TrendForce: Apple and Nokia are the only international brands with a clear future of growth in 2018

Market research company TrendForce issued a press release about the mobile state in 2017 and their predictions for 2018. TrendForce expects a further slow down of growth on the smartphone market in 2018, citing ” lower demand and less replacement purchases” as reasons.

Samsung will remain the world’s biggest smartphone manufacturer, but with a 5% decrease of shipments (300 million smartphones estimated for 2018). TrendForce says that HMD had a good debut year and that company produced 11.5 million smartphones last year, which is higher than Counterpoints (Q3&Q4) and IDC’s (Q1&Q2) estimate of 8.7 million devices. 

More importantly, TrendForce sees Nokia, alongside with Apple, as the international brands that will surely grow their shipments of smartphones in 2018. For Nokia smartphones, TrendForce estimates a 70% year-on-year increase and shipments exceeding 20 million units in 2018.

Lately, all good news is reported from different sources about HMD and Nokia. Not only do rumors suggest that HMD is preparing an interesting portfolio for 2018, but the 2017 smartphones are doing really well. Not to mention the almost 60 million feature phones shipped in 2017. Nokia saw its brand value go up 70% year-on-year, and my bet is that HMD played a huge role in increasing the value with Nokia phones.

If someone told me 4, 3 or 2 years ago, that Nokia and Apple will be the only international brands with clear growth set for 2018, I would seriously doubt the person’s mental state, and not because of Apple. Lol. 🙂 Times do change quickly.

Thanks Abhimanyu for the tip. 🙂

Source: TrendForce