MARKET research agency GfK group said the 10 largest growth markets for technology devices will increase by over $10 billion alone and be dominated by emerging markets.
“India provides by far the greatest opportunity, primarily driven by sales of smartphones, where both volume and pricing will contribute to an overall technology device growth of nearly $5 billion in 2015,” the Nuremberg, Germany-based firm said. The Philippines, to note, was included in the 10 largest tech device growth markets in 2015 based on GfK forecast figures.
However, the country is only next to Bangladesh at the bottom with $3.8-billion forecast sales for this year and $4.1 billion next year, or a 6-percent growth. Bangladesh, at the rear of countries led by China, is forecast to see its tech devices sales at $.3.3 billion this year, growing 13 percent for a spend of $3.8 billion next year.
China, with a population of nearly 2 billion, is forecast to see sales of tech devices hitting $199 billion this year and growing 1 percent to $200.8 billion next year.
Total sales of the 10 countries is forecast to hit $306.9 billion this year and growing 3 percent to $317.1 billion next year, according to GfK figures. In terms of year-on-year growth, the Philippines leads Bangladesh again, settling for a fourth place.
Nonetheless, the country trails Vietnam and Indonesia, the only other countries in the top 10 belonging to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. Vietnam is forecast by GfK to see sales in the tech devices to hit $5.5 billion this year and growing 11 percent to $6.1 billion next year. Indonesia is forecast to see tech devices sales to hit $12.4 billion this year, growing 3 percent to $12.7 billion by 2015.
GfK’s technology device forecasts cover 70 different digital device types globally and indicate that the overall market in 2015 will remain at $1 trillion, just as it has been since 2011, the company said.
Meanwhile, GfK said the global feature phone market continues to decline rapidly “as expected.”
GfK’s forecasts sales by volume dropping 20 percent and sales by value dropping 30 percent, the company said.
“However, feature phone vendors in emerging Asia-Pacific countries and the Middle East and Africa can be slightly happier, with forecasted markets size of $5.1 billion and $4.3 billion, respectively.”
The size of the feature phone market in these countries “also provides opportunities for the low end smartphone makers, as we are seeing clear evidence of consumers willing to accept a price jump, when they upgrade from a feature phone to their first smartphone,” a statement quoted Kevin Walsh, forecasting director at GfK, as saying.
In terms of the smartphone markets, GfK’s forecasts show that, worldwide, the smartphone continues to grow strongly, in terms of volume of sales, increasing by 18 percent for 2015.
“But there is significant shift in which countries will see those growth opportunities, with the emerging markets dominating,” the company said.
“Our forecasts show seven new entries in the top 10 smartphone markets for 2015, in terms of growth by value—and these are all emerging markets, which have overtaken developed markets where smartphone saturation is nearing completion,” Walsh said.
