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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.
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.
Obviously smartphones aren't being made thin enough. They need to make them as fragile as a wafer, then they can sell more.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
Everyone I know "wants" a new phone, but they don't want to pay a grand.
The market is saturated. Phones are good enough and not enough people care about a new camera to justify buying a new one. Smartphones, from any manufacturer, are not status symbols anymore.
Why do we need article after article to tell us the obvious?
I hate fat people.
I also think we've reached a point where a thousand bucks is more than people want to spend on their "cell phone," regardless of how cool it is. My Samsung Galaxy S5 is long in the tooth, so I just replaced it - With an S7 that cost me $225 CAD.
I don't think I'm alone.
I'm still waiting for a legitimate flagship phone to replace my Note 3.
Every phone released after it has been worse, by some measure:
- Missing key sensors (ie. thermometer, which is super useful while winter camping)
- Missing the headphone/mic jack
- Missing physical home and back/task switch buttons
- Having locked bootloaders that are difficult to deal with
- Having poor support for LineageOS/AOSP
- Being constructed of metal/glass that breaks/bends easily compared to plastic, along with bizarre screen curvatures
- Having wear components, such as batteries, glued in and non-replaceable, limiting the lifespan to ~18 months
I have literally thousands of US dollars to spend on a new phone, and can't wait for the day something is released which rivals the Note 3.
A government is a body of people notably ungoverned - AC
Now with smart phones. This leaves manufacturers with two options: 1) Open new markets, or 2) Actually innovate. Unless a whole bunch of new tribes are discovered, the former ain't happening. Which means we all hold our breath and wait for #2.
Until that happens we should all prepare ourselves for wave after wave of dull non-innovative over-priced dreck.
They call them smartphones but they behave like dumbphones, making the user and everyone else involved dumber. They are designed to keep you dumb. The novelty of the name "smartphone" has worn off a long time ago.
Tell that to my wife. She salivates every time the Pixel 3 commercials come on. To hear her tell it a wider selfie camera is the only thing standing between us and a life of complete fulfillment.
I'm not sure if I should be jealous of you or feel sorry for you.
I know Penny Marshall wasn't the most attractive woman in the world - but I don't know how someone would confuse her with Martin Scorsese.
#DeleteChrome
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.
... Unless they are built to last only 6 to 12 months. And they aren't repairable.
So we'd expect annual sales to drop once the market is saturated (by definition)
If we're talking new sales of phones, yes we've reached a plateau. If we're talking about % of world population that use a cell phone... no, we haven't reached a plateau and won't for a long time.
The main difference is, phone sellers raised their prices so much that people want to hold onto their phones longer. When a new phone costs $200 you don't mind replacing it in a few years. When a new phone costs $1000 you would be peeved if you were forced to replace it in two years.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
Nope. What we need is more peop^Wcustomers.
If we can manage to double the population over the next five years then the smartphone manufacturers should see a return to previous growth figures.
No sig today...
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.
Anyone that shallow is probably hot...
Beware of the Leopard.
For every computer that must interact with humans, there is a limiting factor....the human.
This happened to desktops. They got so fast that the biggest slice of CPU time went to waiting on me, the memory was big enough to hold anything I could conceivably ever want to work with, and I couldn't take enough pictures to fill the hard drive.
So people moved to laptops, because they were becoming just as powerful but portable. Then they became just as powerful, and the point of buying a new one went away.
So people moved to phones, which were more portable. I can't think of any app I have that doesn't spend more time waiting on me than I does processing. There is no point of adding more megapixels to camera, and it stores more pictures than I can be bothered to cycle through. Other than a broken phone (and, I bought a Kyocera this time to avoid that scenario) what is the point of spending $1k on another one that will just spend MORE time waiting on me?
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
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?)
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.