The International Data Corporation’s (IDC’s) latest tracker has shown that global smartphone shipments continue to grow, led by strong recovery in emerging markets.

The information technology, telecommunications and consumer technology intelligence and advisory services provider’s Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker reveals that, while the supply chain situation has not improved significantly, the smartphone market has shown positive results in recent quarters.

Further, shipments of smartphones are expected to grow 7.4% in 2021, reaching 1.37-billion units, attributed to a healthy 13.8% growth from iOS devices and 6.2% growth from Androidn devices.

This will be followed by 3.4% growth in 2022 and 2023.

“Although Covid-19 drastically impacted on 2020 shipments, 2021 shipments have managed to display minimal growth compared with 2019 prepandemic volumes, giving us a more accurate view of the state of the market,” says IDC mobility and consumer device trackers group VP Ryan Reith.

Growing markets such as India, Japan, the Middle East and Africa are fuelling the 2021 recovery, while the world’s largest markets, namely China, the US and Western Europe, remain down from 2019.

“[The year] 2020 was a bust, owing to the pandemic, but all of the top brands continued forward with their production plans, with the main difference that the timeline was pushed out. “Therefore, we are at a point where inventory levels are much healthier than personal computers and some other adjacent markets and we are seeing the resilience of consumer demand in recent quarterly results.”

The growth experienced in 2021 is primarily being driven by fifth-generation (5G) shipments, as both vendors and channels focus on 5G devices that carry a significantly higher average selling price (ASP) than older fourth-generation (4G) devices.

The ASP of a 5G smartphone will reach $634 in 2021, marginally higher than $632 in 2020, while 4G devices are expected to decline nearly 30% from $277 last year to $206 in 2021.

As a result, the total 5G shipment volume will grow 123.4% in 2021 to 570-million units.

According to the IDC, China will continue to lead the market in 2021, accounting for a 47.1% share of the 5G global market, followed by the US at 16%, India at 6.1%, and Japan at 4.1%. By the end of 2022, 5G units are expected to make up more than half of all smartphone shipments, with a 54.1% share.

“Despite the ongoing issues surrounding the Covid pandemic and the Delta variant, consumers are continuing to upgrade to more premium smartphones this year,” adds IDC mobile phones research director Anthony Scarsella.

“Premium smartphones, priced at $1 000 plus, continued to grow in the second quarter as the segment displayed 116% growth from last year.