[eMarketer] Smartphone shipments to hit 1.37 billion in 2021 driven by premium 5G handsets

An estimated 1.37 billion smartphones will ship in 2021, and 570 million of them will be 5G-ready, according to an analysis by IDC, which predicted shipment growth of 7.4% year on year but noted that “2021 shipments have managed to display minimal growth compared to 2019 (pre-pandemic) volumes.”

The report indicates a steady rise in smartphone production despite the challenges from the global chip shortage and, more recently, surging cases of COVID-19 shuttering factories and affecting production in various countries.

The world’s largest smartphone markets are China, the US, and Western Europe, and sales in these regions are still down from 2019. Growing markets like India, Japan, the Middle East, and Africa are responsible for fueling 2021’s smartphone recovery.

eMarketer says that with a large share of the smartphones coming to market in 2021 being 5G devices, the pressure is on service providers and carriers to expand 5G coverage to support the deluge of 5G-capable smartphones.

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