Handset Installed Base Passed Tipping Point. Now More than Half of All Mobile Phone Handsets in Use are Smartphones

We have passed a significant milestone for the planet's digital connectivity. As of last quarter, we passed the tipping point where now there are more smartphones in use, than dumbphones (aka 'featurephones'). The new sales of smartphones has been more than dumphones for three years but with the installed base, worldwide, it takes this long for the trends to catch up. And as smartphones now sell more than 4 out of every 5 new phones, this trend will go to its logical conclusion. In five years we're at the point where all new phones sold are smartphones; and by middle of the next decade, the last dumbphones will quietly disconnect from their networks for the last time.

To celebrate this milestone, lets take an early pair of preview graphics from the new edition of my mobile handset statistical volume, the TomiAhonen Phone Book. It is the sister volume to my popular TomiAhonen Almanac. The Almanac comes out every year (in the Spring). The Phone Book comes out every other year (even years, at the end of the year). So we are only weeks from the next Phone Book, and here lets do two graphics from it to celebrate that milestone.

NEW SALES OF MOBILE PHONE HANDSETS BY TYPE

So first lets do the new sales. As you can see from the graph, the year when more smartphones were sold than dumbphones was year 2013. The total sales of new handsets is about 1.9 Billion units. And this year nearly 80% of that will be smartphones. Here is the annual progression of the shift in new sales, light blue is dumbphones and red is smartphones. I have placed the dumbphone sales on the bottom to illustrate how its tech life cycle is coming to its natural end:



Graphic Source: TomiAhonen Phone Book 2016
This graphic may be freely shared


And the three dips in the total numbers reflect the economic downturns we've seen. In 2001 the economic recession that had a delayed effect to the tech market. Then the 2009 'great Recession' and now the brief handset sales recession we saw in the first half of this year.

INSTALLED BASE OF HANDSETS BY TYPE

Then lets compare that to the shift in the installed base. Note I am now placing the smartphones to the bottom of the graph, to show the growth in a more easily observed way but with the same colors:

Graphic Source: TomiAhonen Phone Book 2016
This graphic may be freely shared


So yes, we will end the year with about 5.6 Billion mobile phone handsets in use, and the year ends with about 2.9 Billion smartphones in use (currently 2.8 Billion as I just reported in the Q3 market data). So the year ends with an achieved planetary migration rate of handsets from dumbphones to smartphones at 52%. It will reach 100% before the middle of the next decade.

So that's a nice milestone. (And obviously readers of this blog knew this was coming this year, we've known this for a while.) Remember, apps are not the future. Apps are just gaming and social media tech solutions. A mobile is far more than apps, do the mobile internet and messaging before you even think about any apps. Also please remember there are mobile subscriptions than phones (many people have multiple SIM cards they switch into the phone to switch networks and dual SIM phones are increasingly popular in many markets) ie the planet has more total active mobile accounts than humans alive; and that the unique ownership of mobile phones is less than the total handset installed base because some of us walk around with two phones in our pockets.. All that explained in the Almanac and the Phone Book statistics of course. But for the handset industry sales and installed base numbers, we passed a big milestone now.

For those who want more handset industry numbers, the must-have statistics volume is of course the TomiAhonen Phone Book. At nearly 200 pages and nearly 100 stats and graphics on everything from screen sizes to camera resolutions to regional splits of smartphone OS platform penetration rates etc, see the TomiAhonen Phone Book. It only costs 9.99 Euro so its by far the best value for any statistical volume also about the handset industry. And here is a special bonus. Anyone who buys the Phone Book now, will get both the current 2014 edition immediately, plus the 2016 edition when that ships in a few weeks, for the same low price. Isn't that a great value? See the table of contents and more here: TomiAhonen Phone Book 2014. (Don't worry if the page shows some older info, of course I ship the latest version..)

Comments

[Walter Hughes]

Hubris much?

[Abdul Muis]

And....

HMD/Nokia just release a phone today....
The Nokia 150....
http://www.hmd.global/press/2016-12-13-nokia-150/