The smartphone market will grow 1% in 2025 compared to 2024, IDC now predicts, and this growth will be driven by iPhone shipments, which are expected to be up 3.9% year-on-year (YoY).
IDC expects the total number of smartphone shipments to reach 1.24 billion this year. The 1% growth prediction is an improvement from the analyst house’s previous forecast of 0.6%, and the difference seems to be more or less entirely down to iPhones being expected to sell better.
Healthy replacement demand will push growth into 2026, when the market is predicted to ship 1.2% more units than this year. Then, in 2027, there will be 2.1% growth vs. 2026. Growth will stall and only reach 1.6% in 2028 and 1.4% in 2029, according to IDC’s most recent predictions.
Coming back to this year, there will be strong (3.6%) growth in the US, as well as the Middle East and Africa (6.5%), and 0.8% growth in Asia Pacific excluding China. All of this growth will help offset the predicted 1% decline in shipments in China. Previously, IDC forecasted 3% YoY growth in China, but this has now been revised due to the subsidies being phased out.
In 2025, the average selling price per smartphone is expected to go up 5%, and there will also be 6% growth in the overall revenue in the market, as prices go up and companies continue their focus on premiumization.
Over 370 million “GenAI smartphones”, whatever that means (everyone can install a GenAI app on any smartphone so presumably this only counts those with pre-installs), will be sold this year, for a 30% share of the market overall.
Foldable smartphone shipments should increase 6% this year compared to 2024, followed by another 6% YoY in 2026 and 11% in 2027 after Apple launches its own entrant into this arena. That said, foldables are only expected to make up less than 3% of the total smartphone shipments by 2029.
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