Smartphone sales down 22 percent in Q2, the worst performance in a decade
Smartphone sales down 22 percent in Q2, the worst performance in a decade
North American sales are bad for everyone, except, miraculously, Google.
Smartphone sales down 22 percent in Q2, the worst performance in a decade::North American sales are bad for everyone, except, miraculously, Google.
Blame greedflation. Phones should be cheaper now, not thousands of dollars.
I told everyone that once contracts for cell phones were replaced with payment plans, companies would start gouging their customers with higher phone prices because the customers could now "afford" it.
Greedy ain't the right word imo.
I don't know why people still use the big carriers. Subsiding the phones and getting an upgrade every 2 years was the reason to use them. Now they just add the cost of the phone to your bill.
The brilliant thing is they've gone from "We'll buy the phone, but there's a $200 ETF" to "we won't buy the phone, and there's no ETF. But now if you cancel you owe us $1,000."
Exactly what I was coming to write. Who could have thought that rising notably the prices would have led to less sales?
You can still buy a Moto G for like $200 that is better than an old high-end phone in every way and runs Android like a champ. Only flaw is short support lifespan.
Phones is basically cheaper now. Features that only found on high end now on low end. SD 4 is insanely good (4g2 is an underclock 730). Very few reason to shell out 1000$+ for phones now
If you're upgrading your device every single time a new device comes along, you're just chasing clout and status. They rarely, if ever, have significant performance upgrades or new features that make sense in upgrading when your current device is perfectly fine.
Phones also aren't special anymore. Like the days where phones were flashy and people needed the best/newest phones are gone. Everyone knows everyone has a phone, nobody cares what phone it is. It reminds me of like 2004-2008 when laptops were a big deal and then everyone had one and it became a tool and people stopped caring what you had.
To be fair the vast majority of people don't do that and just buy a new phone after a few years when theirs is becoming too old, has issues or lacks useful features
In fact I think smart phones peaked 3 or 4 years ago and we're going downhill now. The manufacturers remove features that people like in favor of objectively worse ones (lots of people loved having the fingerprint reader on the back, now it's either gone entirely or under the screen for some stupid reason?, then of course headphone jacks are going extinct).
When is the last time a smart phone had a major improvement over it's predecessor? And I mean like, "This one didn't have a camera, this one does." Especially since they're converging on the same 5.7" black rectangle.
I like the finger print reader under the screen
it's amazing that in capitalism a company has to always show numbers rising like there is no physical upper boundary. The most logical and efficient economic model
It drives me insane how many people turn a blind eye to the funny numbers needing to always go up. Every "investor" will tell me how the market has never not recovered; how I'm the fool and surely not them for trusting in the system.
I hate that my retirement depends on a 401k, or money that constantly depreciates.
Constant growth at all costs. In the short term at least. Whether that works out in the long run or not...
Have they considered releasing another hard to hold glass slab exactly like the previous one?
Good. We should be using our phones for longer.
They doubled the price while removing core features like headphone jacks and microSD.
The people who bought phones as a status symbol ran out of money and the people who are advanced users are sticking with their old phones that are simply better until planned obsolescence forces them to buy another older model.
I haven't felt the headphone jack removal as much as I thought I would, though I've had a few sets of Bluetooth headphones for traveling since about 2014 or so
Phone plateaued 5 years ago for the average user.
I have a one plus 6. I'm on it for hours everyday. Reading. Browsing. Listening. No gaming. Lots of pictures.
My online data ran out long before my phone data - for pictures.
Phone runs fast. No more updates so nothing changes on me anymore.
I have zero reason to update. Would I like a better camera? Sure. But not for 1200$ I don't.
Could my battery last longer? Yeah. Sure. But I can replace it if I want for 20-40$
My next phone will probably be a refurbished last Gen phone. Nothing more then 400 I imagine.
I upgraded from a 7 to a 14 pro and while it doesn't hang up on the newer OS as much (a problem the 7 developed over its lifetime), it's not really an appreciably better experience overall. The camera is nicer.
On the 7 Pro, stuck on the oneplus navigation gestures, pop up front facing cam. Fully working phone, still no other phone to replace it when it comes to having a screen without a bump. And I can get a free phone through work, but there isn't one I want yet...
I switched from the 7 pro to 10 pro just to double my storage and have a better camera. For actual use as a phone, there wasn't a need to upgrade whatsoever.
Plus you can probably run stock Android on the op6 if you wanted to run Android 13
Good. They should never have been that high anyways
like desktop PCs
like DVD players?
no innovation, no need for a new device
apple seems to have quit innovating and google is just a fat fuck that is so lazy their core product search has gotten shit.
nokia nokia lol
Waiting on replacement batteries to come back. Also 1k is a no way from me.
Would that really help? I remember that each brand had their own custom battery sizes, and it would only sell the remaining stock once the phone was no longer on the store shelf. I only know Nokia had some standard form factor for batteries.
Batteries were phone specific but it wasn't a big problem to find them. I bought several for my Note 3 and it allowed me to use the phone for a long time.
You might like the XCover series then, they still got those
Partly because everybody's finances are stretched pretty thin, but also partly because phones got Good Enough like 6 years ago and so at this point you basically replace one when it breaks and replacement cost exceeds repair costs unless you're an enthusiast who demands the latest and greatest.... which is why the lucrously short support window for security patches on most Android devices is obscene. I know the technical reasons for them, but they're still unacceptable.
Well.. do we all need to change our perfectly fine, advanced and fast pocket computer every year just to have always the latest -> IMO No.
Good for the environment that it's a bad business year.
finally some positive news.
Cause they keep making them shittier and shittier. Like I can't replace my battery like a fairphone, replace all the parts, have a microsd slot and fingerprint reader like the older phones. People complaining about size and weight. Check out the Samsung S5, what was fucking wrong with that? Worked fine and waterproof. Fucking removedasses keep complaining about how it's not possible when it's been done for many years already.
Bad, non-consumer centric marketing forces poor changes. We could invest in all day battery life, or we could make the frame out of titanium. Titanium is easier, so boom, done! Do you want a headphone jack, or do you want a slide in the presentation that says the phone is 0.2mm thinner and 5g lighter? Done! Sleek, elegant, thin, sexy, but no headphone jack.
Nobody makes a phone with the consumer's convenience and experience in mind anymore. They make things without microSD card slots to drive subscriptions to their cloud platform. Instead of selling me a $60 battery I can change myself, they parts lock all pieces of the phone. It's totally anti-consumer, and I don't understand why. If someone released a stylish flagship phone right now with headphones, microSD, good battery life, and snappy performance, they'd trade wireless earbud and cloud platform sales for straight market share. How is that not worth it?
Bad, non-consumer centric marketing forces poor changes.
I don't think so, the companies (mostly Apple), are making these changes and twisting them to make it sound presentable, but in reality, they're making it less usable for the consumer unless they pay more money. They continue to do this because people still support it by buying them each year. Plenty of people at my campus are Apple fanboys for life and upgrade to the newest releases each year. When Apple fucks their consumers and their consumers still purchase them, other technology companies follow behind because it's proven success.
When companies fuck you over, don't continue giving them money to fuck you again. This is easier said than done as it's more of a societal shift but let's say everybody holds off, or a good portion hold off and demand that the companies changes things up, then something may be done to get the point across.
This upcoming phone update I'm tempted to buy the fairphone 5 even if theres no upgradable sd slot or headphone jack because it's not like the google pixel will introduce it. I just hope CalyxOS supports it soon.
It is amusing how cell phone companies want people to think about their products like a fridge or video game console, yet are shocked when people seem to only want to buy a new one every 5-10 years or more when the old one breaks.
The fact that you think it's normal to change fridges regularly astonishes me
I don't like it, but it is a fairly normal part of the modern world of consumer goods for home appliances to "not be made like they used to."
Are these shocked cell phone companies in the room with us? iPhone sale peaked like three years, Samsung probably close to then as well.
Lmao stopped upgrading years ago...
When this 5 yo phone kicks the bucket, I'll upgrade to a 4 yo model for cheap
Literally not missing out on anything and saving a fucking bag doing it
I just changed a 4yo phone that was getting extremely slow and laggy. I went for a mid level phone. From this very year. It has the same QoL and features of an iPhone14 if not its performance. It should last at least 5 years and costs ~$300.
Phone price keeps going up but my paycheck keeps going down with inflation
Two cents on the headphone jack issue folks bring up all the time. The convenience of 3.5 mm is great and valid. Totally agree.
However, I use and own a lot of wired higher end headphones and a dongle DAC is just better audio quality than the 3.5mm jack. Let me explain.
3.5mm jacks means the phone's on board DAC is doing the work and outputting an analog stereo signal. You are stuck with whatever, typically sub-par, DAC is built into your phone. Yes, some phones have better DACs than others, but it is a challenge to sort out and is often not a priority for most manufacturers.
With type C dongle you can escape your phone's limitations and use dongles with audio features like fully balanced audio because the signal stays digital from your phone to the dongle. Personally, I'm a fan of 4.4 mm balanced connection, as most of my headphones will run balanced. This is something I could never do with 3.5mm alone.
DDHifi, XDUOO, ifi, etc makes some great 'audiophile' - dumb title but you know what I mean - DACs.
I often don't hear this side of the issue discussed.
The idea with the jack is convenience tho. Including the jack won't take much space and it's just convenient. You wanna take a quick phone call while doing stuff around the house, plug the headphones in and good to go, no worries about battery or connection loss. You still have the type C for the digital audio. A hybrid analog/SPDIF would be even cooler, some laptops and sound cards do it
I don’t get why everything has to be wireless these days. It becomes less convenient when we have yet another device to charge. Heck, remember when removable batteries used to be a convenience feature?
what dongles do yoy reocmmned and why, link them here
Why the fuck would I upgrade my phone every single year? Don’t get me wrong, I love the one I literally just got, but it’s my first upgrade in years. At some point, the question becomes “what the fuck else do you want these things to do”
I used to be excited to upgrade my phone every year because it was during a period of innovation. Now I just have a pay as you go SIM and whenever needed buy a midrange phone outright and use it until it dies.
Honestly, how much better can they get? I love to have the latest gadgets as much as the next guy, but I've got bills and shit too.
Still rocking my Pixel 4a.
I had one of those. Failed in the weirdest way: sound stopped working, even through Bluetooth. From googling, it sound like the bends the phone gets when sitting on it can damage the main board and the connection to the sound chip fails. Was shocked the phone could have a hardware failure of that type. I have learned zero lessons and still keep my phone in my back pocket.
Anyhow, it was a great phone but just a bit too narrow. The keyboard was uncomfortable. I don't need these stupid supertall 20:9 stretched screens, but I need enough width to type. I miss 16:9 phones, my old Moto Z was the comfiest-typing phone screen ever.
That phone is a great size.
There is nothing new and exciting coming out. I remember buying the first smart phone, that was really cool and exiting. Now they are like televisions, nothing exciting about them anymore.
To be fair, there were improvements that legit made the experience much better. Going with your TV example, changes between CRT and LCD is huge.
Nevertheless, there's no reason to but a new one very year.
That switch was more than 10 years ago.
Good.
Contract subsidies are kind of coming back in the form of "trade in bill credits.". Previously you'd sign a 2 year contract and they would subsidize your phone, however; I just got $800 of trade in credit at Verizon for a phone they normally give $150 for.
The catch, of course there are many... the bill credits are over 3 years, and in my case fully offset the cost of the monthly phone purchase price; if you leave you need to pay off the remaining balance, and if you upgrade you lose your credits. Also you need to be on an unlimited plus plan.
However; I now have a new phone with no additional monthly payments. The last Samsung I had made it 5 years, and the new one actually has a serviceable battery!
If you break your new phone, you can't fall back to your old one and you will have to pay over MSRP for a replacement if you buy it from your carrier. That's the real reason they want you to trade the old phone. That and to kill the resale market.
I ended up getting the S23 Ultra, (had to come out of pocket a bit), and if you get Samsung's Care+ insurance it's $8 a month, so basically $100 a year if something goes catastrophically wrong. I will probably carry that insurance for the first two years or so of owning the phone. Given I rely upon my phone for a ton of business, my home phone, social communication etc, it seems fairly reasonable as they claim to have 24 hour replacement.
Good. Hope we can now focus on market consolidation and get rid of phones as fashion statements.
Uhh no. Now they will very specifically become fashion statements and the constant new iPhone is how the rich and those that care deeply and want to pretend to be rich will show off. That's why they make people care if the chat bubble is the right color or not.
I'm not really surprised, smartphones kinda hit this point of "good enough for most people's purposes" 3-4y ago and short of an actual reason to upgrade like the 4g-5g switchover there isn't a lot of incentive for most people to throw down $400-1k for a new phone every couple of years.
I would have happily kept my OnePlus 7T for a few more years if the network switchover didn't require new hardware.
Personally I don't need a faster smartphone at this point, if anything motivates me to buy a new one it's usually better radios, better battery runtime and better cameras. The rest of the gewgaws don't matter much for daily use.
Also I would add inflation went up, prices jumped. Meaning not so much free spending cash any more. People might have previously had the cash to update phone, just for sake of update even without it being necessary. Now days? People have way more important things they have to spend more money on.
It seemed the last incentive they were trying to get people to upgrade was throwing as many cameras as possible on the back. Companies need to try and innovate again and the folding screens is at least one way of them trying something new. Prices have also climbed dramatically so I'm not surprised people are bothering to upgrade.
Agreed
This market stagnation was what got me to buy a Fold. Every 3-5 years of the same size slabs, just imperceptibly "faster". Then came something new finally. Same as my pixel 2xl, I'll have this till the battery or screen starts to go.
Which phone did you upgrade to? I also have the 7T and quite happy with it except for brightness outdoors
I hit fleaBay and bought a used 9 Pro. All I really wanted out of the upgrade were newer radios (5g + AX wifi) and better cameras. I think I paid around $350, if my track record holds I'll keep it for 2-3 years then do the same again for the same reasons. I've been halfway looking at a 10 Pro/T or an 11 model for better battery runtime (Snapdragon 888 is a bit of a battery hog for the performance) but I don't really have a reason to upgrade yet.
It's more tied to the change of the business model.
Phones used to be subsided by the plan and the 2 year contract lock in, so if you didn't upgrade every cycle you were effectively leaving money on the table.
This is why the market accelerated so quickly compared to any other class of hardware.
As the 2 year contract fell out of favor (thanks largely to T-Mobile), you had 2 year heavily discounted payment plans tied to device trade in that took their place, but these were opt-in as opposed to the previous model which was built in to every contract.
While the economy was strong, the depreciation on your current device and effectively FOMO on maximizing its trade in value kept the system driven at similar numbers.
But as purses have tightened, suddenly the outlay on increasingly expensive devices with lower trade in values for past devices is a racket people are opting out of.
It was never really about features as opposed to status and reup indicators. Most of the rest of the world has more like 3 year phone replacement cycles for the past decade, and have been fine with the same feature parity per model year as US phones.
I'm honestly surprised the 2 year thing kept going as long as it did.
My Huawei Mate 10 pro (2017) was the last phone that felt like an upgrade. Everything since then has been better in some respects, worse in others. Just a replacement for a phone that is physically too broken to be used any longer.
I don't think I'll ever spend €1000 or more for a phone anymore, even though I could afford it. I'm just not willing to spend that much money on a phone that offers hardly anything new. Maybe if they finally make a fairphone with a decent camera, I would pay a premium for repairability so I can use it for more than 3 years before it inevitably falls apart...
Well.. contract lengths are getting longer, what do they expect?
Also, one phone is very much like another these days. You don't get a lot by upgrading.
I picked up a Pixel 6 for about three hundred. The last phone I had was a Moto One Action. I prefer the Moto for a lot of things but the irony is the final reason I had to get rid of it is the USB-C charging port was fucked. Of course the battery was very crap by then and the screen was cracked to hell too.
I really like that phone though. Lots of functions just by shaking it, like the flashlight came on when I tomahawk chopped it twice. Super handy. If I could have fixed it for a reasonable price I would have.
That USB-C thing made me laugh though. I've had to use iPhones for work a lot, and the one thing I really like was clicking in the lighting port to charge it. Never failed. On more than one android the USB-C gets wonky, where you have to tilt the cable to get the connectors to touch and stuff. Not bad, but not even as good as the old USB mini chargers.
I love Moto actions. The twist for camera, the shake for flashlight are both awesome. Too bad they don't seem to use AMOLED screens anymore. I'm on Pixel 6, but held onto my Moto Z, first Gen, for as long as I could.
I'd like netbooks to come back. That was a good idea (and sufficiently popular, and probably slaughtered due to some backstage pressure from Microsoft, cause those were often used with Linux, I even remember that some were sold with Linux).
my samsung has dex mode so I just plug that in to my monitor at work and use it to log in to my VM or just as is if its something that the mobile firefox browser can do. I even got a 70 dollar portable monitor that works great with it for camping trips or something
netbooks
I use an 11 Macbook air as my casual device and I love it. It's also pre-glass screens so I've dropped it a few times (from a 1-2') and it hasn't shattered. It's using this device which has had me rethink my computer situation.
I've actually considered getting a small 11" netbook, putting Linux on it, and using it wherever a tablet would often be used.
I still have my gaming desktop, but I don't need all that power to play movies on a plane, connect to ODB II, or read woodworking plans in the shop.
Chromebooks are decent depending on your needs.
Netbooks were replaced by ultrabooks. Install Linux on one if you want.
... usually produced by something like Packard Bell, and though cheap, still too expensive for their build quality, and weaker than Raspberry Pi, and with problematic hardware (which matters for Linux use).
Still if not for the latter I'd buy one.
Phones have provided nothing new in a decade exceot incremental upgrades and foldables are... fragile and expensive
My foldable has been much more robust and drop-resistant than a candy bar ever was.
I have a Samsung note 20. I got it some time in 2021, I think. I only replaced it because my previous Note 20 fell out of it's mount on my motorcycle handlebar on the highway, and while I apparently have international calls, this doesn't mean the phone can be run over by an International.
Before I got the original ill-fated Samsung in 2021, I was using a Moto X4 that I bought in 2017. That one still works, but the battery dies fast, so I use it as a screen for a camera drone.
If I were to go buy the latest Samsung Note, I seriously doubt it would be noticeably better than my Note 20. I normally wouldn't bother to get a phone this nice, but I wanted to treat myself, just once.
We're at a point now where you don't need to upgrade every 6 months or a year. Phones work perfectly fine for 2 to even 5 years now with updates.
Micro updates such as slightly faster processing power or a slightly better camera is not appealing at all.
Foldables is where the next smartphone market is but the technology is way too young and they're mechanically fragile resulting in problems within only months of purchase.
Oh I have a foldable. Also the software sucks and they can't find reasons for the folding at all. Maybe the flip will have a better market but it messes with battery life, antenna signal and more for a product that yells that an app is incompatible or doesn't fit the screen right.
I know I'm in the early adopter tax but I could have actually done without this one as a techie
Yeah as a techie, 100% wouldn't recommend. Also they are 5 generations in and nothing really has changed.
Foldable are not fragile in my experience. I've had my Fold for over a year now and I've dropped it many times without issue.
Good
I understand 'worst sales' but 'worst performance' doesn't really fit. It's in my opinion this is a fantastic performance on the market. With right to repair, longer software support, some models with replaceable batteries, we can use the phones longer and make the industry more sustainable and consumer friendly. For the last years already, the model feature upgrades were marginal and it's fine that way.
In the future, I'd hope for further technical and regulatory development in that direction, resulting in further reduced annual sales numbers.
When the whole western society has been force fed that "we must consume else our economy will collapse", not continously outselling (and throwing away barely year old work) is bad, this is the result.
I'm using a Samsung Galaxy S10 for over three years now and I don't see a reason why I should get a new one anytime soon.
Everyone is poor from inflation and a million different subscription services and smartphone makers haven't done anything new in years so there's no point in getting a new phone unless the old one breaks.
My Samsung phones keep "mysteriously" going to shit after 18 to 22 months so I might try an iPhone when my current one shits the bed. Hopefully they will get their head out of their ass and reduce/remove the cutout.
Just realize that iOS is NOT like Android at all. Some people can’t make the switch. Also, the cut out is not noticeable in daily use. The app I’m using right now isn’t showing it. It’s a non-issue in reality.
I'm a stickler for a headphone jack so I just replaced the battery in my 4a instead of buying a new one. Not sure how to proceed with the EOL security updates but Lineage is always an option. If they would just release a phone with a headphone jack I'd have a new phone next week.
I miss my Samsung S4 so much. That thing was amazing. It lasted like, 8 years or something, the longest by far of any of my phones.
Phones has been fast enough for me without upgrading to new hardware the last few years.
And with a Fairphone, it is actually feasible to repair and change battery once in a while :)
Something something trust thermocline.
My new motorola has about 2 gigs of bloat that I can't get rid of and I'm sure it's worse on the newer phones.
Fairphone 5, just the basic Gapps (all deactivated), no other bloat.
(☞ ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)☞
Did you get your phone from your carrier? In addition, some brands do that with cheaper phones. Can buy unlocked phones.
Maybe try Google Pixel or iPhones that have terms against pre-installing shit.
I hit my limit with hope much I’m willing to pay for a phone. Unless my contracting work needs the best phone I’ll be capping myself at a price by getting not the latest phone.
Time to look for the next big thing!
So divert the flow to africa maybe? where they do not have smart phones yet? Oh -- they do not have electricity networks there, so maybe sell them with solar chargers.
Mine is 5 years old, a Samsung S9. Other then the shorter battery everything seems to work just fine.
Imagine if you could easily swap a new battery in. Heaven.
I paid someone to replace the battery in my Samsung S10E. The battery was never good in that thing to begin with despite all my favorite tech YouTubers saying otherwise. Anywho, I think the repair shop must have gaevin me a bunk battery because it was worse than before. Got a pixel 7 last year. I definitely would have preferred to just be able to swap the battery myself.
Goodness the S9. If I could turn back time and keep that phone. I ended up "upgrading" to an S20 or 21 and hated every second of my interaction with that phone. I ended up "upgrading" again to the fold just so I could have a physical fingerprint sensor instead of the garbage screen one but now have to deal with bad apps and wonky battery life and no cases.
I really think Samsung peaked at the S7 or S9 both were fantastic phones.
That's what happens when you keep increasing the price without adding value.