Gartner: You think Huawei's sales figures are bad now? Wait till you see next year's

Although shipments of smartphones to the channel recovered somewhat in the third quarter of 2020, that hasn't necessarily translated into sales. According to Gartner's quarterly Global Smartphone Market Share report, sales dropped 5.7 per cent to 366.6 million. This, the analyst noted, is the third consecutive quarterly …

[Pascal Monett]

5G

Mobile phones are the new treadmill. Once upon a time it was desktop PCs, but the technology has hit a ceiling and nobody upgrades every year any more.

Now, we have mobile phones for that, with a new, must-have model every year and new connection technology every now and again.

Personally, I fail to see the interest. You don't need next year's model if you have a working phone already. Whatever way it is better is not worth the price. Use your phone until it breaks, then buy a new one.

Stop the waste. Mobile phones are full of toxic stuff.

[_LC_]

Re: 5G

The problem is that telco companies are luring people into contracts where they get a new phone every two years or so. The manufacturers are into this, obviously, handing out discounts to the big players. This is being steered/dictated from above, therefore. Sure, you can withstand and become "the uncool weirdo", as the media plays along too, of course.

[Charlie Clark]

Re: 5G

The problem is that telco companies are luring people into contracts where they get a new phone every two years or so

That's been the model for years but is increasingly less the case as more and more users switch to SIM-only PAYG contracts, which are generally much cheaper and keep their "old" phones for longer, because they're generally still more than good enough.

5G was dreamt up by the networks in the hope that it would turbo charge the refresh cycle but this doesn't seem to be having that much effect. If you already have a good 4G signal, 5G doesn't offer very much and if you don't have a good 4G signal you almost certainly won't have a good 5G one!

[_LC_]

Re: 5G

Forget all the fuzz that the media made about 5G. Technically, it's just 4G+. The differences are minimal and not few stations were able to switch with a software update.

The statistics are different in many other countries. Many have seen a decline in prepaid and an increase in monthly paid contracts (with free phones).

[a_yank_lurker]

Re: 5G

Some carriers do not lock users in with a contract. So there are no 'discounts' on the phones and you own it outright. It costs more for the phone and you tend to keep it longer but the monthly fees are often much less; the 'discount' is rolled into the monthly fees and contract.

[_LC_]

Re: 5G

Yes, but I'm talking about what the majority of people tend to pay for and why telcos/manufacturers/media push them towards it.

[IGotOut]

Well...

..great news for Huawei. If Gartner are reporting it a fact they will suffer, then looks like it will be a good year for them.

[DJV]

Re: Well...

I came here to say exactly the same thing!

[a_yank_lurker]

Re: Well...

Or is this the rare case were Gartner accidentally gets it right?

[DS999]

If overall sales fell 5.7%

And Apple sales fell by only 0.6%, that seems like a win for them as it represents a share gain in the overall market despite the iPhone 12 delay.

[Yes Me]

Bad news for who, exactly?

The worse the impact on Huawei, the worse it will be for Western industry a few years from now. Success of the US trade war against Huawei will only increase the Chinese efforts to build their own high-tech supply chain and make themselves even better at defeating Western competitors.

Playing trade as a zero-sum game has never been a good idea. Hopefully the Biden Administration will understand that in a way that tRump never could.

[_LC_]

Re: Bad news for who, exactly?

> ... make them even better at defeating Western competitors.

Which isn't hard, considering that they let them build those phones as well. Guess who can deliver them cheaper, with US companies expecting big margins? ;-)

[Wincerind]

I must be missing something here. According to the fugures in the article Huawei are haveing a really awful year selling 51.8 million phones while apple are a bit down selling 40.5 million. So, awful is still over 11 million phones more than Apple?