Worldwide shipments of new mobile phones will increase 3.1 percent in 2016, a substantial slowdown from growth in previous years, according to International Data Corporation (IDC).
Meanwhile, IDC predicts tablet shipments will decline for the second straight year, dropping 9.6 percent in 2016 compared with last year’s volume.
In the mobile phone space, the Massachusetts-based research firm predicts a continued decrease in growth of new phone purchases in mature markets and China.
And for tablets, the firm foresees down years in 2016 and 2017, followed by a slight rebound starting in 2018 driven by detachable tablet growth.
Sales figures for different technologies are often tracked by electronics recycling stakeholders because such data can help companies predict the makeup of e-scrap streams in the future.