Smartphone sales drop for the first time in 2017

[br77494]

According to Gartner, Q4 2017 worldwide smartphone sales are down 5.4% from Q4 2016. Samsung down 3.6%, Apple down 5%, but Huawei up 7.6%.

https://techcrunch.com/2018/02/22/gartner-reports-first-ever-global-decline-in-smartphone-sales/

People are hanging onto their phones for longer, or buying slightly less expensive flagships like Huawei and Xiaomi. Proof that smartphones are getting too expensive?

 

[DsM]

Not too expensive. Too darn good to require replacement.

 

[L0n3N1nja]

I don't think it's price related, there are plenty of cheap phones.

My guess is market saturation, there aren't as many people without a smart phone as possible new customers anymore.

 

[LeoRex]

Market saturation coupled with hardware maturity. More people have phones that suit their needs and they'll continue to do so for longer periods. They are no longer getting as many new consumers and are just getting people who come in and replace their old phone.

 

[samfile]

Most people just use their phones for talking some pics ,playing some games and mostly social media nothing that a 2017 midrange can't do heck I believe that even a galaxy s5 for example can do those things fine

 

[Morty2264]

Very, very interesting. I love articles and studies like these - thank you so much for sharing it!

This could mean a variety of things. Perhaps phones are getting too expensive and so people are hanging onto their already-expensive-and-purchased phones for longer periods of time.

Or, maybe the phones that came out in 2017 weren't enough for some to make the switch from their current devices. Or maybe they wanted to see what upcoming iterations offered (would they be better than 2017's models; thus encouraging a switch?) before they gave up their current devices.

Or, perhaps most customers (myself included) decided that midrange was the way to go in 2017. The midrange market is exploding now and in 2017 and even earlier, people may have decided that midrange phones had just as good a performance as flagships; or some midrange phones had specs that were just as good, and so they bought products like Honor, Xiaomi, OnePlus, etc. Maybe they did this for economic reasons; or maybe because they were enticed by the midrange brands.

I remember the OnePlus 3T (though released in 2016) was a huge hit. Perhaps people held onto phones like these because they "worked" and therefore didn't see a need to upgrade in 2017. Going off of this, I got my Honor 8 (a midrange phone) in 2016 and though a lot of good phones came out in 2017, I couldn't in good conscience justify a switch so soon after getting a phone that "just worked" for me and had no issues.

A lot more can be said about this specific variable. It could be an entire study in itself.

Again, very good thread topic!

 

[kramer5150]

Cool article thanks for sharing.
Sounds about right. If there's nothing significantly new, enticing, different or better... why would anyone want to spend the $$$?

I know I sure don't, I am very happily rocking an LG V10 / verizon for over 2 years. The V20 would be the only phone worth upgrading to given my preferences.

This past weekend I was at a cousins house and got to play around with a Note 8, S8 active, iPhone X and iphone 8+. To be totally honest, I didn't find any of them worth that kind of $$$. The most alarming thing was all the Samsung bloat... WTH? The T-mobile bloat conversely was not too bad... just a couple things here and there.

The most impressive thing from the weekend was when my teenage nephew dropped his S8 active on the concrete step-up into the house from the garage. Sucker landed with a "SMACK!!" as we were all carrying groceries in and chatting. We were all like WTH was that? Not a scratch... Impressive. He does have a thin TPU case, but still it hit hard.

My uncle also just got a Moto G5+ from Amazon and I got to play around with that extensively on ATT. He was trying to debug an old SD card that would not format properly. IMHO the G5+ punched WAY above the belt in terms of value... features per $$ spent. LOVE the near-pure stock Android too. Just wish it had USB-C, thats a downer here in 2018. I also helped him set his screen animations for an overall quicker UI. I know this phone has a slower CPU and less RAM, but I did not notice anything significant with that compared to the flagships.

The Samsung amoled displays were impressive too, definitely lived up to the hype. But still not worth that kind of $$$.... shrug oh well.

 

[DsM]

If they hadn't eliminated the replaceable battery the drop would have been greater.

 

[Morty2264]

If they hadn't eliminated the replaceable battery the drop would have been greater.

You bring up a very interesting and valid point. People would just be swapping batteries instead of handsets.

 

[Inders99]

I think this just ties in with Coraya's recent thread in Smartphone interest dying.

 

[Morty2264]

I think this just ties in with Coraya's recent thread in Smartphone interest dying.

Absolutely. Smartphone interest is dying because some users do not see the need to upgrade yearly at this point in time. Makes me wonder what will happen next year or even five years from now.

 

[kramer5150]

If they hadn't eliminated the replaceable battery the drop would have been greater.

Yep... sealing batteries and water resistance I believe is forcing a lot of people to upgrade earlier than they really need/want to. I have an old iphone 5C that I use as a GPS device with the GAIA app. At $12 ea I just pop the screen and drop in a new battery every year. Iphones have really excellent GPS radios. My daughter is still going strong on an iphone 6... its the perfect device for her small hands. Same thing though, at $15 I replace her battery every year.

Its easily do-able with no water resistance features.

Of course you absolutely can replace a battery in any phone... but theres no way anyone can guarantee factory water resistance specification once the adhesive seals are broken.

IP spec water resistance, quick charging, Qi wireless charging, the transition away from ugly plastic that lasts a lifetime to pretty glass that breaks far too easily... All can be desirable features. But they also help to cover up, hide and obscure the forced (or premature) obsolescence that is designed into every new phone.

 

[kenmacro_88]

Sometimes i feel that almost every year the flagship product has been released to the market, kind of too fast. It might be some kind of saturation because of some people cannot afford to change phone almost every year.

 

[Tsepz_GP]

According to Gartner, Q4 2017 worldwide smartphone sales are down 5.4% from Q4 2016. Samsung down 3.6%, Apple down 5%, but Huawei up 7.6%.

https://techcrunch.com/2018/02/22/gartner-reports-first-ever-global-decline-in-smartphone-sales/

People are hanging onto their phones for longer, or buying slightly less expensive flagships like Huawei and Xiaomi. Proof that smartphones are getting too expensive?

Cost may be part of it, but I also think its due to the fact that there is less and less reason each year to switch.

Not too expensive. Too darn good to require replacement.

Exactly. The people are still happily using phones like the LG V10, Nexus 6P, Galaxy S6, Galaxy Note 5, iPhone 6 Plus, Huawei Mate8, Sony Xperia Z5 Premium etc etc... These are phones that will be 3years old this year, and yet they still work great and some seem to be even getting the Android Oreo.

Anything with at least 3-4GB RAM should be fine for the next 2years or so more if not more.

Phones with 6GB RAM and more will probably be good for the next 5years or so, phones like Huawei Mate10 Pro, OnePlus 3T, OnePlus5, OnePlus 5T, Galaxy Note8, Galaxy S9+, LG V30S ThinQ and Sony Xperia XZ2.

It's all going to be about Camera and software now, AI is a big one, the hardware is all there really.

 

[Golfdriver97]

Market saturation coupled with hardware maturity

I also think OEMs just discovered the threshold of the price people will pay. It was what....a few years ago that the flagship devices were 750, tops? Now, they can easily break a grand.

 

[kramer5150]

My LGV10 was ~$650 in 2015, it was the LG flagship at the time.

 

[LeoRex]

Also.. prices for the curved AMOLED screens that are all the rage haven't dropped much. I'm guessing the yeild rate during manufacturing is still somewhat low. Most of the other hardware has dropped... The display alone is probably more than the cost of the rest of the phone.

Plus, software r&d is extremely expensive... The imaging teams ... Apple's is close to 1000 people. I would be curious to see the cost breakdown, but I'm fairly certain that software is an ever increasing slice of that expense pie.

 

[Morty2264]

I also think OEMs just discovered the threshold of the price people will pay. It was what....a few years ago that the flagship devices were 750, tops? Now, they can easily break a grand.

And I remember a few years ago that $750 was a lot of money to spend... And now I'm looking at phones that retail for $900... What is wrong with this picture?! Haha.