As Apple celebrates shipping a billion iPhones, the smartphone industry has entered maturity reports IDC.
The analyst firm’s latest survey of the global smartphone industry reports only 0.3% growth over the equivalent period of last year.
While both Apple and Samsung have had successes over the past year with new models, IDC believes growth now lies in shifting ‘flagship products’ at lower price points with enhanced features.
A more mature industry opens opportunities for the cheaper Chinese brands and IDC is finding those companies are unsurprisingly proving successful in emerging markets. For the established brands redefining their price points and models is going to be the challenge.
That mature marketplace is going to focus the minds of product managers, marketers and executives at all the manufacturers as capturing profit and investors’ imaginations in a mature market is very different to that when selling a new, high growth product.