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Smartphone Shipments Expected To Drop for the Third Consecutive Year in 2019 (idc.com) 73

Posted by msmash from the changing-times dept.
Research firm IDC projects: The smartphone market continues to be challenged and 2019 is projected to experience its third consecutive year of declining shipments. Worldwide smartphone volumes are forecast to fall by 0.8% in 2019 with volumes dipping to 1.39 billion. However, the smartphone market will begin to pick up momentum this year with year-over-year growth of 2.3% expected in the second half of the year. Over the long term, smartphone shipments are forecast to reach 1.54 billion units in 2023.

The current year is expected to witness a new high for technological innovation with the introduction of foldable devices and 5G smartphones. Marketing buzz around 5G is in its early stages but expected to ramp up quickly. And while use cases for upgrading to a 5G device/service remain unclear, it is evident that after 2019 the adoption will begin to attain significant numbers. IDC currently expects 5G smartphone shipments to account for roughly 1 out of every 4 smartphones shipped globally in 2023.
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Smartphone Shipments Expected To Drop for the Third Consecutive Year in 2019 More

Smartphone Shipments Expected To Drop for the Third Consecutive Year in 2019

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  • Obligatory Hipster Comment (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    People still use smartphones?

  • They are lasting longer (Score:5, Insightful)

    by SuperKendall ( 25149 ) on Thursday March 07, 2019 @12:14PM (#58231474)

    It's not like fewer people want smartphones...

    What is happening, is that there is decreasing value in getting the latest model. It makes a lot more sense to wait three years before getting a new phone than it did before... on top of higher prices, people are waiting.

    It will be interesting to see what this new slower wave of smart phone replacements as primary market looks like... will phone makers start to not release new models quite so often?

    • Yep. Same thing happened with PC's. "Back in the day" you really needed to buy a computer every few years to stay up to date. These days most of the PC's in my home are close to 10 years old.

      Smartphones - same. I bought a premium phone in 2016 (Galaxy S7) and was fine with it until it died on me. I replaced it with another 2016 vintage used phone (an LG V20) and am equally happy with it. Honestly I'll probably use this phone too until it actually stops working.

      A smartphone is a great tool - but hones

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by gweihir ( 88907 )

        Indeed. There is no need for more speed, memory, etc. at all at this time. Sure, vendors try to get people to keep buying faster hardware, but there is only so much they can do, battery, heat and form-factor being what they are and screen resolutions already being vastly higher than needed. On the PC side, a 10 year old mid-range machine is still working fine even for gaming, because there are similar limits. The hardware revolution is over, hardware is mostly finished and will now improve only very, very s

      • I bought a premium phone in 2016 (Galaxy S7) and was fine with it until it died on me.

        After less than three years? What kind of PoS is that? In my family we own eight old phones, none of them Samsung, none of them premium, at least six of them more than three years old - and all of them still functional.

        • I bought a premium phone in 2016 (Galaxy S7) and was fine with it until it died on me.

          After less than three years? What kind of PoS is that? In my family we own eight old phones, none of them Samsung, none of them premium, at least six of them more than three years old - and all of them still functional.

          Typically it is the battery that goes first (which is a great thing about the phone he switched to, batteries are easily replaced by end user)

        • Yeah I wasn't happy about the S7 dying but it was out of warranty and I don't typically keep insurance on my phones (with the monthly costs plus it still costing $100 anyways for a replacement it's cheaper for me to just get another used phone in good condition if my phone breaks or is damaged).

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by hjf ( 703092 )

      No, the market is just too saturated.
      Time to open up the market to the next billion people. Let developed nations make actual efforts to take africa, latin america, and asia from poverty and there's a billion more potential clients.

      • But no money in it.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by hjf ( 703092 )

          Son, are you dumb? Didn't you read what I just wrote?

          This isn't a thing that happens from one day to another. It's a process that takes decades. Latin America is a huge market but useless because the US only sees LATAM as a strategic resources reserve and keeps all these economies underdeveloped so they won't use up those minerals. God forbid they develop and start having money, and defense, and ally with "evil" countries such as China or Russia.

          Do you think Venezuela is poor because of socialism? The count

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      Probably people start to get wise and look how long they will be getting updates before buying. Personally, I have an absolute requirement of a replaceable battery and current Lineage being supported or I will simply not buy.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by sd4f ( 1891894 )
      If they supported the software for a little longer, and did a battery change, there's no other reason now why they couldn't last for about 5 years. The phones get forced into obsolescence through lack of support.

    • It will be interesting to see what this new slower wave of smart phone replacements as primary market looks like... will phone makers start to not release new models quite so often?

      While that would be logical, it will never happen. Shareholders demand growth, because they're greedy. They expect ridiculous sales numbers to simply last into infinity, even after you've populated the world with a product.

      So, what will actually happen is software support will get shorter and shorter, security updates and patching will be designed to hobble "old" hardware more, forcing more consumers to purchase the latest model.

      And like cars, they'll propose leasing new hardware instead of buying it as a

    • The thing is all the technology has moved to the Cloud. Where the App provider needs to deal with improving its technology and speed. While the Cell phone needs to be just powerful enough to display the information without lag. Screen Resolution today is insane, and they run as fast as a 3 year old PC. There isn't much needed for us to Upgrade our phones for. Even the Game market has not fully used the power of the Phone, with most of the games being low quality shareware stuff we had 30 years ago.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by havana9 ( 101033 )
      On top of this, the flagship models are expensive when lower end model are fully adequate for most users, and actually flagship models have less capabilities like headphone jacks and SD card slots. Older flagship models are still quite capable nowadays so people aren't interested to upgrade. It's almost the same thing happened on personal computers. People are still buying PC but is a substitution market.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mjwx ( 966435 )

      It's not like fewer people want smartphones...

      What is happening, is that there is decreasing value in getting the latest model. It makes a lot more sense to wait three years before getting a new phone than it did before... on top of higher prices, people are waiting.

      It will be interesting to see what this new slower wave of smart phone replacements as primary market looks like... will phone makers start to not release new models quite so often?

      And now from the non-Apple fanboy newsdesk.

      Phones haven't really increased in price if we exclude Apple and even Apple keeps a low end (read last years) phone at a lower than insane price. However for normal people, prices have remained fairly stagnant over the last few years for average phones. I paid £270 for my Nexus 5x over 3 years ago and about the same for my Nokia 7.1 a bit over 3 months ago. The only reason I bought the Nokia 7.1 was because my venerable Nexus 5x sadly died.

      And that, lad

  • Foldable, maybe. 5G, meh. (Score:3)

    by green1 ( 322787 ) on Thursday March 07, 2019 @12:20PM (#58231522)
    5G is the future, but there's just no way to take advantage of it in any meaningful way. Sure, it's faster, but I can't really use the existing LTE speed as I could theoretically blow through my data cap in just a couple of minutes, and even the largest available data caps in my country quite quickly. additionally, there's just nothing I would do on a phone that would need that kind of speed.

    It's great that they're going that way, but it won't make me rush out and buy a new phone. What WOULD make me buy a new phone is if they had some innovative new feature, but that ship seems to have sailed as every phone in the last 5 years has fewer features than the one before it. (removal of IR ports, headphone jacks, replaceable batteries, HDMI output. Phone screens that claim to be larger, but are smaller due to ridiculous aspect ratios. Materials that are designed to make the phones more breakable). "upgrading" is now seen as a risk to see what you'll be forced to lose just to get a slightly faster processor and an up to date operating system and meanwhile the prices of phones are skyrocketing through the roof (the Note 9 is more than double the price of the note 4, yet has a smaller screen, no ir port, no replaceable battery, and an easily shattered super slippery glass back). I'm not yet convinced that "foldable" is the new feature that would do it for me though, it has potential, but I'm just not sold on it yet.

    What phone manufacturers need to do if they want people to keep upgrading is to make the new phone feel like it's actually BETTER than the one they are getting rid of, not just newer.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by b0bby ( 201198 )

      What WOULD make me buy a new phone is if they had some innovative new feature, but that ship seems to have sailed as every phone in the last 5 years has fewer features than the one before it. ...

      What phone manufacturers need to do if they want people to keep upgrading is to make the new phone feel like it's actually BETTER than the one they are getting rid of, not just newer.

      One area in which they have made huge improvements is in the cameras. That was 90% of the reason I bought my Pixel 3. Pretty much all I use my phone for is basic texting, light web browsing, Waze - and taking lots of photos. I have an SLR, and a high quality compact, but I don't take them with me anymore unless there's some special reason. For 99% of day to day pictures, my phone now is just fine.

  • And do you think this is news? (Score:3)

    by aglider ( 2435074 ) on Thursday March 07, 2019 @12:24PM (#58231550) Homepage

    How many smartphones do you want to sell?
    Two for every single human?
    Then you won't be able to sell more than 14B devices. 5B is a more accurate estimate.
    Then the year after you'll sell only a few millions to replace the broken ones.

    This thing of the continuous growth is really really bul15h!t!

    • Your point is accurate. We do need to add in additional sales for those that switch from iOS to Android and vise versa, along with replacements for lost phones, and those coming of age who get their first phone. There are also those like some of my friends who will switch through several phones in a single year. But you're right, at some point you hit a critical mass where significant increases in sales aren't possible and shouldn't be expected.

  • Headphone Jacks and Unlocked Bootloaders (Score:3)

    by xack ( 5304745 ) on Thursday March 07, 2019 @12:28PM (#58231584)
    Why don't you want my money?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      Corporate greed and stupidity is the name of the game for a lot of tech products these days.

    • Because they can make more money without your money.
      The headphone jack, is a big spot of empty space, which can be used for more battery, or an extra IC or censor.
      Even if they readded the headphone jacks, and unlock the boot loader, would you still buy the product, or you will find some other reason to not buy it from them.

      Making phones easier to hack, is great for us tech folks, but will also make phones insecure for the average Joe. So once their devices are known as insecure and prone to spyware and vir

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by sjames ( 1099 )

        It's easy to make physical presence necessary to update a phone.

        As for the headphone and more battery, HAHAHAHAHAHA. They'll just make it thinner and more fragile instead of adding more battery. All so the buyer can immediately lock it away in a chunky case to restore the durability that should never have been engineered out in the first place.

        If they really want to continue with sales, they're going to have to get over their idea that everybody wants X (whatever X happens to be today) and recognize that so

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by jbengt ( 874751 )

        The headphone jack, is a big spot of empty space, which can be used for more battery, or an extra IC or censor.

        So no more phone porn for you then.

  • Don't really need any more.

    The old ones without a data plan become useful controllers of various things or small streaming devices hooked to the wireless router.

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • a new high(1) for technological innovation with the introduction of foldable(2) devices and 5G(3) smartphones

    1 Nothing high from here.

    2 super expensive, super easily breakable devices which are meant to replace tablets which are barely used nowadays?

    3 Really? Like we don't already have 4G which is more than enough for most of people and still inaccessible for the rest (either no infrastructure or extremely expensive)?

    Sorry, as for smartphones we reached "good enough" several years ago and all the fuzz

    • Nowadays there are two main drivers of a smartphone upgrade: dead irreplaceable battery (thanks to the fact that modern smartphones are not user serviceable) or/and physical damage. New tech? Meh.

    • Really? Like we don't already have 4G which is more than enough for most of people

      Much of it depends on to what extent the greater theoretical capacity of 5G translates into higher monthly data usage quotas offered by cellular ISPs. "Unlimited" plans in USA carry a big asterisk about hotspot use.

  • I have a Oneplus One I bought when it first came out. It still works fine with LineageOS, and I still get 2 days of battery life since I don't have any non-essential apps on it.

    It has a headphone jack and expandable storage. I will never buy a phone without both of these things.

    • EmagGeek, you might like the Nokia 7.1. It has both a headphone jack and expandable storage. Mine is running Android 9 with the security patch level February 1, 2019. $300. It will get two years of OS updates and three years of security patches.
  • Market saturation, and the price of phones now, is causing consumers to KEEP what they have. Phones of the last few generations, if the battery holds out, are "good enough" for 99% of consumers usage. Once the $1,000 barrier was broken, more people are HOLDING onto their phones longer. Why do you think the "rush" to make a folding screen, no matter how stupid they look.

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