Global smartphone shipments are expected to grow by 7.4% in 2021, reaching 1.37B units, with iPhone shipments growing 13.8% and Android shipments growing 6.2%
Context & Ripple Effects
IDC’s 2021 forecast put iPhone growth well ahead of Android, against a market that had already slowed sharply in IDC’s 2016 outlook. Subsequent estimates placed 2021 shipments at roughly 1.35B or more, with Samsung ahead of Apple in units, broadly validating the scale of the recovery in the later 2021 shipment tally.
The split mattered because it framed the recovery as uneven across platforms: Apple was expected to gain faster than the Android ecosystem even as Android remained the larger shipment base.
First-order effects
- Apple’s iPhone business was positioned to outgrow the overall handset market in 2021, while Android device makers collectively faced slower unit growth than iPhone.
- Android vendors still captured most of the market’s incremental volume, but their growth was spread across a broad ecosystem rather than concentrated in one supplier.
Second-order effects
- Samsung and other Android manufacturers faced greater pressure to defend unit share as Apple’s forecast growth outpaced Android’s, a dynamic later visible when Samsung and Apple remained the top two vendors in 2025 market-share results.
- Component and channel partners serving both platforms benefited from higher overall handset volumes, while Apple-focused suppliers were exposed to the faster-growing segment.
Third-order effects
- The forecast points to a smartphone market in which recovery cycles do not lift platforms evenly: Apple can expand faster in units while Android retains scale through many manufacturers.
- Later IDC coverage shows the pattern can reverse by cycle—Android was projected to drive more of 2024’s growth—making platform mix, rather than total market growth alone, the key competitive measure.
The trend: Smartphone demand cycles increasingly redistribute growth between Apple and the Android ecosystem instead of raising all handset vendors at the same rate.