back to article Trump tariff turmoil hurting global smartphone market, but hitting US hardest

The Trump administration's chaotic tariff regime is likely to have a serious impact on the smartphone market worldwide, but the latest forecasts predict the disruption will be felt most keenly in the one economy Trump is trying to protect: The United States.  Analyst Counterpoint Research revised its global smartphone shipment …

  1. IGotOut Silver badge

    Hands up who didn't see this coming?

    Ok, those outside the Whitehouse...Hands up who didn't see this coming?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Hands up who didn't see this coming?

      Buy a phone now … and by the time your next upgrade cycle comes around the Orange Fuckwit will be gone…. and likely the entire Big Beautiful Bill abomination supporting GOP.

      < Following the lead shown by UK’s Brexit enacting Conservatives to oblivion>.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Hands up who didn't see this coming?

        "< Following the lead shown by UK’s Brexit enacting Conservatives to oblivion>"

        unfortunately labour who are now tories in red ties after the starmer take over, learned nothing.

        and now have opened us up to deformuk and fartrage populist far right insane shit. (Uk voters are just as fucking stupid as americans)

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Hands up who didn't see this coming?

          They still have 2-3 years to pull it back, and won’t be able to entirely blame the previous 14 years of Tory shit.

          Dec 2027 will be key year to take stock.

          Most UK Governments would ‘be better’ if they weren’t weight down by debt and little fiscal room to manoeuvre and legacy of shit decisions.

          That being said 12 months after Labour’s Green Economic recovery being sacrificed and replaced by Starmer’s War Economy is a further disappointment.

          Esp. as its Drones, drones, drones and Cyber not Aircraft Carrier’s, JSF, Trident warheads, AUKUS subs and decade late armoured personnel carriers needed this days.

          Some Toyota Hiluxes, shoulder launched missiles and a million drones is seemingly the required future.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Visualization of Tariff as a weapon

    Non sequitur

    He says it's a new weapon called tariff

  3. simonlb Silver badge
    Stop

    AI May Be A Factor

    The fact that absolutely everyone is ramming AI into as much stuff as possible as if it is an industry-wide competition might also have something to do with it. I don't want a load of half-arsed random AI shit bumbling around on my phone, popping up all the time and getting in the way while burning through my battery reserves, I just want a durable handset with a working OS a decent and usable UI as well as updates for a few years.

    Just because AI is there, doesn't mean it has to be shoved into everything available because 'reasons'. Just like Clippy, you can fuck off with that shit!

    1. doublelayer Silver badge

      Re: AI May Be A Factor

      I doubt it. I am not put off by the inclusion of AI in a new device. I'll turn it off, and I'm pretty sure it will let me, and that will be the end of it. I think AI is just another thing the manufacturers think should add to the price that most buyers don't want to pay more for. That's not new. Manufacturers have been sticking useless things into their phones for a while now because there's basically two differences between low-end and high-end phones nowadays: more internal storage, which does matter a little to almost anyone*, and how many types of cameras there are on the back and how many pixels the non-main ones capture which probably matters to somebody, but not me.

      When smartphones were new, there were basically no cheap options. For many of the years after that, the cheap ones were terrible. Now, although you can still find a terrible cheap Android phone if you work hard, the low-end devices are often reasonably capable and, for many users, hard to distinguish from the expensive ones. Phone manufacturers are still looking for the new advance that will cause massive demand, but none of them have found it. The same thing is why people don't replace their computers frequently anymore, and unless some heretofore unimagined feature is invented which revolutionizes the product again, it will probably happen to phones. Add in random price increases from tariffs and I'm not surprised that people aren't jumping to buy something.

      * Internal storage matters even if you have an SD card slot. Most low-end phones still come with one, but only some types of data work well on it. You can store photos and music on an SD card, but apps often like to store their data on the internal memory and either don't let you move it, act oddly if you do, or benefit from the faster internal storage. I think a lot of Android manufacturers are deliberately capping the storage options for their cheaper devices because offering a low-end phone with more would compete too much with their high-end ones.

      1. DJO Silver badge

        Re: AI May Be A Factor

        I am not put off by the inclusion of AI in a new device. I'll turn it off

        Good luck with that. It will be integrated at the OS level.

        I'm pretty sure it will let me

        Oh you sweet summer child - where have you been for the last 20 years?

        1. doublelayer Silver badge

          Re: AI May Be A Factor

          I haven't found it very hard to disable AI stuff that manufacturers of things thought I'd want. The reason: it costs them money to run the queries through their servers (the models are too big to run locally). I already paid for the hardware. That I don't want to use the expensive thing they built into their price is a benefit to them. It's not like advertising, which does earn them money and is therefore harder to get rid of. Of course, they can always change this.

        2. Captain Hogwash Silver badge
          Pint

          Re: AI May Be A Factor

          This deserves to be the most upvoted post I've seen in a long while.

      2. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

        Re: AI May Be A Factor

        So on an admittedly small sample, you and the OP, that's a 50% cut in the market at a first approximation.

        1. doublelayer Silver badge

          Re: AI May Be A Factor

          Which isn't very useful, is it. We have two different guesses about how the market will respond, guesses that are contradictory. Since neither of us will be able to prove them until we have another year at least of data, and we probably won't be able to then either*, speculation is all any of us will be able to do.

          * Let's say that, a year from now, there has been a substantial drop in number of phones sold. Was that drop due to AI features being unwanted? Was it due to tariffs? Was it due to phones not having usable updates? The answer is almost certainly all three, but to attribute it to any of those, we'd need to know how much effect each had. That's something manufacturers, with very specific data about which devices people bought, when, and for how much would find tricky to confidently determine. The data the rest of us get, total number of units by company, won't be enough to answer it then. Unless we find better sources, we'll still only be able to speculate then too.

      3. ChrisElvidge Silver badge

        Only two differences?

        I think you forgot thinness (thickness), where a difference of 0.1mm seems to be important to reviewers (and advertisers).

    2. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

      Re: AI May Be A Factor

      "Just because AI is there, doesn't mean it has to be shoved into everything"

      AI is the new IoT. Mostly shit and useless.

    3. Irongut Silver badge

      Re: AI May Be A Factor

      I don't give a shit about the orange moron's tarrifs since they don't affect me.

      But, I still won't be replacing my 3 year old phone this year because my battery still lasts 3 days and I don't want the AI shite Samsung have shoveled on to the S25.

      1. ChrisElvidge Silver badge

        Re: AI May Be A Factor

        "I don't give a shit about the orange moron's tarrifs since they don't affect me."

        You will when 'phone manufacturers start increasing worldwide prices to offset the losses from US tariffs.

  4. PCScreenOnly

    Why upgrade ?

    When the manufacturer stops providing updates and you want to keep on using backing apps

    otherwise there is no real point

    Cameras are not dramatically improving

    Microsd - most seem to be stopping:(

    Ai - keep that shit away from me

    My old phone had a green screen issue which meant an upgrade a couple of years ago. At a recent family event, I took a few pics on my phone (Sony) and numerous mentioned how good it was (mostly iPhone users)

    I do hate bankd that will et you run their app on an ancient unrooted phone that is so vulnerable, but won't if you root and put on the latest asop build - as it is a "security risk"

    1. DS999 Silver badge

      Re: Why upgrade ?

      Some families have sort of rolling upgrades where the parents have the newer phones and the kids get hand me downs and maybe hand me downs of hand me downs. So mom might buy a new one so her teenage daughter can upgrade to her older one and so forth.

      Others will get it because they are on a cellular plan (again often a family plan) where you get upgrades based on a schedule. If they are giving a free upgrade, or heavily discounting an upgrade, and you don't take it then you've been wasting your money on that plan versus getting a cheaper prepaid plan that comes without that stuff.

      1. PCScreenOnly

        Re: Why upgrade ?

        Potentially, but in a lot of cases there is no point in upgrading and moving to a cheap SIM only is going to save you hundreds, if not thousands before there is a really compelling reason to upgrade

        I know they are supposed to move to to a cheap deal when your 2/3 year contract is up, but most of those are a ripoff compared to what to can get

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    The one economy Trump is trying to protect

    Not sure you should take the propaganda at face value...

    1. Gary Stewart Silver badge

      Re: The one economy Trump is trying to protect

      "The one economy Trump is trying to protect"

      Well thank god Moronodon I is looking out for our economy otherwise we would be up shit creek. Now where did I put that paddle?

      I finally figured out when the US began it's decline into idiocracy. It's when the company that made Shinola shoe polish went out of business. And for our Commonwealth friends (at least we have the perception of an inkling of a concept of an trade agreement with you) that may be less than familiar with American pearls of wisdom the saying is for someone that is not able to tell the difference between shit and Shinola.

  6. Mitoo Bobsworth Silver badge

    America is like the Titanic

    Too big to turn, too slow to react, in denial about sinking, and there aren't enough lifeboats for everyone.

  7. Gene Cash Silver badge

    I just upgraded

    From a Pixel 7 Pro running Android 14 to a Pixel 6 Pro running Android 12.

    My GPS died, and my touchscreen started going, and I sure as hell wasn't paying $1,000+ for a newer phone.

    The 6 is the exact same size and speed as the 7, and the camera isn't any worse.

    Put a headphone jack in it and yes, I will buy a $1,000 phone. Otherwise, fuck off.

  8. Gary Stewart Silver badge

    "Trump tariff turmoil hurting global smartphone market, but hitting US hardest"

    Doing what he does best.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    It takes a special kind of stupid

    Way to go Donny.

  10. ThoughtDiverse

    Well ...

    The market has also reached maturity. People are getting bored with paying for more features they don't need. And, it is important to not become 100% reliant on foreign nations.

    1. johnck

      Re: Well ...

      Completely agree.

      Phone, or computer, have become like washing machines, you don't go out and buy a new washing machine just because a new model came out. You buy a new washing machine when the old one breaks or gets to expensive to repair. Manufactures, markets and analysts need to adjust to that

      Your current washing machine/phone/computer... does everything you need it to, and the new model is newer, but still does the same job in the same way, The manufacture saying but the new model can do A, B and now C your old model can only do A and B is meaning less to you, as you really only use it to do A, and only sometimes B, and you don't see a use for C. When your old washing machine breaks and you have to get a new one knowing that Model 0 only does B for 200, Model 1 does A and B for 300, Model 2 does A, B, and C for 400, and Model 3 does A, B, C, D and E for 1200 might mean you sped the extra 100 and get Model 2 to get C because of marketing and stuff, you might get Model 1 as its what you had before, you wont get Model 0 as you really want something that can do A, and unless you need D and E, and you really need them, you're not going spend an extra 900 to get model 3*

      *please replace Model 0, Model 1, Model 2 and Model 3 with items of your choosing and A, B, C, D, and E with features/components of your choosing

    2. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

      Re: Well ...

      "And, it is important to not become 100% reliant on foreign nations"

      Except that Donnys blanket tariffs also push up the prices of imports where there is no alternative. Even a country the size of the USA can't produce everything it wants or needs. Smaller countries even more so because sometimes, capacities and skills not withstanding, sometimes the raw materials simply don't exist within you borders, or at least not enough to satisfy demand. In the modern world it's nigh on impossible to not depend on foreign nations.

    3. David Hicklin Silver badge

      Re: Well ...

      Its called market saturation where the only sales are replacements or new buyers entering the market for the first time.

      The mega-corps still have not worked out that sales increases are not infinite.

  11. nijam Silver badge

    > ...the one economy Trump is trying to protect...

    Hmmm. Are you sure about that? His best hope for re-election (yes, I know, but how long can the constitution last against his destructive tirades?) is to get tnhe country even deeper in the shit, and he'll be lining up a long list of countries (and anyone else he dislikes) as scapegoats.

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