It's single digit growth for smartphones from here on out

In the next few years Android will increase its share, Apple will lose some and Windows Phone drops

The writing has been on the wall for the smartphone industry for a while now. China, a country that is over-saturated with phones, saw its first year to year decline in the smartphone market in six years, and 2015 was projected to be the first year year of single digit growth.

Well, here's some good news: that prediction turned out to be wrong. There were actually 1.44 billion smartphone shipments worldwide 2015, an increase of 10.4 percent over 2014, IDC said on Friday. So things turned out better than expected.

Here's the bad news, though: 2015 is also almost certainly going to be the last year of growth in the double digits. And shipments are expected to fall fast, as they are only expected to grow 5.7 percent in the coming year, nearly half the growth they saw in 2015.

Basically the reason for this is that the biggest markets are becoming oversaturated, including the United States, China, and Western Europe, all of which saw growth in the single digits last year. While up and coming markets like India, Indonesia, the Middle East and Africa, and part of Southeast Asia, are seeing big growth, it doesn't seem to be enough to offset what's happening in other parts of the world. 

Of the three main operating systems, it looks like iOS will actually take a hit  and see its sales shrink worldwide just the tiniest bit in 2016. IDC expects it to ship 231.2 million phones, for a 15.2 percent market share, with growth of -0.1 percent.

That is surprising, given that iOS has growth of 20.2 percent in 2015, nearly double that of the overall smartphone market. IDC, however, things that the more expensive iPhones will hurt the company in the short term. 

In the long term, things should be fine. Sales are expected to pick back up again in 2017, and by 2020 IDC projects it will ship 269 million phones.

Android, on the hand, is expected to do just fine. It will see growth of 7.6 percent this year, for an 82.6 percent worldwide marketshare, which is expected to grow to 84.6 percent by 2020. 

The platform that is going to take the biggest hit, though, is Windows Phone, which saw shipments drop 18 percent in 2015, and now IDC is expecting them to drop another 18.5 percent this year. It will only have a 1.6 percent market share. By 2020, that marketshare will be less than 1 percent and Windows Phone will only be shipping 17.8 million devices. 

Here are two other things to expect: prices are actually going to fall, which is something that it seems never happens. The aggregate market price was $295 in 2015, and by 2020 it will be $237. So that's nice. 

The other thing will be phones with larger screens, which is not an inherently good or bad thing, depending on how you look at it. Personally, as someone who keeps my phone in my pocket, a big phone doesn't necessarily work for me, but it may for other people. 

Phablets, or a hybrid between a phone and tablet, made up 20 percent of smartphone shipments last year, and that will be 32 percent by 2020. Apple will see its phablets, which, right now, are the iPhone 6 Plus and 6S Plus, to grow from 26 percent in 2015 to nearly 31 percent in 2020.

So, in the next few years, we should expect bigger, cheaper phones? That's something I could get behind. 

(Image source: independent.co.uk)