![\"iPhone](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/1756423630_907_gsmarena_001.jpg\")
<\/p>\nThe smartphone market will grow 1% in 2025 compared to 2024, IDC now predicts, and this growth will be driven by iPhone shipments, which are expected to be up 3.9% year-on-year (YoY).<\/p>\n
IDC expects the total number of smartphone shipments to reach 1.24 billion this year. The 1% growth prediction is an improvement from the analyst house’s previous forecast of 0.6%, and the difference seems to be more or less entirely down to iPhones being expected to sell better.<\/p>\n
Healthy replacement demand will push growth into 2026, when the market is predicted to ship 1.2% more units than this year. Then, in 2027, there will be 2.1% growth vs. 2026. Growth will stall and only reach 1.6% in 2028 and 1.4% in 2029, according to IDC’s most recent predictions.<\/p>\n
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Coming back to this year, there will be strong (3.6%) growth in the US, as well as the Middle East and Africa (6.5%), and 0.8% growth in Asia Pacific excluding China. All of this growth will help offset the predicted 1% decline in shipments in China. Previously, IDC forecasted 3% YoY growth in China, but this has now been revised due to the subsidies being phased out.<\/p>\n
In 2025, the average selling price per smartphone is expected to go up 5%, and there will also be 6% growth in the overall revenue in the market, as prices go up and companies continue their focus on premiumization.<\/p>\n
Over 370 million “GenAI smartphones”, whatever that means (everyone can install a GenAI app on any smartphone so presumably this only counts those with pre-installs), will be sold this year, for a 30% share of the market overall.<\/p>\n
Foldable smartphone shipments should increase 6% this year compared to 2024, followed by another 6% YoY in 2026 and 11% in 2027 after Apple launches its own entrant<\/a> into this arena. That said, foldables are only expected to make up less than 3% of the total smartphone shipments by 2029.<\/p>\n