CIO

70% of world’s population connected by mobile by 2022

Android remains dominant operating system, according to Forrester’s five-year forecast for mobile, smartphone and tablet markets.

Forrester forecasts global mobile device usage will reach more than 5.5 billion users by 2022.

Powered by rising mobile adoption in Asia Pacific and Africa, mobile penetration should reach 70 per cent of the world’s population in five years. This is nearly double the total number of users in 2008, says Forrester.

“We expect the number of global smartphone subscribers to reach 3.8 billion by 2022, crossing the 50 per cent mark for smartphone penetration by population in 2017 and reaching 66 per cent by 2022.

“This is up from 21 per cent in 2013,” reports analyst Satish Meena in Forrester Data: Mobile, Smartphone, And Tablet Forecast, 2017 To 2022 (Global).

Android will remain the dominant mobile operating system, he points out.

The rise of low-cost Android phones in China will allow Android to retain its leading position in mobile operating systems, followed by iOS.


Forrester does not expect any rise in the share of Windows Phone, as Microsoft has not yet set a launch date or any announcement related to these devices.

Meanwhile, tablet sales are declining as large screen smartphones are cannibalising the sales of these devices.

Feature phones, however, will remain relevant.

Nearly 1.2 billion people still used feature phones as their primary phone last year, which makes these phones still attractive for original equipment manufacturers, says Forrester.

Forrester expects that by 2020, around 433 million subscribers will still be using feature phones as their primary phone.

Nokia relaunched the feature phone 3310 in 2016.
Nokia relaunched the feature phone 3310 in 2016.

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