We're No Longer in Smartphone Plateau. We're in the Smartphone Decline. (nymag.com)

The days of double-digit smartphone growth are over -- and the next decade may start to see smartphone sales decline. A report adds: From roughly 2007 until 2013, the smartphone market grew at an astonishing pace, posting double-digit growth year after year, even during a global recession. They were the good years, the type that would inspire a Scorsese montage: millions and then billions of smartphones going out; billions and then trillions of dollars in rising company valuations; every year new models of phones hitting the market, held up triumphantly at events that were part sales pitch, part tent revival. (To nail the Scorsese effect, imagine "Jumpin' Jack Flash" playing while you think about it.)

But just like every Scorsese movie, the party ends. Smartphone growth began to slow starting in 2013 or 2014. In 2016, it was suddenly in the single digits, and in 2017 global smartphone shipments, for the first time, actually declined -- fewer smartphones were sold than in 2017 than in 2016. Every smartphone manufacturer is now facing a world where, at best, they can hope for single-digit growth in smartphone sales -- and many seem to be preparing for a world where they face declines.

Comments

replacement is down. Total users will still go up.

[bill.pev]

The number of people who own smartphones will increase, but if they don't replace them every 6 months when a vastly better one comes out, along with killer apps that need the new capabilities, then people will hang onto them for longer. This is better for the environment, and for consumers.

So we'd expect annual sales to drop once the market is saturated (by definition) ... Unless they are built to last only 6 to 12 months. And they aren't repairable.

Re:Prices too damn high

[torkus]

Price creep the last few years has been out of hand while the actual feature changes have slowed to a crawl or even gone backwards (looking for you headphones jack). Especially with "certain" greedy manufacturers who were recently charging $100 for 16 or 32GB of flash. Even now, $150 to go from 64 to 256 is a ripoff.

People simply don't need the new phones because there's nothing to differentiate them. It's not even sexy or shiny when you can't tell the difference...especially when you're force to stuff them in a case that doubles the size.

I'm still waiting for someone to take the chance on a thicker phone with a real battery. Apple did actually go a bit thicker on some of their latest phones but i don't think they actually added significant battery capacity.

Time to cannibalize the PC market

[HeckRuler]

If they make a decent interface from a phone to a real monitor, (and they get their butts out of their heads when it comes to bluetooth support for mouse and keyboard) then most people's use-case for owning anything other than a phone really diminishes.

I don't know if it has to be wired. Mirroring the screen via chromecast didn't work so well for me, but maybe they could get it working. There's a few niche products out there that have a dock, but they didn't catch on.

I could see a world where we all just walk around with our main computer on our body all the time. Instead of a work computer or a rig at home. A workstation would just be a chair, monitor, keyboard/mouse, wifi, and some place to plug in. And of course a bitchin' VR supporting super-computer next to a cybernetic psychic dolphin.

Re:Prices too damn high

[OneHundredAndTen]

I went from an SE, to an XS Max, and it was worth it for the massive screen size increase,

Unless you are built like your average NBA player, when putting it to your ear you will look like a complete dork. But then again, who uses a smartphone for phone calls?

But it happened faster than for computers

[shanen]

If I ever got a mod point, then I'd give you [KixWooder] an insightful mod for that comment rather than a mere interesting. Hypothetical since I never get mod points. Or maybe not even relevant, since I do want to comment and I think that would cancel my hypothetical mod point...

The most significant aspect is that we reached saturation much faster this time compared to computers, (but also relative to any other technology I can think of). The capabilities of the smartphones are beyond what most people can actually use, and even though the capabilities are increasing (and the prices are decreasing), there's no reason to buy a new one. The available new customers are just late adopters yielding ever lower profit margins (as the prices continue to fall).

Converting it to anecdote form (as a data point), what I am doing with my latest smartphone is only slightly better than what I was doing three smartphones ago. Actually, there was one major feature of my old PDA that I still haven't ported to the smartphone era, but mostly I've been looking for new things I actually want to do and not finding much. (Voice dictation is the main one, but it would run on the old phones, too.) The main reason I got a new smartphone this year was because it was free, but if prices keep falling, they may have to pay me to go through the hassle up the next "upgrade".

(Perhaps my perception of the lack of new and desirable features is just because I've mostly stopped playing time-wasting games? Most of the "new" games are just flashier versions of ancient classics. Interesting coincidence that I'm almost finished reading Fire in the Valley right now, and it mentions many of the old games (and brings back the memories). I don't play them now, but I'm confident I would still enjoy them. I just feel I have better uses for my time and absolutely no need for more and newer ways to waste time. (Well, except for that literacy development game no one has developed yet...))

Pay me to upgrade my smartphone? Well that's also how I'm feeling about the latest pains of Windows 10. Come to think of it, I didn't pay any money for those upgrades to Windows 10 and I have no desire to ever again pay Microsoft for anything... (Just my allergy to corporate cancers typing?)