Global mobile device shipment forecasts, 2023 and beyond: Smartphones, notebooks and tablets

Looking into the next five years from 2023-2027, the influences from COVID-19, the Russia-Ukraine war, US interest rate hikes and global inflation will be mitigating year after year while the trends of 5G phone upgrades and feature phone users in emerging markets transitioning to low-cost smartphones will carry on, allowing the market to resume growth.

After a shipment decline in 2022, macroeconomic uncertainties will continue to affect notebook demand in 2023 and shipments are expected to still show a small decline. As the economy recovers in 2024 and intensifying competition among processor platforms helps optimize notebook cost-performance ratios, the notebook market can resume moderate growth. In 2025 through 2026, Microsoft ceasing Windows 10 support and OLED displays becoming widespread will spur notebook upgrades so notebook shipments will keep growing but the growth will somewhat slow down going into 2027.

Although global tablet shipments will suffer an over 9% on-year decline in 2022, shipments for the next five years from 2023-2027 will stay rather stable with an up or a down of around 2% a year. The tablet market can expect to embrace upgrade demand in 2024-2025 with shipments in the two years to enjoy a slide on-year increase.