Gartner: More devices will be sold in 2016 than ever - but rifts are appearing

Gartner, the renowned research firm, has released its 2016 device forecast, predicting that total worldwide shipments - which includes PCs, smartphones, laptops, and tablets - will reach 2.4 billion within the next year.

"It's clear that vendors can no longer market their products with the mind of only targeting the mature and emerging markets," said Ranjit Atwal, a research director at Gartner.

"Driven by economic variations the market is splitting into four categories," he said. "Economically challenged mature markets, economically stable mature markets and the same for emerging markets."

Atwal went on to give examples of each type of market: Russia and Brazil will become economically challenged emerging markets, India will stay stable, and Japan will become an economically challenged mature market.

Beyond these trends, Gartner expects these things to happen:

• Traditional PCs, which includes desktops and notebooks, will see sales fall from 246 million in 2015 to 219 million in 2018.
• Both premium and basic ultramobile devices will grow, reaching 290 million units in 2018, up from 241 million in 2015.
• Mobile phones will grow from 1.9 billion in 2015 to over two billion in 2018.

The smartphone market, which is currently becoming saturated, will also experience a change.

"We are witnessing a shift to basic phones in the smartphone market," said Roberta Cozza, an analyst for Gartner. "Users are also opting to replace within the basic smartphone category without necessarily moving to high-end smartphones, especially in China."

Gartner also predicts that Windows 10, Microsoft's new operating system, will become a hit with businesses. This, in turn, will drive growth for the operating system.

"We expect that business will deploy Windows 10 in businesses faster than with previous Windows upgrades," said Ranjit Atwal. Research, conducted by Gartner, found that over 80% of businesses have tested Windows 10 since its launch.

"By the end of 2017, many business are looking to move as much as 40 per cent of their installed base onto new Windows 10 devices, mainly driven by the appeal hybrid touch-screen 2-1," said Atwal. "This will be the catalyst for growth in the PC market in 2017."