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Smartphone Shipments Declined For the First Time In 2017 (theverge.com)
2017 was the first year that smartphone unit shipments didn't grow, according to a new Internet Trends report. "Shipments actually declined by 0.5 percent, as IDC noted in February," reports The Verge. "In 2016, shipments were lukewarm at 2 percent yearly growth, but this downturn is significant." From the report: Among smartphone shipments, Android and iOS have all but completely pushed out every other mobile operating system. And despite the growing price of today's top flagship devices, the average selling price of a smartphone has steadily fallen over the years. As more of the world now owns smartphones, growth has basically stalled. Similarly, internet user growth has only grown 7 percent in 2017, compared to 12 percent in 2016. More people are accessing the internet than ever, on an average of 5.9 hours a day. And they're browsing on mobile, indicating that they're just holding onto older models of phones instead of buying new ones.
I suspect it's in part because Apple got caught artificially slowing down older devices (and frankly, I think a number of Android vendors did too given how a number of my devices have become inexplicably unusably slow over time even if I uninstall all or reset to factory). Now that that practice has been bred out through consumer uproar, people are probably realising they don't actually need a phone every 2 years because most are good for 4 - 5 years for 99% of the population. It was only ever the process of artificially crippling devices that forced people to upgrade.
So, funny story:
Growing up I always had a desktop computer; from the Spectrum to the Amiga to Windows 7. I switched to laptops and OSX around Vista and I'm reasonably happy there.
My cousins were a few years younger, and they made far more use of mobile devices, consoles for gaming, and had zero interest in general purpose computing outside of schoolwork. They'd borrow their parent's machines for homework, but everything else was on locked down devices. They're now getting into indie gaming and 3d modelling respectively and are absolutely blown away by how much more you can do on a real computer. The recent privacy headlines have further dissuaded them from the surveillance panopticon that is mobile computing.
I think a big part of the slowdown in the desktop/laptop market has been due to mobile and tablets, but amongst their friend groups at least the trend seems to be swinging towards real computers.