- IDC estimates that the smartphone market will likely not recover until 2022.
- Growth might not return until 2021.
- The surge in 5G could be key to driving demand.
The smartphone market is in dire straits due to the COVID-19 pandemic and it is now likely that a full recovery could take well over a year.
IDC analysts estimated that phone deliveries will not return to pre-coronavirus levels until 2022. The researchers predicted that growth could return in 2021, up 9% year over year. However, this is mainly due to a poor market which is projected to shrink 9.5% in 2020.
Smartphone market recovery: it may take a while
The industry should get back in shape and end the stagnation in 2020, but that "obviously won't happen," IDC said. The company estimated that shipments fell 17% in the second quarter as the full impact of the pandemic hit many countries.
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The analysts believed that the 5G surge would help recover demand for phones, at least as long as companies cut prices. According to IDC, 5G phones could account for half of the market by 2023. Demand in developing countries could help too, even if many devices are low-end and mid-range LTE phones.
However, they also believed that the near-essential nature of smartphones would play the most important role. According to IDC, smartphones will continue to be the "computing platform of choice" for most of the world.
There are some placeholders. It is still not certain when the pandemic will subside. A prolonged crisis could delay the recovery. However, the estimate does give an idea of when the phone business could return to near normal - and that's good news for you, as it could lead to more companies pushing the boundaries of phone technology instead of playing it safe.
