year, U.S. mobile users were buying more smartphones than they were in 2010. By the end of the year, almost 75 percent of mobile devices sold were smartphones. This is worth nothing, as only approximately 33% of U.S. mobile handset sales were attributable to smartphones just two years before.

iGR’s new market research report, U.S. Smartphone Forecast, 2011 – 2016, previews the expected sales for 2011-2016 both in terms of non-smartphone, and smartphone devices and mobile operating systems (OSes). Recent trends within the market are also discussed and applied to the conversation about the future of handset sales to end users through 2016.

Some of the factors that led to this increase across U.S. users include:

• a rise in upgrade/replacement purchase as non-smartphone users buy smartphones,
• enterprise user trends (more personal liable smartphones in use),
• evolving mobile device hardware and software, and advancements
• carrier network developments (e.g., increasing 3.5G availability),
• the increase in consumer demand for mobile devices that fit a portable lifestyle.

These trends, along with other factors, provide support for the upward swing in mobile handset sales overall in the U.S. throughout last year, particularly with smartphones, and these are expected to continue. In fact by 2016, iGR expects approximately 96 percent of U.S. handset sales to be comprised entirely of smartphones.

“The growth in the U.S. smartphone market has been very strong in the last few years,” said Iain Gillott, president and founder of iGR, a market research consultancy focused on the wireless and mobile industry.

“But as the market becomes saturated, smartphone sales growth will slow. For OEMs who are hoping to gain, or regain, market share in the U.S., the time to act is now. By 2014, we believe the majority of the smartphone sales growth will be over.”

Beyond the USA, there’s an currently an estimated one billion smartphones in the world.  In case you’ve not heard, the world’s population is seven billion people.  This percentage of the human population owning smartphones around the world is rapidly increasing.

Further Reading

Mobile Web Ramping Up 8x Faster Than Internet

By 2016, 96 percent of mobile handsets will be smartphones

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