Emerging markets dominate tech growth

The report shows that although the overall market in 2015 will remain at $1 trillion — as it has since 2011 — there are significant differences at country level.

The 10 largest growth markets — predominantly emerging economies — will increase by more than $10 billion. India tops the table, mostly driven by smartphone sales, with both volume and pricing contributing to an increase of almost $5bn in 2015 ( 16% growth year-on-year).

China is second in terms of growth ($1.8bn increase) followed by Nigeria, Pakistan, Vietnam, Bangladesh and Brazil.

GfK’s technology device forecast covers 70 different digital type products globally. In terms of phones it forecasts that smartphones will grow 18% in terms of volume sales in 2015.

But the global feature phone (basic phone) market continues to decline rapidly, with sales by volume falling 20% and by value dropping 30% next year. In emerging APAC countries and the Middle East & Africa it forecasts market size of $5.1 billion and $4.3 billion respectively. 

Kevin Walsh, forecasting director at GfK, said: “The size of the feature phone market in emerging APAC countries, the Middle East and Africa 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 smart phone.”