Smartphones have exploded in popularity in recent years but if you thought growth had leveled out, you're dead wrong. According to the latest mobility report from communications technology company Ericsson, smartphone growth is forecasted to continue to balloon through at least 2019.
In the company's latest quarterly sales report, Ericsson found that 55 percent of all handsets sold worldwide were smartphones. Even still, smartphones represent just 25 to 30 percent of all active mobile phone subscriptions.
Over the next six years, however, smartphones are expected to account for 60 percent of all mobile phone subscriptions. To put that into perspective, Ericsson envisions 5.6 billion of the 9.3 billion phones in use by 2019 will be smartphones. The primary reason for the continued growth will be the proliferation of smartphones in China and similar emerging markets, the company noted in the report.
The influx of smartphones on the market will no doubt have an impact on mobile data traffic. Ericsson believes smartphone traffic will increase 10 times over between now and 2019. To help support this experience, wireless carriers will need to continue to roll out speedy networks.
According to the report, WCDMA/HSPA networks are predicted to cover 90 percent of the world's population by 2019. What's more, almost two-thirds of the world's population will be covered by 4G/LTE networks during the same time frame.
Are you still hanging on to a feature phone or do you know someone that is?