According to Gartner, Inc., worldwide shipments of devices such as PCs, tablets and mobile phones totalled up to 2.28 billion units in 2017 and is expected to reach 2.32 billion units in 2018 (2.1% increase).
Two markets are predicted to drive the growth of device shipments, starting with the mobile phone market led by the high-end smartphone segment. Then there is the premium ultramobile market, where thin and light Apple and Microsoft Windows 10 devices are stimulating higher demand.
“Consumers have many technologies to choose from, which poses two main challenges for vendors. The first is to compete for wallet share, given how many devices consumers own. The second is to deliver value and maintain relevance in order to offer the right device to the right audience,” said Ranjit Atwal, research director at Gartner.
Apart from that, Gartner also forecasts that shipments of traditional PCs will decline by 5.4% this year, with notebooks showing the steepest decline (6.8%).
Furthermore, Gartner forecasts that mobile shipments will increase by 2.6% in 2018, with the total amounting to 1.9 billion units. Smartphone sales will grow by 6.2% to represent 87% of mobile phone sales. “We expect Apple smartphone sales to grow by more than the market average in 2018, with the launch of new models fuelling stronger replacement cycles,” said Roberta Cozza, research director at Gartner.
