Worldwide Device Shipments to Grow Just 1.9% in 2016, User Spending to Decline

Gartner is reporting that worldwide device shipments are expected to grow 1.9% in 2016, but end-user spending is expected to decline for the first time.

Combined shipments of PCs, tablets, ultramobiles and mobile phones are predicted to reach 2.4 billion units in 2016 and end-user spending in constant U.S. dollars will reportedly decline 0.5 percent.

“It’s clear that vendors can no longer market their products with the mind of only targeting the mature and emerging markets," said Ranjit Atwal, research director at Gartner. "Driven by economic variations the market is splitting into four categories: economically challenged mature markets, economically stable mature markets and the same for emerging markets. Russia and Brazil will fall into the category of economically challenged emerging markets while India will be stable, and Japan will belong to the economically challenged mature market.”

Gartner says mobile phone shipments are on pace to increase 2.6% in 2016. “Constant end-user spending on mobile phones is expected to increase by 1.2 percent in 2016, but its growth will not be strong enough for overall end-user device spend to achieve growth in 2016,” said Roberta Cozza, research director at Gartner.

Notably, smartphone shipments will continue to drive growth with Gartner estimating that, by the end of 2016, 82% of mobile phones will be smartphones, up 12% from 2015. “We are witnessing a shift to basic phones in the smartphone market,” Ms. Cozza said. “Users are also opting to replace within the basic smartphone category without necessarily moving to high-end smartphones, especially in China and some other emerging markets.”

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