End-user spending on devices to decline in 2016

Businesses Will Adopt Windows 10 Faster Than Previous Windows Upgrades; PC Market to Increase 4 Percent in 2017

By End of 2016, 82 Percent of Mobile Phones Will Be Smartphones

Worldwide combined shipments of devices (PCs, tablets, ultramobiles and mobile phones) are expected to reach 2.4 billion units in 2016 , a 1.9 percent increase from 2015, according to Gartner, Inc. (see Table 1). End-user spending in constant U.S. dollars is expected to decline 0.5 percent for the first time.

The device market in 2016 will continue to be impacted by country-level economic conditions. “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.”

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

Businesses Will Adopt Windows 10 Earlier and Boost the PC Market in 2017

The global PC shipment market is expected to total 287 million units in 2016, a decline of 1 percent year over year, but on pace to increase 4 percent in 2017.

Ultramobile premium devices are expected to drive the PC market forward with the move to Windows 10 and PCs built around Intel’s Skylake architecture. Businesses will deploy Windows 10 faster than with previous Windows upgrades. Given the shorter testing and evaluation period, many businesses could start to migrate by the end of 2016. By the end of 2017, many business are looking to move as much as 40 percent of their installed base onto new Windows 10 devices, mainly driven by the appeal hybrid touch-screen 2-1. This will be the catalyst for growth in the PC market in 2017. 

Smartphone Market Moves to Basic Phones

Mobile phone shipments are on pace to increase 2.6 percent in 2016.

Smartphone shipments continued to drive growth, and Gartner estimates that, by the end of 2016, 82 percent of mobile phones will be smartphones, up 12 percent from 2015. 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.

Local and Chinese brands are delivering more capable basic smartphones with appealing features at a lower price, which means that there is less of a need for users to upgrade to a premium smartphone. Instead, these more advanced and attractive basic smartphones fulfil user’s needs at a lower cost.