Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
The global smartphone market is shrinking for the first time as choosey buyers in emerging markets hang on to their mobiles for longer.
In Gartner's Q4 sales stats, Samsung maintained a narrow lead in global volume shipments of smartphones – but every major (top five) vendor outside of those based in China saw unit shipments slip.
Some 407.84 million handsets found a new home in the quarter, equating to a 5.6 per cent slide or 24.29 million fewer phones sold than the prior year.
Several major factors caused the market shrinkage, said Anshul Gupta, research director at Gartner. "First, upgrades from feature phones to smartphones have slowed right down due to a lack of quality 'ultra-low-cost' smartphones and users preferring to buy quality feature phones.
"Second, replacement smartphone users are choosing quality models and keeping them longer, lengthening the replacement cycle of smartphones. Moreover, while demand for high quality, 4G connectivity and better camera features remained strong, high expectations and few incremental benefits during replacement weakened smartphone sales," Gupta added.
This is a characteristic of the emerging markets, where all the action is – not mature markets like the UK or USA.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 26 2018, @01:17PM
There's more than one market segment. Look at automobiles - some people always want a new vehicle and replace often while others hold on for 10, maybe even 20 years. Some lease theirs, others buy, and many buy used. They're getting more reliable and safer and most people who want one already have one.