Mobile phone, PC shipments continue decline: Gartner

A decline of 3% in device shipments this year is forecast, following a fall of 0.75% in 2015, with Gartner saying the global device market is “not on pace” to return to single-digit growth soon.

Gartner research director Ranjit Atwal says sales will remain flat during the next five years, and all segments are expected to decline in 2016, “except for premium ultramobiles and utility mobile phones (entry level phones), which are expected to show single-digit growth this year”.

"We expect premium ultramobiles will start benefiting from the collective performance and integration of the latest Intel CPU platform and Windows 10," Atwal said.

{loadposition peter}On the PC market, Gartner expects an 8% decline in 2016, as the “installed base bottoms out and replacement cycle extensions halt”.

"The effect of currency depreciation on the market is diminishing," Atwal says.

"The second quarter of 2016 was the first since the second quarter of 2015 least impacted by currency depreciation. Regions such as Western Europe, where the Euro depreciated significantly in 2015 and PC prices increased, finally showed flat market growth (-0.9%) in the second quarter of 2016. This follows four consecutive quarters of decline.”

“If this situation prevails it means that PC sales will bottom out in 2016. However, the PC market in Western Europe remains difficult following the Brexit vote,” Atwal cautions.

"Device vendors are mitigating the currency depreciation of the pound in two ways – first, they are taking advantage of the likelihood of a single-digit decline in PC component costs in 2016. Second, they will ‘de-feature’ their PCs to keep prices down. With these changes, Gartner expects PC prices in the UK to increase by less than 10% in 2017."

Gartner expects total mobile phone shipments to decline 1.6% in 2016, but sees the smartphone segment continuing to grow, although more slowly than in previous years, to reach 1.5 billion units in 2016.

"This is no surprise; the smartphone market is maturing, and reaching global saturation with phones that are increasingly capable and remain good enough for longer," said Roberta Cozza, research director at Gartner.

And, in 2016, Gartner says the Android market will continue to be bolstered by Chinese vendors offering more affordable premium devices.

Despite the availability of the iPhone 7, Gartner expects a weaker year-over-year volume performance from Apple in 2016, as volumes stabilise after a very strong 2015 and, as a result, the analyst firm expects total smartphone market to only increase 4.5% with premium smartphones declining 1.1% in 2016.

Table 1

Worldwide Devices Shipments by Device Type, 2015-2018 (Millions of Units)

Note: The Ultramobile (Premium) category includes devices such as Microsoft's Windows 10 Intel x86 products and Apple's MacBook Air.