Consumers Will Buy $2.1 Trillion Worth of Mobile Devices

Consumers will spend $2.1 trillion on technology products and services this year, and that number will only grow faster over the next several years, according to analysts with market research firm Gartner.

The $2.1 trillion–which covers everything from mobile phones, tablets and smart devices to the services that enables these devices to connect to networks–is a jump of $114 billion over what consumers spent in 2011, the analysts said. In addition, the rate of growth will only increase over the next few years, averaging about $130 billion a year to reach $2.7 trillion by the end of 2016.

"The three largest segments of the consumer technology market are, and will continue to be, mobile services, mobile phones and entertainment services," Amanda Sabia, principal research analyst at Gartner, said in a statement. "There are two product classes, which in terms of absolute dollars are significantly smaller, but offer tremendous growth by 2016. These are mobile apps stores and e-text content. We fully expect consumers to more than triple their spending in these latter two categories by 2016."

Mobile services are the top draw, garnering 37 percent or about $800 billion–of the worldwide consumer tech spending this year, with that number expected to hit almost $1 trillion by 2016, Gartner said. Mobile phones will make up about 10 percent of the spending, or $222 billion, growing to $300 billion in four years.

That demand for mobile phones–including smartphones–has been seen in various quarterly financial reports this month. Apple officials on July 24 announced that in the calendar second quarter, the company sold 26 million iPhones, and that was lower than normal as many buyers put off purchases while they await the expected release of the upcoming iPhone 5 in the fall.

Analysts with Juniper Research are estimating that Samsung, on the strength of its Galaxy S III, shipped 52.1 million smartphones in the second quarter.

According to Gartner, entertainment services–such as cable, satellite, Internet Protocol TV (IPTV) and online services–in 2012 will generate $210 billion in sales and will grow to $290 billion in 2016.

Spending on app stores and content will grow rapidly, from $18 billion this year to $61 billion in 2016, according to the analysts. Consumers will spend about $5 billion in 2012 on e-text content–such as ebooks and online news, magazines and information services–with that growing to $16 billion in four years.

To read the original eWeek article, click here: Consumers to Spend $2.1 Trillion on Smartphones, Tablets, Other Tech