Today we reported that investment firms Canaccord Genuity (analyst – T. Michael Walkley) and Raymond James (analysts – Tavis C. McCourt and Daniel Toomey) highlighting that Apple is taking the US smartphone market by storm. Apple critics would point out that it wouldn’t be long before the US smartphone market saturates, resulting in Apple demise.
However, a new report from Horace Dediu suggest that the US smartphone market is unlikely to become saturated before late 2020.
If true, this is great news for current and potential Apple investors.
Asymco
By using Rogers’ Diffusion of Innovations theory, Horace Dediu was able to extrapolate the latest comScore data on smartphone penetration in the US market (currently at 61%).
Here are the findings:
- The Innovators (first 2.5% of the market) were recruited by February 2007, one month after the iPhone was announced. They were almost all BlackBerry users
- The Early Adopters (the 13.5% which followed the innovators) were all using smartphones by the beginning of 2010. They were served mainly by iPhone 3GS and BlackBerries
- The Early Majority were on board by October 2012, just in time for iPhone 4, Droid, Galaxy.
- We are now in the Late majority which will run out by November 2015. The iPhone 5S came out about one third of the way through this period.
The next few years are shown in the following extrapolation.