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Visualized: A Snapshot of the Global Personal Tech Market

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Personal tech market share

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A Snapshot of the Global Personal Tech Market

For many, it’s become difficult to function in day-to-day life without the use of a mobile phone. The average American checks their phone 96 times a day—that’s once every 10 minutes.

But it’s not just mobile phones that have become increasingly intertwined with our everyday lives. A plethora of accessories and devices, known as smartphone multipliers, have surged in popularity—this market is set to generate $459 billion in revenue by the end of 2020.

Which brands are capitalizing on this lucrative market? Today’s graphic provides a snapshot of the leading tech brands currently dominating the personal tech space, based on the most recent global market share data on shipments and installs.

How the Brands Stack Up, by Personal Tech Device

Though far from exhaustive, we’ve selected a few popular devices to hone in on, providing key insights on some of the top players in the personal tech space as of 2020.

Smartphones

Smartphones are an essential part of the personal tech conversation—by 2025, there will be an estimated 5.8 billion smartphone users worldwide, or roughly 70% of the global population.

BrandGlobal Smartphone Shipments Market Share
Huawei20%
Samsung20%
Apple14%
Xiaomi10%
Oppo9%
Vivo8%
Lenovo3%
Other16%

Currently, Huawei and Samsung hold the largest share of the global market, at 20% each. Chinese company Huawei’s dominance is concentrated in its home country, where it captures almost half of smartphone sales. Like Huawei, Samsung’s market dominance is amplified in its home country South Korea, where it makes up 67% of the market.

While Apple lags slightly behind Huawei and Samsung in global sales, the company rules in the U.S., where it captures 46% of market share.

Why isn’t Apple as successful in other parts of the world? A big factor is price. For instance, 90% of smartphones in India cost around $300, while iPhones start at $999.

Smartphone Operating Systems

Of course, smartphones are useless without an operating system (OS). Each smartphone OS essentially acts as your phone’s nervous system, running all applications and programs, as well as managing network and WiFi connectivity.

BrandGlobal Market Share (by units)
Android74.3%
iOS25.2%
Samsung0.2%
KaiOS0.1%
Unknown0.1%

When it comes to the OS market, Google-owned Android dominates by a landslide, making up 74% of global market share. This makes sense, considering that both the leading smartphone companies, Huawei and Samsung, use Android OS on a number of their devices.

However, it’s important to note that newer Huawei phones won’t operate on Android. When the Chinese tech giant was blacklisted in the U.S., it was no longer able to license Android’s OS. As a result, Huawei launched its own HarmonyOS to fill the gap.

Smartphone Application Processors

If a smartphone’s OS acts like its nervous system, then the application processor (AP) functions like a brain. APs handle everything from image processing and graphics to powering your phone on and off.

BrandGlobal Market Share (by units)
Qualcomm29%
MediaTek26%
HiSilicon16%
Apple13%
Samsung13%
Unisoc4%

Qualcomm is currently the largest provider of application processors, capturing almost 30% of the global market share. While it currently holds the top spot, its market share has declined since 2019, largely due to a decrease in usage in Huawei products.

After being banned in the U.S., Huawei shifted suppliers for this crucial part. Instead of buying from Qualcomm—an American company—it now relies on HiSilicon, which is based in China.

Wireless Headphones

The wireless headphone market is growing fast—in 2019, it was valued at $2.5 billion. Between 2020 to 2027, it’s set to increase at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 20.3%.

BrandGlobal Sales Units Market Share
Apple35%
Xiaomi10%
Samsung6%
Jabra3%
JBL3%
Other43%

Apple currently dominates the wireless headphone space, making up over a third of global market share. The company is expected to sell 82 million units by the end of 2020.

Despite this, it’s important to note that Apple’s dominance has decreased significantly in 2020 compared to 2019, when it captured over 50% of the global market. Apple’s decline is likely due to the emergence of cheaper alternatives from companies like Lypertek Tevi or 1More, which offer comparable products at about half the cost of Apple’s AirPods.

Smartwatches

Health and wellness have been top priorities among consumers recently, which has had a positive impact on the global smartwatch market—in the first half of 2020, it’s shown a 20% growth in revenue, compared to a year prior.

BrandGlobal Smartwatch Shipments Market Share
Apple30%
Huawei14%
Samsung7%
imoo7%
Other42%

Like wireless headphones, Apple dominates the smartwatch market, in both volume and value. When looking at global shipments in Q2 2020, the company makes up 30% of the market share—however, in terms of revenue, Apple’s piece of the pie rises to 50%.

The Only Constant is Change

It’s clear that no matter who leads the list for each type of personal tech, these spots are never static—there’s always room for disruption.

How long will Apple hold its top spot in the wireless headphone market? Will Qualcomm’s dominance of the AP market continue to shrink?

Things are certain to change—the only question is, how?

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Charted: The Jobs Most Impacted by AI

We visualized the results of an analysis by the World Economic Forum, which uncovered the jobs most impacted by AI.

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Charted: The Jobs Most Impacted by AI

This was originally posted on our Voronoi app. Download the app for free on iOS or Android and discover incredible data-driven charts from a variety of trusted sources.

Large language models (LLMs) and other generative AI tools haven’t been around for very long, but they’re expected to have far-reaching impacts on the way people do their jobs. With this in mind, researchers have already begun studying the potential impacts of this transformative technology.

In this graphic, we’ve visualized the results of a World Economic Forum report, which estimated how different job departments will be exposed to AI disruption.

Data and Methodology

To identify the job departments most impacted by AI, researchers assessed over 19,000 occupational tasks (e.g. reading documents) to determine if they relied on language. If a task was deemed language-based, it was then determined how much human involvement was needed to complete that task.

With this analysis, researchers were then able to estimate how AI would impact different occupational groups.

DepartmentLarge impact (%)Small impact (%)No impact (%)
IT73261
Finance70219
Customer Sales671617
Operations651817
HR57412
Marketing56413
Legal46504
Supply Chain431839

In our graphic, large impact refers to tasks that will be fully automated or significantly altered by AI technologies. Small impact refers to tasks that have a lesser potential for disruption.

Where AI will make the biggest impact

Jobs in information technology (IT) and finance have the highest share of tasks expected to be largely impacted by AI.

Within IT, tasks that are expected to be automated include software quality assurance and customer support. On the finance side, researchers believe that AI could be significantly useful for bookkeeping, accounting, and auditing.

Still interested in AI? Check out this graphic which ranked the most commonly used AI tools in 2023.

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