IDC sees 9.8% growth in 2015 shipments of smartphones

Sluggish smartphone demand in China is bringing down year-on-year worldwide shipment growth rate to 9.8 percent this year, the first single-digit performance on record, research company International Data Corp warned on Friday.

The economic slowdown and the already-high penetration rate of smartphones on the Chinese mainland will drag shipment growth to "single digits" in 2015, it said.

More than 1.4 billion smartphones will be shipped worldwide in 2015, compared to last year's 1.27 billion, IDC said. The consultancy also estimated that shipment growth may slow to 4.7 percent by 2019, when less than 1.9 billion devices will be manufactured.