According to a recent survey by ITU, the sales of high-end devices in mature markets in the last few years has slowed down, and now the focus is on emerging markets where demand of budget devices and services are on the rise. Asia is expected to emerge as the driving force of global growth in the next two decades, according to a statement by Scott Lee, head of Asia at Appsnack. With the growth shifting to mid range and budget mobiles the main challenge will be faced by companies like Samsung and Apple which constitute half of the high end smartphone market. Apple's revenues in China have slumped to 43 per cent in April-June from the last quarter and 14 per cent from 2012. Analysts blame lack of budget and mid-range mobile phones for the slow down. Samsung has also indicated that its quarterly operating profit will also fall short of estimates.

India has become the third largest smartphone market with the emergence of strong domestic manufacturers like Micromax who recently launched the Canvas 4 with similar features to Samsung Galaxy S3 at half the price.