Worldwide smartphone shipments are expected to surpass one billion units in 2013, representing 39.3 percent growth over 2012, according to a recently published mobile phone forecast from IDC Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker.
Despite a number of mature markets nearing smartphone saturation, the demand for low-cost computing in emerging markets continues to drive the smartphone market forward. By 2017, total smartphone shipments are expected to approach 1.7 billion units, resulting in a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 18.4 percent from 2013 to 2017.
While shipment has gone up, the average selling price (ASP) has seen a steady decline. Android has enabled a number of new manufacturers to enter the smartphone market supported by a variety of turnkey processing solutions. Many of these handset vendors have focused on low-cost devices as a way to build brand awareness.

In four years’ time, your smartphone may be smarter than you. It will be able to predict your next move, next purchase or interpret actions based on what it knows, according to Gartner. This insight will be performed based on an individual’s data gathered using cognizant computing — the next step in personal cloud computing.
One billion smartphones are expected to be shipped this year, helping the global mobile phone market to rebound from just 1.2 percent growth in 2012 to 7.3, percent in 2013, according to IDC
Samsung led the smartphone market as smartphones outshipped feature phones for the first time in Q1. According to IDC (see table below), Samsung not only maintained its pole position but widened its market share lead over Apple in the smartphone market. 

