Global smartphone market set to slow down as China nears saturation

An American market research, analysis and advisory firm has predicted again that the global smartphone market will continue to see a slump in overall growth in 2015.

International Data Corporation (IDC) said that smartphone shipments worldwide will grow just 11.3 percent this year, down from 27.6 percent last year, and attributed the sluggish growth to the Chinese smartphone market reaching saturation. It also said that 2015 will be the first year that China's smartphone growth (2.5 percent) will be slower than the global market, reports TechCrunch.

IDC noted that slowdown in Chinese smartphone market will also impact Android's growth as the Google-developed mobile platform is also expected to see slower growth than the global market at 8.5 percent in 2015.

The figures were in line with smartphone shipment reports released by IDC earlier this year, in which it had predicted 11.8 percent worldwide growth in 2015.

While China's smartphone market is still the largest in the world, it is no longer growing as before.