Does a declining smartphone market reflect the economic downturn, or is something else going on?
If there is one thing that the figures for the consumer electronics industry have shown over the past year, it’s that there’s been a sharp drop in sales of its flagship product, the smartphone.
A 9% drop in the second quarter of 2022 was followed by an 11% drop in the third quarter, and an even bigger drop of 18.3% in the fourth quarter, very unusual since, traditionally, the fourth quarter is the best one of the year. Overall, 2022 has seen a decline of 11.3%, and in some markets, it is the fifth consecutive year of decline.
The crisis, however, is not the same for everyone: Apple, despite the decline, overtook Android to regain leadership of the US market, also positioning itself as the second brand in China, where its decline, of only 3% over 2021, is much more moderate than that of its competitors.
What’s going on in the smartphone market? On the one hand, the anticipation of a strong economic downturn, which generally leads consumers to postpone significant spending decisions and cut back on high-volume purchases such as a smartphone. But on the other hand, it seems reasonable that after a few years of strong innovation, which led users to feel relatively uncomfortable when they did not keep up with the pace of updates…
