Smartphone market and new information about it from Nielsen
It seems that the feature phone is dying. This is the trend not just for the wealthier countries but for the developing countries as well. Everyone that thinks he can get himself away from that fact is very wrong and he will realize it soon. Hardware manufacturers are really trying to create lower-cost devices so that the smartphone can become the norm in developing countries as well. In wealthy countries they are far beyond that point anymore.
Earlier this year we had a point when half of U.S. consumers owned a smartphone. But the more important statistic here is that we have passed the point in which half of phone sales worldwide are smartphones. Now Nielsen claims that 64% of users in the US now own a smartphone.
The number seems to be rising quickly as it seems that 80% of the phone sales in the period between June and August were smartphones. This is really amazing on the one hand and it is not so surprising on the other. The data clearly points out that 80% of young adults (age 25-34) and 70% of teenagers own a smartphone device.
Furthermore, there is still market share to be head in the older users (over 55). There is still enough market share there to make not a bad profit (probably this is the reason why Samsung is introducing Easy mode on their devices)
Android is still in the lead with 53% of the market share in the US while iOS is in second place. The thing is that Android has taken an even higher percentage of the recent sales at 61%. The US, however, remains a two platform region with 95% of recent sales being either Android or iOS. There is still much to come and to change the development of the market in the near future.
Source: Nielsen
