Demand Grows for Big-Screen Phones
Bigger is becoming better with smartphones. Shipments worldwide of smartphones with screens 5 inches or larger have grown 369 percent in the first quarter compared to just a year earlier, according to Canalys, a market research firm.
Big-screen smartphones comprised 34 percent of worldwide smartphone shipments in the first quarter. Samsung holds a 44 percent share of smartphones with displays of 5 inches or larger.
“The trend is unmistakably toward larger-screen handsets at the high end of the market,” Canalys analyst Jessica Kwee told The Los Angeles Times. “Consumers now expect high-end devices to have large displays, and Apple’s absence in this market will clearly not last long. Apple plainly needs a larger-screen smartphone to remain competitive, and it will look to address this in the coming months.”
Overall, Android devices accounted for 81 percent of worldwide smartphone shipments in the first quarter, followed by iOS on 16 percent and Windows Phone on 3 percent.
Source: “Big-screen Smartphone Shipments Soar, Account for One-Third of Market,” The Los Angeles Times (May 12, 2014)