Smartphone growth will continue at nearly 10% annually through 2018, but that’s well behind increases in recent years.

IDC said Monday that global smartphone shipments in 2014 will reach nearly 1.3 billion units, an increase of 26% over 2013. But for 2015, IDC predicted, 1.4 billion smartphones will ship to retailers, only a 12% increase over 2014.

In many markets, the slowdown is happening because so many users already have smartphones and keep them longer in some cases.

IDC smartphone chart
IDC

IDC expects global smartphone shipments in 2014 to reach nearly 1.3 billion units.

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