The worldwide mobile phone market will slow to growth of just over 4 percent this year, its lowest rate since 2009, due to a sharp decline in the feature phone market and sluggish global economic conditions, IDC predicts. The market researcher estimates that vendors will ship a total of nearly 1.8 billion mobile phones this year, compared to 1.7 billion in 2011, and the total will rise to 2.3 billion in 2016. Feature phones are still expected to make up 61.6 percent of total shipments this year, but their sales will drop an estimated 10 percent from 2011. In comparison, the smartphone market is forecast to grow 38.8 percent in 2012 to 686 million units. IDC projects Google's Android will remain the most shipped smartphone operating system over the course of the five-year forecast, though its share will peak this year at 61.0 percent. Microsoft's Windows will be the fastest-growing OS, going from an estimated 5.2 percent market share in 2012 to 19.2 percent in 2016, thanks to Nokia's strong presence in emerging markets. Apple is expected to be stable over the period at around 20 percent of the smartphone market, and Research In Motion is expected to hold on to an around 6 percent share.
