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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.
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!
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?
Ironically, it's the less expensive phones that are NOT getting rid of useful features like SD slot, headphone jack, and user replaceable batteries. It's just the top-of-the-line phones that ditched these features.
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.
Indeed. I am still on my z10, because I cannot find any Android phone that even moderately appeals. (No, I will not join the cult of Apple...) Since I do not run any "Apps" on my primary phone, that works fine. For the few Apps I have to use, I use a SIM-less very cheap Moto that is usually off. Hilariously, for that SIM-less phone I use the z10 as wireless access point.
But the situation is really a disgrace. By now I would expect to get well-designed Android hardware (with headphone jack, SD slot, user-replaceable battery, etc.) with long-term update availability (at the very least 5 years). But no such thing is available.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
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
My conclusion is that it's the usual "form vs function". If you want to get shit done, you don't care about looks and style. If you go for style and fashion, you probably don't need it to get stuff done.
That's basically what's the difference between a rugged backpack and a Gucci case. The former isn't for looks or style but you can use it to get some serious work done. The latter is probably not the best in function, but that's only its secondary function, so to speak.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I mean, I get that it was "clever" to put analog audio pins in the USB-C standard. Sure, fewer ports. But I'm just going to have to plug a converter in, so build in the damn port.
Also, the lightning plug is very secure. microUSB always wear out due to there torus plug and pins on the inside design. I'm guessing USB-C does as well. Why isn't the plug a sold piece of metal that slots in?
Your ad here. Ask me how!
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.
Of course it is mandatory, have you not read third paragraph in point 314.159 in the user agreement in the newer iPhones?
"Furthermore, you affirm that you are a member of the cult of Apple, or will agree to become a member withing two(2) weeks from this date and..."
Sheesh, do people no longer read all 500 page EULAs throughout and follow them to the letter?
Headphone jacks are staying because waterproof ones are expensive, but no one expects a cheap phone to be waterproof. SD cards are staying because you can stick less on-board flash in and convince people that an SD card will let them add a useful amount later (spoiler: it doesn't, and unless you're using really expensive SD cards, expect them to die in normal phone operation, at which point they're likely to give up and buy a new phone). User-replaceable batteries are also going, but it varies a bit. Custom non-replaceable batteries are more expensive than cheap off-the-shelf ones for large-volume runs (fewer parts, but there's a large fixed cost in the battery), so they're going from the high-volume cheap phones but still there for the smaller niche cheap ones.
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USB-C was intended to be significantly more robust than microUSB and the group that designed it included some of the Apple folk behind the Lightning connector, so I doubt it has the same problems.
I'm not too bothered about the dongle - it can live with my headphones - the problem for me is that you need a different and annoying adaptor if you want to listen to music and charge your phone, which is pretty common while travelling.
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