There has been a tectonic shift in the smartphone industry away from the U.S. and Europe.
This year will complete that shift.
Asian and Latin American countries will account for half of the top 10 smartphone markets globally.
- In 2014, China and India will combine for 500 million in smartphone sales, more than the next nine markets put together, according to Mediacells data published by The Guardian and compiled by BI Intelligence.
- Hundreds of millions of people in India and China will be buying smartphones for the first time. In fact, an amazing 92% of India's smartphone sales this year will be to first-time users. Eighty-two percent of smartphone purchases in Brazil will go to first-time users.
- Brazil will be the world's fourth-ranked smartphone market, three times larger than Italy's. Indonesia will see 2.5 times more smartphone sales than the U.K.
While established manufacturers like Apple and Samsung are competing fiercely for market share in these places, they'll have to fight off fast-rising local players. In China, local manufacturers Yulong, ZTE, Lenovo, Huawei, and Xiaomi combined for nearly 40% of local smartphone sales in the third quarter of last year, according to Canalys. In India, Micromax and Karbonn controlled 35% of the market as of the middle of last year, according to IDC.
Click here to download the chart and data in Excel.
