Find market data for previous years and analyze how the smartphone market has changed over time.

Greek philosopher Heraclitus certainly understood modern-day markets when he said, “The only thing that is constant is change.” The smartphone market has changed considerably since its inception just over 25 years ago. According to the Pew Research Center, 77 percent of Americans now own a smartphone. But today’s smartphone market is not like it was when IBM introduced the first smart mobile device in 1994, called the Simon Personal Communicator. Although before its time, it could perform many of today’s smartphone functions. However, it was much bulkier, had a battery life of only one hour, had a small monochrome LCD screen, and could be plugged into a regular phone jack to make lower-cost calls over a landline. The next market leader was RIM’s BlackBerry mobile device, which enjoyed market leadership for many years. Then along came Apple, which revolutionized the smartphone market in 2007 by introducing the iPhone. Sales of the iPhone jumped from 1.4 million units that year to almost 12 million in 2008 to more than 200 million in 2018. Apple enjoyed market leadership for many years but new competitors entered the market, eating away at Apple’s market share. Below is worldwide unit shipment data for the top smartphone companies in 2017 and 2018:

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Company Samsung Apple Huawei Xiaomi OPPO Others Units Shipped (in millions) 2018 292.3 208.8 206.0 122.6 113.1 462.0 2017 317.7 215.8 154.2 92.7 111.7 573.4