IDC: phablets on track to overtake regular smartphone shipments by 2019, expected to hit 1B units by 2021, with the most growth in China, Middle East, Africa
IDC : Tweets: @bryanbma Tweets: Bryan Ma / @bryanbma : 1.7B smartphones shipping WW in 2021 vs 1.5B in 2017 on +3% CAGR. ASP = US$317 in 2021 vs US$282 in 2016 on +2% CAGR. Phablets (>5.5") almost half of mkt vs just 1% in 2012 http://www.idc.com/... http://twitter.com/...
Context & Ripple Effects
The phablet's rise has been building for two years: [[a:828971|Kantar already had big-screen phones at 21% of US sales in early 2015, up from 6% a year earlier on iPhone 6 Plus demand]]. IDC's new forecast extends that US pattern worldwide — phablets going from 1% of the market in 2012 to nearly half by 2021, with a crossover past regular smartphones by 2019.
The timing matters because the overall market is maturing: IDC had already cut its 2015 growth view to 10.4% from 27.5% in 2014 (the sharp slowdown), so the 2021 outlook of 1.7B units on a 3% CAGR means screens, not new buyers, are where the volume story lives.
First-order effects
- Vendors' 2018-2019 lineups tilt hard toward >5.5-inch displays across price tiers, since IDC expects nearly half of all units to be phablets by 2021 — no flagship maker can treat large screens as a niche SKU.
- Growth concentrates in China, the Middle East, and Africa, making those regions the battleground for the incremental ~200M annual units between 2017's 1.5B and 2021's 1.7B.
Second-order effects
- Average selling prices climb alongside screen size — IDC sees ASP rising from $282 in 2016 to $317 in 2021 — letting Apple and Android vendors grow revenue faster than the 3% unit CAGR as buyers trade up to bigger devices.
- Display suppliers gain leverage: with phablets becoming the default form factor, panel capacity and pricing for large smartphone screens becomes a competitive input rather than a premium option.
Third-order effects
- If the crossover holds, 'phablet' stops being a category — screen size converges industry-wide and differentiation shifts back to cameras, software, and services on an otherwise uniform large-slate form factor.
- A mature, ASP-driven market pushes vendors toward premiumization and longer replacement cycles, foreshadowing the single-digit shipment years IDC itself later reported for 2021 and 2024.
The trend: Smartphones are shifting from a unit-growth market to a mix-and-price market, with the large screen as the primary lever for revenue growth as shipments flatten.