Taiwan News
Date: 2016-04-02
By: Central News Agency

Worldwide smartphone sales for 2016 are expected to grow only 7 percent in 2016, marking the first year for the handheld devices to post a single-digit increase in a saturated market, according to market information advisory firm Gartner.

Citing a research report, Gartner said that smartphone sales in the global market are estimated to reach 1.5 billion units, up 7 percent from a year earlier. Total mobile phone sales, meanwhile, are expected to hit 1.94 billion units this year, up slightly from the 1.92 billion units seen last year.

“The double-digit growth era for the global smartphone market has come to an end,” Gartner’s research director Ranjit Atwal said in a statement. “Historically, worsening economic conditions had a negligible impact on smartphone sales and spending, but this is no longer the case.”     [FULL  STORY]