SmartPhones ship 40% more units while prices drop 12% on average

Smartphone shipments grow almost 40% in 2013 while prices drop more than 12%

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Smartphone shipments are expected to exceed 1 billion by 2013, IDC reports

Preeti Upadhyaya

Technology Reporter- Silicon Valley Business Journal

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Global smartphone shipments are expected to exceed 1 billion units in 2013, growing 39.3 percent since 2012, according to a recent report from IDC.
By 2017, total smartphone shipments will grow to 1.7 billion units, according to the Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone tracker.
The major driving force for this huge jump? More people around the world are buying smartphones because they're steadily getting cheaper. According to IDC's research, the average smartphone today costs $337, down 12.8 percent from $387 last year. By 2017, they'll cost $265 on average, IDC reports.
"Just a few years back the industry was talking about the next billion people to connect, and it was assumed the majority of these people would do so by way of the feature phone," said Ryan Reith, program director with IDC's Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker. "Given the trajectory of ASPs (average selling prices), smartphones are now a very realistic option to connect those billion users."
Smartphones are particularly taking off in emerging markets, the report found. Asia/Pacific dominates global smartphone market share in 2013, with 528.2 million units sold. That number is expected to grow to 986 million in 2017, accounting for 58.5 percent of market share.
Unsurprisingly, smartphones are also cheapest in the Asia/Pacific region, with an average price of $262 per device in 2013. That is expected to drop to $215 in 2017. By comparison, the average smartphone cost $531 in North America in 2013, and is expected to cost $567 in 2017.

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