According to the latest report from our Wireless Smartphone Strategies (WSS) services, we forecast global smartphone users will increase 43% from 2017 to 2022. The worldwide smartphone penetration rate will continue to grow over the years, while North America and Western Europe will continue to enjoy the highest smartphone penetration among all the regions.
Android will maintain top spot as the world's most popular smartphone OS platform in terms of installed base, followed by Apple's iOS. Tizen's momentum has been softened since 2016 and we forecast a flavour of China's own home-developed smartphone operating system will likely emerge and enjoy a strong momentum from roughly 2019 onwards.
We recommend app developers and cloud-service providers target at countries with a high smartphone population and high penetration rates in 2017, such as China, United States, and Japan. In terms of market potential, we recommend smartphone OEMs to put special attention on the countries with high gross population but low smartphone penetration rate, such as India, Nigeria, and Pakistan.
WSS clients could access our reports via below link: Global Smartphone Installed Base Forecast by 14 Operating Systems for 88 Countries: 2007 to 2022, and Global Smartphone User Penetration Forecast by 88 Countries: 2007 – 2022.
