About 20-25 million entry-level Android smartphones at contract-free prices of US$150 or below will be sold in the global market in 2011, much more than the 2.5-3 million units sold in 2010, Digitimes Research predicts.
Global smartphone sales will hike 54.5% from 2010 to 445 million units in 2011, of which 165 million or 37.1% will be Android models, surpassing Symbian to become the largest smartphone platform.
The large growth in entry-level Android smartphone sales will be driven by international, China- and Taiwan-based design houses' standard chip solutions that will facilitate minor and white-box vendors' launch of inexpensive models mostly in emerging markets.
While mature markets accounted for more than half of the 2010 global sales of entry-level Android smartphones, emerging markets will dominate the handset segment in 2011. The China market will see demand for 10-13 million entry-level Android smartphones in 2011.
