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Worldwide Smartphone Shipments Down For First Time Ever (theregister.co.uk)
According to Gartner, global sales of smartphones have declined year-on-year for the first time since the research company started tracking the global smartphone market in 2004. "Global sales of smartphones to end users totaled nearly 408 million units in the fourth quarter of 2017, a 5.6 percent decline over the fourth quarter of 2016," reports Gartner. The Register reports: In Gartner's Q4 sales stats, Samsung maintained a narrow lead in global volume shipments of smartphones -- but every major (top five) vendor outside of those based in China saw unit shipments slip. Several major factors caused the market shrinkage, said Anshul Gupta, research director at Gartner. "First, upgrades from feature phones to smartphones have slowed right down due to a lack of quality 'ultra-low-cost' smartphones and users preferring to buy quality feature phones. Second, replacement smartphone users are choosing quality models and keeping them longer, lengthening the replacement cycle of smartphones. Moreover, while demand for high quality, 4G connectivity and better camera features remained strong, high expectations and few incremental benefits during replacement weakened smartphone sales," Gupta added. This is a characteristic of the emerging markets, where all the action is -- not mature markets like the UK or USA. Samsung leap-frogged Apple by virtue of its sales declining slower than the market average -- Sammy's numbers were 3.6 per cent to 74.02 million units.
We have reached peak smartphone. At last we can talk about something else...
People are getting smarter about purchases. Unfortunately, smartphones aren't getting smarter. I haven't bought a new phone since my S5, though the OLED (what a terrible technology) screen is suffering and I will need to replace it soon. People don't want 12 megapixels over 10 or 5. At a certain point, shooting in higher resolution just makes for ungainly file sizes for no real benefit. No one really uses voice control serioiusly, and all we get with each generation is more midle-of-the-bell-curve junk and bloatware. Since my S5 Samsung deleted infrared, HDMI, and FM radio - they tried even deleting the SD slot, and they give what bac in return? An OLED screen with even more density that degrades even faster. Great work!
It's because the Samsungs are all on fire, and no one wants the iPhone X!
am eye rite?
New phones are going to cr@p. There now, I said it. Between no SD slot, no user-replaceable battery, no headphone jacks, and only incremental improvements in speed and utility, why bother?
let see, costs of $1,000+
short battery life
even more and better spyware
I cannot imagine why
All the Q4 2017 vs Q4 2016 are messy this year - there was an extra week in 2016. Most journalists are oblivious to it... Gartner being Gartner.... who knows...
What "endless-growth" unicorn will Wall Street chase now that the time of cell phone sales is ending?
Perhaps because there is nothing new and enticing to make us spend upwards of the $1k price point that a lot of the smart phones are headed now.
Were now past the upgrade cycle of everyone moving from HSPA and other technologies to LTE. My guess we won't be seeing another huge surge in phone sales till REAL 5G hits the market.
I am still using a note4 and have zero reason to upgrade it. It is still exceptionally fast to me. There is nothing on the current crop of phones that makes me be like OMG i want that so bad.
All of the new phones also have many negatives to me, sealed in batteries, curved screens, "notches"
Then there is also the fact that many carriers are now unbundling their phones from contracts. Everyone got reduced price phones every 2 years when they renewed their contract. Now that the practice is disappearing, people are paying full price for the phones, or getting them on installment plans. They have even less reason to fork over all that cash to get a new one when their old one is still working perfectly fine. Other than the apple ohhh shiny isheep crowd that would get on their knees and give tim cook a BJ for an iphone
Simple really. I have an iphone 6s with headphone jack, jailbreak, brand new apple battery and a E-ink case. I am not upgrading without a jack. I am even Considering switching to a High end android Audiophile DAP and 4g mini wifi hotspot.
Wireless Bluetooth Headphones are still terrible in 2018, iPhone still doesnt support Apt-X HD or Sony LDAC and cheap chinese wired IEMs sound amazing.
Unbelievable
Got to get more customers
Galaxy Note 4 was the peak Samsung phone with a 3.5 inch headphone jack, removeable SD card and removable battery. Why the heck should I ever upgrade?
Then maybe we can now finally get devices that have a reasonable long-term availability and regular updates for at least 5 years (better 10) and easily replaceable batteries. You know, the level of quality, lifetime and user-friendliness that can reasonably expected from something as expensive as a smartphone.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
We must stop the LUDDITES from ruining our appy app phones! App as many apps as you can app to stop them!
Apps!
The smartphone industry is starting to mature. Smartphones have gotten to the point where the delta between a 4 year old smartphone and a brand new one isn't very big anymore. The same was not the case 4 years ago. In a way, the smartphone is going the the way of the PC, 4 year old models are "good enough" so the 2 year upgrade cycle is going away, becoming more like every 6 years.
The natural consequence that is a smaller number of higher quality, higher end, and more expensive phones will be made, and will be used for 6 years before replacement. The same thing is happening with the PC, where slim metal cases and $1000+ prices are now the norm, the cheap glossy plastic $400 PC that gets thrown out every 3 years isn't selling anymore. Overall I think its a good thing that smartphones are starting to see longer refresh cycles, it will be better for the environment, and hopefully they won't depreciate quite so quickly.
Several major factors caused the market shrinkage
So you are selling around 400 million devices every quarter, that is 1.6 billion a year, and you are surprised that doesn't go on forever?
Smartphone users total only about twice that. So the average one buys a new smartphone every two years. That sounds about right, doesn't it?
Even in the USA, smartphone usage is only about 77% of the population. Some people still don't have one, and some are too young, too imprisoned or otherwise incapable (I don't count "too poor" anymore, as even if you are very poor, a smartphone has become a necessity).
"market shrinkage" my ass. The market is still growing (see the link above). You've just saturated it and most sales go not to new owners but to people replacing an existing phone.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
And who still thinks that desktop computers are dying?
Don't worry about the phone companies they are doing fine. Charging $1000 for a phone they make for $100.
It is official; Netcraft now confirms: smartphones are dying.
One more crippling bombshell hit the already beleaguered smartphone community when Gartner confirmed that smartphone market share has dropped yet again, now down to to 408 million units per quarter. Coming close on the heels of a recent Netcraft survey which plainly states that smart[phones have lost more market share, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. Smartphones are collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by failing dead last in the recent Sys Admin comprehensive networking test.
You don't need to be a Kreskin to predict smartphone's future. The hand writing is on the wall: smartphones face a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for smartphones because smartphones are dying. Things are looking very bad for smartphones. As many of us are already aware, smartphones continue to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood.
Windows 10 Phone is the most endangered of them all, having lost 93% of its core developers. The sudden and unpleasant departures of long time Windows developer Steve Ballmer only serve to underscore the point more clearly. There can no longer be any doubt: smartphones are dying.
All major surveys show that smartphones have steadily declined in market share. Smartphones are very sick and their long term survival prospects are very dim. If smartphones are to survive at all it will be among phone dilettante dabblers like Nokia. Smartphones continue to decay. Nothing short of a cockeyed miracle could save smartphones from their fate at this point in time. For all practical purposes, smartphones are dead.
And you complain?
For real?
400 million units a quarter means you sell 1.6 BILLION phones a year. There are roughly 4.5 billion people using cellphones on this planet. That means that on average they throw away their old phone and buy a new one every three years. And let's remember for the moment that BY FAR not all people are rich enough to simply dump 500 bucks every three years, I dare say that the majority of those 4.5 billions clings to their phone 'til it falls apart.
Economic growth does have a limit, even if your greed doesn't.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Hopefully this trend continues and I'll finally be able to buy some damn RAM at a reasonable price.
Desktop shipments were down so I bought a laptop.
Laptop shipments were down so I bought a smartphone.
Now what do I buy,
I'm doing my part to hurt smartphone sales by refusing to buy any electric device into which a battery has been glued.
The good news for manufacturers is that I and many others have a lot of money to spend on a flagship phone into which a battery has not been glued.
A government is a body of people notably ungoverned - AC
And memory manufacturers claim it's the mobile industry that is demanding more memory so DDR4 has to more than double in price because, "demand", and GDDR5x&6 HAVE to be more expensive, because of this supposed "demand" when mobile electronics rarely use DDR4 DIM's at best SODIMM's.
And despite the cellphone market slowing down and not even using the same type of memory any excuse is good enough for the memory cartel to price fix their market. What once would cost 80 or 100 bucks now is at minimum twice that.