Global smartphone shipments for this quarter are expected to grow by 13 percent to 322 million units from last quarter, driven mainly by the release of the new iPhone by Apple Inc, TrendForce Corp (集邦科技) said yesterday.
While worldwide shipments would likely be flat next quarter, overall shipments for the full year are forecast to increase by 29.2 percent to 1.2 billion units from last year, thanks also to new handset launches by Chinese vendors including Xiaomi Corp (小米), Huawei Technologies Co (華為) and Lenovo Group (聯想), the Taipei-based market researcher said in a statement.
According to a recent survey by TrendForce, 67 percent of respondents said they were looking forward to the new iPhone featuring a larger screen, with 38 percent expressing a strong interest in purchasing the device.
In China — the world’s largest smartphone market with 370 million handsets sold last year — about 21 percent of respondents said they were waiting for the iPhone 6 to hit the market next month, the survey showed.
TrendForce forecast total shipments of about 75 million for the new 4.7-inch and 5.5-inch iPhone 6, which would have a negative impact on Samsung Electronic Co.
The South Korean firm might not be able to reach its annual shipment target of 350 million units this year and its global market share could drop to 28 percent this quarter from 33 percent earlier this year, TrendForce said.
HTC Corp (宏達電) could also see annual shipments reaching less than 20 million this year — even less than half of Xiaomi’s, TrendForce said.
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