5 YEARS
= 1 BREXIT.
Discuss.
Apple and Samsung are licking their wounds after reporting a double-digit drop in global smartphone sales for calendar Q1, as the sector plunged to the lowest volumes shipped in half a decade. Figures from analyst Canalys show that 313.9 million handsets were shifted in the three months, down 6.8 per cent - the sixth straight …
These are global numbers you muppet. The UK's self inflicted foot shooting will barely register.
However Apple's and Samsungs price related foot shooting seems to be proceeding well. I wonder if Huawei are also suffering for the same reason - they are aiming high on the price side - excluding Honor of course.
I saw the bloatware on friends Samsung phones and put them in the "Never going to buy one of them" column.
I try to get handsets to last 4 or more years before replacement, mostly because I don't use it for much more than sparse communications the odd low effort games & playing music so I normally end up with a Moto G. Easy to root apparently, if I really didn't want any pre-installed crap
They do the same with their TVs. I emailed their customer service and their response was basically "no, you can't uninstall that Facebook app".
To which my reply was... to ask if it could be forwarded to their developers as a feature request for the next release of the base software.
Yes, I'm boring, I know.
How about Apple release a device with some stunning new design features such as octagonal edges, or removal of the power switch, or a nice orange and lime colour scheme. Surely that's more than enough "next gen design" to get the faithful salivating to buy a new phone at some almost reasonable cost???
What's the level of market saturation ? How many people are there in the world who do not have a phone and have the means to pay for and use a flagship model ?
Does anyone really think that such people exist ?
I don't. I think that just about everyone who can have a phone has one. The market is saturated, so shipments are dropping.
Nothing to see here, except marketing people in panic. Well, you're supposed to analyze the market, not react to it. A drop in shipments is inevitable, as we are now transitioning to a replacement market - which is something marketing should know.
It's not just that it's a replacement market. It's also the fact that the replacements are slowing too.
<IMHO>
When there was high innovation (especially when prices were lower) then more people were enticed by the shiny new kit. When older devices still work so well and can run most of the apps available there is less incentive to upgrade. A combination of bundled phone insurance, third party repair shops and screen covers/cases being almost ubiquitous make replacement due to damage less likely also.
</IMHO>
I guess it means iOS. I have a company issued iPhone 5S which was handed to me in 2013. It has recently taken the lastest 12.2 version OTA. It's not actually showing signs of slowness in the OS though.
And it has its original battery and screen. How can this be possible?
Almost all of them.
That I know of, the only brand issuing regular updates for older phones other than Apple is Xiaomi, who were still issuing quarterly updates to my oldest phone (original Red Rice 3G version) right up to the day my daughter broke the 2nd USB charging port (repaired it once - no spares out there now).
My mums 3 y/o Sony gets about 1 update per year, and performance is as ropey as hell, especially bluetooth connection.
Wifes SamGal Note4 hadnt had an update in several years before she swapped it for a Huawei at Christmas and it was dog slow after the last update it did receive, the Red Rice was faster.
(Old £84 phone much faster than newer £599.99 phone).
My 2 y/o Xiaomi Note 4x gets an update to a built-in app or the OS on average every week.
> A combination of bundled phone insurance, third party repair shops and screen covers/cases being almost ubiquitous make replacement due to damage less likely also.
True. And Phones are also better built these days too (and SoCs are smaller and lighter), and the inclusion of waterproofing also aids their longevity.
Despite countless drops and tumbles, a case and screen protector has kept my S8 looking pristine. However, the case alone wouldn't be enough to prevent shock damage if the phone's internal components weren't robustly assembled.
High innovation? Only if you consider removing functionality (sd card slot, headphone jack, removable battery) people like. Oh, and while hiking up the prices to absurd levels.
I thought enough was enough and got Nokia 8 as a punt when their prices dropped to ~200-250 quid, and it has been working flawlessly and is running stock Pie with no bloatware. Latest update was March 2019 which arrived in April.
I could not justify spending four-figure (or near enough) sum on a new phone that would have more negatives than positives compared to my current phone.
Any new technology will eventually mature and when that happens the market will slow down to replacement plus younglings who've got their first pay-packet.
The one thing of which there's an inexhaustible supply is MBA/marketroid types who fail to appreciate this basic fact of life.
In some respects the phone market is the marketeers dream. It's like the car market with a constant stream of shiny new models but the depreciation curve is much steeper and the second hand market is tiny in comparison. This suggests there will always be a place for top end expensive new phones.
Agreed here as well. Decided last month instead of replacing my old LG G4, I just bought a new battery. Phone still runs fast, does everything I need and has a headphone jack. Modern phones don't offer enough new, take away essential features, often have too much crapware on them and cost too bloomin much.
I also have a Moto G6 and agree with you. It's plenty fast enough for me and battery usually lasts two days unless I've been using the phone a lot. Plus, if I lose or drop it, I'll just go buy another one.
The same thing that happened to PCs is happening to smartphones. Low and mid-range products are plenty fast enough for almost everybody.
My G4 died unexpectedly, but had been faultless up until then. I was going to get a G7 but it was 3 days away from being available. Ended up spending a bit more on an Honor 10 which is excellent (aside from a not insignificant amount of crap ware) and has all the features I'll ever probably need.
The problem is they rely on annual upgrades to prop up revenues and now there is little innovation people just replace when broken. I don't need new meaningless "features" like animated emojis every year. I think we'll start to see concerns on sustainability hurt the market (and all of retail too). Making phones and shipping them all over the world, then landfilling due to designed-in obsolescence, is very polluting and I think more and more people will worry about this. I'd be looking to make money out of repair and recycle operations if I was a phone maker, and make the damn things easier to fix.
Except for status victims, nobody gives a shit what you drive anymore.
Having said that a huge climate driven shift is probably on the way where what powers your car is going to matter a lot to a lot of people.
Phone manufacturers will just have to watch with envious eyes and hope that someone can come up with some equally earth shattering development for their commodity devices.
A thing that annoys me though is that there don't seem to be enough decent reviews\roudups\comparisons (even here) of the different markets, all the attention is thrown at the ludicrously priced monoliths rather than the low to mid range stuff that many people prefer\can afford.
The 'ludicrously priced monoliths' usually drop in price after around nine months to closer resemble the price of a midrange phone.
Reviews of phones at the low end are likely a waste of time if a prospective buyer will just get the best deal he can on the day - a £70 or £ 90 phone being offered for half price on the highstreet is not uncommon. None will have great cameras, all be be just fine for Maps, email, calls, etc. Huawei won't let you change the launcher... Etc.
Around here there are an awful lot of car status victims. A very popular model being the Audi TT with personalised number plates because they all look about the same age.
I think that the reason that Apple went from round button to ears/horns rather than full screen was really to create a big marketing distinction, so iPhone users would "have to" buy one without a round button or look poor.
They had not anticipated how quickly the Android makers would first follow suit, and then start to get rid of the ears, making the iPhones look old.
I was reminded of this because this morning I saw someone with one of those iPhone cases that had a circular cutout on the back to make sure you could see the entirely nonfunctional Apple logo, which is pretty sad.
"Except for status victims, nobody gives a shit what you drive anymore."
Unless, like me, you drive a 17 year old Alfa Spider.
In which case you are constantly greeted, on a daily basis by random passers by (usually of the more generously gifted in years variety, I must admit) making comments ranging from "Oh, I've always loved Alfas" to "still running? Remarkable!", and, on one memorable but painful occasion "nice kit car. Did you build it yourself?".
It's a tribute to my essentially generous and peaceful nature that that particular individual is still alive. And will probably be able to do without the crutches in a couple of months.
And if you pull the sun visors down you can have TWO fashionable notches in your windscreen, which according to the phone manufacturers is what all the sheeple want these days.
PS - I recently "downgraded" my Samsung S8 to a Moto G6 (the Amazon exclusive edition) and I am much happier with it - I guess I'm a flat screen, not getting screwed for another ££££ phone kind of guy.
Because investors understand the difference between market share and installed base. Apple's installed base is still increasing, especially in China (going from 17 to 20% over the past year - a lot of Chinese are buying secondhand iPhones the sales figures don't capture) and that's what drives services revenue. If the phone replacement cycle goes from 2 to 4 years, but Apple's installed base continues to increase, they'll be more than fine in the long run.
On a recent flight, the family in front of me included two school aged children. At one point the kids were bickering over two tablets; a Huawei (mediapad?) and an iPad. I was surprised that neither wanted the iPad. I assume he family were East-Asian/Canadians (it seems a bit odd to ask), and I wondered if the great pumpkins bellicose wanking is engendering the sort of devotion for Huawei that has served Apple so well. It may be that the gear is really great, but it felt like a "leafs vs sens"(*) thing.
(*) hockey reference, both teams are shit.
The global versions work on US/Canada LTE bands at least
I suspect the USA isn't really worth it, by the time you have bribed the networks and resellers to carry your phone then bribed the politicians not to ban you - there are more profitable markets in Asia.
Mid range Xiaomi phones ( Pocophone F1 for example ) as well as well as the cheap Xiaomi phones do not have the LTE Bands for the US. The top end Xiaomi phones ( Xiaomi Mi8, Xiaomi Mi Mix 3 ), I believe have most of the US LTE ( except CDMA ) Bands. Please check with your carrier before you buy.
is still rocking it for me. Certainly doesn't feel outdated. Dual SIM. Extendable memory. Removable battery. Decent screen size. (Switched to Lineage OS with no complaints).
Only feature it lacks that I might have been tempted with, is NFC. But that's more down to Travel West Midlands shitty "Swiftcard" implementation than a real need. I've still managed this far without Google pay.
(My starting point is not to buy anything Apple, so not having Apple pay is a given)
Can't speak for the "experts" but last strategy piece I was paid for said that smartphone sales would decrease 2016-2020.
Apple and then Samsung pushed the price for their new flagship phones way above any semblance of reason and now they wonder why suddenly their hugely overpriced phones are not selling?
At $500 it was already expensive, then the push to $750, then the push to $1k then the push to $1250 and so on.
If you had to fork out that much money for a top of the line phone, you are probably going to hang on to it for a long time to get your money's worth.
Also the newer models don't really have all that much more to offer the average user than the previous model.
Sure some fancy marketing features that people don't care about as much.
But having staked out huge prices, I doubt the corporate types want to roll them back, so they will be stuck in a loop of diminishing sales, which they try to make up for by hiking the prices to get the revenue numbers up, which then leads to less sales again and so on.
The last three iPhone cycles have been about taking things away and making the experience worse, while increasing the price. I have a 6s that works fine. Were I to "upgrade," I would get a dramatically more fragile all-glass device that has no headphone jack, a dumb-looking notch in the screen, the same OS I have now, and a scorched hole where my wallet used to be.
What would I get that I don't already have? Animojis, Face ID, some stupid AR/VR shit I'll never use, worse cell reception due to inferior modem and antennas (XR), the same or worse battery life...and that's about it.
I'm ragging on Apple here, but Samsung and Google have fallen into the same trap. The article makes it very clear that "premium" materials, a 1-2% improvement in some obscure camera spec, and a few pointless features just aren't compelling enough for most people to part with major cash.
there's a huge amount of 2nd hand phones available on ebay and elsewhere. I replaced my (3rd hand) galaxy S2 with a 2nd hand [another brand] while it broke in the US, and the replacement is well-above my expectations - and needs, all under 70 bucks. Sadly, there's a trend to lock the bootloader, which is f... annoying re. rooting, but as an urgent replacement, I can put up with it (and I only need to charge it every couple of days). Why would I _ever_ spend more?
Thats the method I use. Pawn Shops are also a good source of barely used phones. My current iPhone 7 was otained from one. A year old and half the original price.
I'm not paying Apple even a bent penny but I get a pretty decent device at a very decent price.
I had Androids for years and like many I got totally fed up with the bloat and apps that can't be removed so int the end, I bit my lip and went over to Apple. No Facebook unless I install it equals a winner in my eyes.
Apple and Samsung phones are overpriced for what they offer. Why spend nearly £1000 on one when you can get a good quality lesser known brand for half that price. I saw a OnePlus 6T 128gb for £500 and it looks like a very good spec phone, so why pay twice as much for something just as good?
Wanted from upgrade:
- Faster CPU
- More memory
- New radio bands
- Better battery life
- More robust software
Delivered:
- Parts of screen are gone
- Headphone jack gone
- microSD slot gone
- Drop protection gone
- Security updates gone
- Crap cameras all over the front and back
- Faster CPU
- Horrible battery life
- Slow, bulky, and inefficient wireless charging
- Buggy and privacy invading shovelware
- Costs twice as much
I would be happy with better battery life, better resistance to damage and improved signal holding in fringe reception areas.
And for 2019 a screen that is easily readable in bright daylight without using loads of battery power to try to out compete the sun. All these years of LCD screens and there is still no laptop that I can use to work outside in the summer.
I could not care less about removable storage, removable battery and 3.5mm socket. I don't have them now and I don't miss them at all.
Apparently Apple shareholders do not agree with this sentiment. 13% increase in share price today (and counting), rocketing them back to “most valuable company in the world”, with a market cap of well North of a trillion dollars. If this is a bad set of results, I’d hate to see what happens on a good day!
When the industry manages to define a standard docking setup for Android smartphones, they could start taking the PC fortress.
The current state of technology allows it and potentially huge amounts of money can be transferred from traditional PC expenses to the smartphone market. Google could offer companies a clear business case for moving from windows to their chrome based cloud, since they are not reliant on license fees.
Companies can save significant amounts of money by using the computing power in modern smartphones coupled with cloud based desktops functionality offered by chrome. It would free them from the chores surrounding the operation of large networks with desktops, the required peripheral Windows servers together with the complexity and skills needed.
It is an interesting question why this concept is not already implemented, that would be the real revolution in computing.
Samsung (just as an example) clearly thinks like you do that phones shoul/could replace PCs, with their dock and all.
Personally that sounds like a ludicrous idea to me. I'd rather not lose/break my "PC" accidentally when it falls out of pocket, gets nicked etc.
Sure, it would be handy to connect keyboard and maybe screen on occasions when you don't happen to/want to carry laptop with you.
I do appreciate that lot of people do most things on their phone and might well like the idea. Just saying that for me that would not be the argument that would make me part with large wad of cash for a new phone.
Personal laptops fall into a category where portability is usually worth more than high processing power and ergonomics. That's what phone makers should go for. Apple is going to have trouble here, since they've spent years finely tuning iOS to be absolutely nothing but be a walled garden for cell phones. Android phones can more easily present a desktop environment or even show a bit of Linux (assuming there's enough pushback against Google killing it soon).
What is going on with the price gouging; each successive handset is more expensive than the last, and not by a few pounds but 50 to 60% more!? Meanwhile, the USP of the new phones gets less, and less.
In the smartphone heydays, the upgrades were game changers, and the prices kept falling with each cycle.