Smartphone sales down 22 percent in Q2, the worst performance in a decade::North American sales are bad for everyone, except, miraculously, Google.
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Same. Been rocking a refurbished iPhone 11 for a couple years now, works just fine. Couldn’t care less that I don’t have a 14 or 15. It’s a phone. I use it for texts, browsing, and the occasional call (I don’t like to talk on the phone.) I don’t need a phone as powerful as a laptop. Most people truly don’t.
I understand ‘worst sales’ but ‘worst performance’ doesn’t really fit. It’s in my opinion this is a fantastic performance on the market. With right to repair, longer software support, some models with replaceable batteries, we can use the phones longer and make the industry more sustainable and consumer friendly. For the last years already, the model feature upgrades were marginal and it’s fine that way.
In the future, I’d hope for further technical and regulatory development in that direction, resulting in further reduced annual sales numbers.
Worst performance of trying to get your money.
We’ve hit the wall of diminishing returns. How much power do you need to run lemmy?
Ive got a 4k oled 144hrtz panel in my phone… to read lemmy.
And my pixel 6 is considered aging.
Pixel 6, look at Mr. Monopoly over here. I just got a 5 off eBay for $100. In fact, my last 6 or 7 phones came from eBay. Can’t imagine why I would pay for the latest and greatest.
Tmobile gave it to me for free after they shitcanned 4g during the Sprint merger. They had to give out new shiny 5g phones to appease users.
Do you put something like lineage on it? I replaced my 5 with a 7a just because it no longer gets updates as of this month I believe it is
No way in hell I’d trust some rando from eBay with selling me a phone not riddled with Malware.
I got an iPhone 14 pro as an upgrade (contract). Had a pixel 6 before, wish I had stayed on the 6 to be honest, the 14 pro is amazing but I barely use it for anything.
Pixel 6 has 1080p90 OLED but ok
Its a 6 pro my Bad
That’s 1440p120
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It is amusing how cell phone companies want people to think about their products like a fridge or video game console, yet are shocked when people seem to only want to buy a new one every 5-10 years or more when the old one breaks.
Are these shocked cell phone companies in the room with us? iPhone sale peaked like three years, Samsung probably close to then as well.
Everyone is poor from inflation and a million different subscription services and smartphone makers haven’t done anything new in years so there’s no point in getting a new phone unless the old one breaks.
My Samsung phones keep “mysteriously” going to shit after 18 to 22 months so I might try an iPhone when my current one shits the bed. Hopefully they will get their head out of their ass and reduce/remove the cutout.
I recommend the Fairphone 5. 5 year warranty, 10 year software support, and user replaceable parts like the battery.
I really want this phone, but unfortunately I’m in the US
FP4 works just fine in the US btw… perhaps the FP5 will too?
I’ll definitely take a look at whatever Fairphone is out when it’s time to replace my S23 Ultra.
Just realize that iOS is NOT like Android at all. Some people can’t make the switch. Also, the cut out is not noticeable in daily use. The app I’m using right now isn’t showing it. It’s a non-issue in reality.
Maybe they should bring back some form-factor diversity that niche consumer segments could gravitate toward, instead of every manufacturer targeting only the largest (and blandest) portion of the pie and ignoring the rest of it. If it’s not clear, I am holding out for some decent “mini-sized” Android option.
Unihertz being the only one even trying…
Waiting on replacement batteries to come back. Also 1k is a no way from me.
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The problem with the Fairphone,beside the price point, is the fact that it is not state-of-the-art now and that will be annoying in the future. The mediocre Battery life and the decision not to include wireless charging is one of these points, the camera,etc. as well.
I really looked forward to the FP5 but decided against it for these reasons.
Would that really help? I remember that each brand had their own custom battery sizes, and it would only sell the remaining stock once the phone was no longer on the store shelf. I only know Nokia had some standard form factor for batteries.
Batteries were phone specific but it wasn’t a big problem to find them. I bought several for my Note 3 and it allowed me to use the phone for a long time.
I used to buy a new Pixel every year, but for what? Holding out on my 5 while it still works.
Exactly… I updated after 4 years of using OP7T to S23 only cause the updates ended (and were fcked up), battery (I swapped my for new one but still 5h sot vs 8h sot was really tempting), storage and cause I wanted smaller device.
Otherwise I could use OP7T for another 4 years… Ok realisticly for 2 at least (cause I’d wanted new device…), but still the performance update is not that much mind blowing…
120hz vs 90hz I can feel, but not groundbreaking, responsivity is a bit faster (0.5 vs 0.3 second is not that groundbreaking either) and camera is the biggest update for me but also nothing revolutionary, definitely evolutionary, but not revolutionary.
The best new thing for me is better customizability of Samsung, which is funny cause that’s why I bought OP7T 4 years ago, but Oneplus heavily fcked up.
Since the Pixel 1 I’ve been buying a new phone every four years. Honestly I prefer it that way. Saves money and the upgrades feel more meaningful. As long as the battery is good, you still get security updates, and the hardware is intact, what is the reason to upgrade beyond being told to consume?
Looking forward to the Pixel 8 next month, since my 4 is actually starting to show it’s age.
My 5… battery is draining faster, apps have to be started, are slow to load. I’ve done the cache cleanup and everything under the sun. Might see what the 7 costs in a week or two when they announce the 8… usually previous inventory is marked down.
I’m just glad pixels have finally been coming around on more updates. I was forced to replace my Pixel 3 if I wanted to use it with the BYOD program at work because it had reached the end of the update cycle, even though it was in fine condition and still met my needs. Now I’m on a Pixel 7, and hopefully I can get the full five years of use from it.
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poor people are poor as shit
rich people who are richer off the backs of poor people are not poor as shit
Sure, but even rich people don’t buy more than two phones, if they have one for personal and one for business.
And one for infidelity
Or, maybe, people realized that there is no reason to get a new phone every year.
They are not mutually exclusive, tbf.
True, but the calculation probably include also less expensive models, which make probably the big part of the market.
And even for a low price smartphone there is no necessity to buy a new one every year.Then I agree, actually probably there is way less people that can put 1000 or more $/€ on a phone every year.
I have plenty of disposable income. But why would I spend hundreds and hundreds on a new phone when I just got a Pixel 5 off eBay for $100?
“The average sell price is up from $663 to $738 year over year, indicating it’s the premium phones that are selling, and all the cheap vendors are getting shut out.”
Totally disagree with the article’s assumption, I’d say you are more correct. No one wants to or has that much money to pay for ridiculous prices, so sales are tanking. The few who can, or must buy a new phone certainly aren’t going to buy something with no staying power when hundreds of phone makers have coke and gone in the last decade.
They should really stop over saturating the market by releasing new models every year with little to no meaningful upgrades.
Even mid-range phones nowadays are good enough to last long after they stop receiving updates, it therefore makes little financial sense (for the average consumer) to buy the newest model every year, not even touching on the environmental impact.
They could try innovating, I couldn’t give a shite about the cameras really. If I want to take proper photos I’ll get a DSLR. I’ll never want their smart processing of pics either.
Give me cool features again.
For me the camera was a selling point. I was tired of hauling around a dslr on my trips. I find that the smart processing is good enough 90% of the time and I don’t want to both haul the camera and handle the post processing anymore. I’d rather just have 90% quality photos of my family and spend more time with them. Hire a photographer for weddings, etc, but really the smart processing is pretty impressive for day to day and even trips.
Unfortunately for you, you’re in the minority. People have proven they’ll upgrade for better cameras.
See how I said “I”, that means it’s a personal view so the statistics for the masses don’t matter…but also this post is about declining sales.
You made zero substantive input to this conversation.
No need to be rude.
This is the reply of someone with nowhere else to go, there is no need to be rude just as there is no need to be relevant I guess.
You were snarky initially and it was unnecessary, you get back what you put out.
My intention wasn’t to be snarky. Sorry you took it that way. 🤷🏼♂️ Get outside and enjoy the day instead of bickering with me. I’m just some stranger on the interweb. Let it go. I’m not worth it. lol.
I had a lovely day, it was a stunning day on the Danube. Hope yours was just as nice.
Like what, though? What is a need you have that your smartphone does not currently serve?
I want my phone to be usable with a dock where I can put in a keyboard, mouse and screen to use as a PC like the steam deck.
Isn’t Samsung DEX exactly that?
Wow you are right, I never heard of that.
I’m not really surprised, smartphones kinda hit this point of “good enough for most people’s purposes” 3-4y ago and short of an actual reason to upgrade like the 4g-5g switchover there isn’t a lot of incentive for most people to throw down $400-1k for a new phone every couple of years.
I would have happily kept my OnePlus 7T for a few more years if the network switchover didn’t require new hardware.
Personally I don’t need a faster smartphone at this point, if anything motivates me to buy a new one it’s usually better radios, better battery runtime and better cameras. The rest of the gewgaws don’t matter much for daily use.
It’s more tied to the change of the business model.
Phones used to be subsided by the plan and the 2 year contract lock in, so if you didn’t upgrade every cycle you were effectively leaving money on the table.
This is why the market accelerated so quickly compared to any other class of hardware.
As the 2 year contract fell out of favor (thanks largely to T-Mobile), you had 2 year heavily discounted payment plans tied to device trade in that took their place, but these were opt-in as opposed to the previous model which was built in to every contract.
While the economy was strong, the depreciation on your current device and effectively FOMO on maximizing its trade in value kept the system driven at similar numbers.
But as purses have tightened, suddenly the outlay on increasingly expensive devices with lower trade in values for past devices is a racket people are opting out of.
It was never really about features as opposed to status and reup indicators. Most of the rest of the world has more like 3 year phone replacement cycles for the past decade, and have been fine with the same feature parity per model year as US phones.
I’m honestly surprised the 2 year thing kept going as long as it did.
Agreed
This market stagnation was what got me to buy a Fold. Every 3-5 years of the same size slabs, just imperceptibly “faster”. Then came something new finally. Same as my pixel 2xl, I’ll have this till the battery or screen starts to go.
Which phone did you upgrade to? I also have the 7T and quite happy with it except for brightness outdoors
I hit fleaBay and bought a used 9 Pro. All I really wanted out of the upgrade were newer radios (5g + AX wifi) and better cameras. I think I paid around $350, if my track record holds I’ll keep it for 2-3 years then do the same again for the same reasons. I’ve been halfway looking at a 10 Pro/T or an 11 model for better battery runtime (Snapdragon 888 is a bit of a battery hog for the performance) but I don’t really have a reason to upgrade yet.
It’s almost as if, they haven’t fundamentally updated smartphones in almost a decade, and now they want $2000 for them.
Also, it’s almost as if we’ve been in a recession for a year. Regardless of whether or not the government wants to call it a recession, we’ve had numerous back to back quarters with negative GDP growth. That’s literally a recession.
Well there are foldables, which are growing as category, but I don’t know if it makes a net difference and anyway they’re too small to make a difference currently.
Ya. No shit. Baseless inflation is tough on most people. If everything weren’t so expensive, maybe people would have more money for things they don’t actually need.
Two cents on the headphone jack issue folks bring up all the time. The convenience of 3.5 mm is great and valid. Totally agree.
However, I use and own a lot of wired higher end headphones and a dongle DAC is just better audio quality than the 3.5mm jack. Let me explain.
3.5mm jacks means the phone’s on board DAC is doing the work and outputting an analog stereo signal. You are stuck with whatever, typically sub-par, DAC is built into your phone. Yes, some phones have better DACs than others, but it is a challenge to sort out and is often not a priority for most manufacturers.
With type C dongle you can escape your phone’s limitations and use dongles with audio features like fully balanced audio because the signal stays digital from your phone to the dongle. Personally, I’m a fan of 4.4 mm balanced connection, as most of my headphones will run balanced. This is something I could never do with 3.5mm alone.
DDHifi, XDUOO, ifi, etc makes some great ‘audiophile’ - dumb title but you know what I mean - DACs.
I often don’t hear this side of the issue discussed.
what dongles do yoy reocmmned and why, link them here
finally some positive news.
