Low-Cost Android Smartphones Will Seize 80% of Market in Africa, India, and China
The Android OS has taken the smartphone world by storm. In just two years, Android has become the top smartphone OS worldwide. In the US, Android reached #1 in smartphone OS sales because wireless operators that did not carry the iPhone chose Android as their smartphone solution. Yet, the Android handsets that are selling well in the US and Europe are not the same low-cost Android handsets selling elsewhere in the world. New In-Stat (www.in-stat) research forecasts that low-cost Android handsets will reach a penetration rate of 80% of total smartphones in Africa, India, and China by 2015.
The low-cost Android smartphone segment is comprised primarily of smartphones released with Android 2.2 or 2.3, since these versions are a good blend of features with modest memory and processor usage. The low-end low-cost smartphones generally stick with EDGE and processors running at 600MHz or lower, because a single-core EDGE chip sells for well under $10. For our purposes, low-cost means smartphones that are $150 or less. Smaller phone manufacturers will sometimes purchase from the “gray market” where component manufacturers typically don't pay licensing fees, royalties, or taxes for the products they produce. Early competitors in the market include Huawei, MicroMax, Motorola, Samsung, Spice, and ZTE.
"All-in-all, the way that Android has spread worldwide, low-cost Android will also spread worldwide. But, where most Android phones are being sold in developed regions of the world, low-cost Android will flourish in emerging areas; however, it will face heavy competition in some regions,” says Allen Nogee, Research Director. “Samsung has bada, and Nokia is developing Meltemi. In addition, Microsoft has stated that it wants to sell Windows Phone in these developing regions as well and could aggressively lower prices to gain market share. While Google profits in these regions from advertising revenue, Nokia and Samsung benefit the old-fashioned way, by selling hardware.”
Recent In-Stat research found:
- Unit shipments for low-cost Android smartphones will approach 340 million worldwide in 2015.
- The low-cost Android handset segment will cause some fragmentation in the Android platform.
- The Ice Cream Sandwich (Android 4.0) step-up in memory and processor demands makes this release less attractive for low-cost Android devices.
Less is More: The Worldwide Emergence of Low-Cost Android Smartphones (#IN1104911WH), looks at the history of the low-cost smartphone market, and how we got where we are today. The report looks at Android in-depth and the problems that Google faces as it moves into the low-cost arena. The obstacles are also explored in-detail, as are the markets where low-cost Android smartphones will dominate.
Forecasts include:
- Smartphone shipments
- Android smartphone shipments
- Low-cost Android smartphone shipments by region
- Bill of materials (BOM) for processor, touchscreen, other components
- Country-by-country view of the smartphone market
This research is part of In-Stat's Smartphones & Handsets service, which provides analysis and forecasts of the market for mobile communications and computing devices, including cell phones, smartphones, MIDs, tablets, mini-notes/netbooks, and notebooks.
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