Previously, when a user wanted to buy a new smartphone, they just walked and did it. In those days, manufacturers were making great money, and sales were constantly growing from time to time, and everyone was happy. Buyers because they bought a good, albeit expensive, smartphone, and sellers because their business was growing. Now the pandemic has broken this mechanism, which was already starting to falter due to the oversaturation of the market and the fact that in the world of smartphones something new appeared only in inexpensive models. It is difficult to say when everything will work fine again, but you can still make some predictions. Of course, a new wave of coronavirus may again intervene in this mechanism, but already now we can make some predictions and say when the smartphone market will recover.
Sooner or later, smartphone sales will rise again. The question is when?
Smartphone sales
In fact, now it is difficult to make clear predictions about when the fall of the smartphone market will end and the interest of users will return, since the situation in the world is still not clear, but we can definitely say that the recovery will take at least a year.
A similar opinion is shared by analysts at IDC, who have calculated that phone shipments will return to pre-coronavirus levels no earlier than 2022. Analysts also note that some growth will already be observed next year. In numbers, this would represent a jump of 9% over this year. True, it will rather be just a win back, because according to forecasts, the overall reduction of the smartphones market this year will reach 9.5%.
It should be noted that the initial forecast of some analysts did not come true, as they planned that the decline in supplies would be won back this year, but the quarantine and the pandemic dragged on. According to IDC estimates, smartphone shipments fell 17% in the second quarter from last year's second quarter. The main reason for the fall was just a pandemic.
One of the reasons that sales will start to rise again is that technology is moving forward. That is, from year to year, technologies do not develop enough to move from the previous generation of a smartphone to a new one. Given the fall in demand, many will wait for a new smartphone for two to three years. This is already a significant time to get a real difference between smartphones and generate interest among users.
The interest of users in smartphones has now dropped slightly, but it will be the same again.
How 5G will affect smartphone sales
Development 5G will be an additional factor. New smartphones with this technology appear in almost all price categories, and at the same time, networks are also developing quite quickly. Phones 5G will make up half of the market by 2023, according to IDC. Demand in developing countries could also help, even if many devices are low to mid-range LTE phones.
This will end up with what many call a ripple effect. This is when various economic indicators sag and then rise again. If you draw a graph, it will have a wave form. This phenomenon is due to changes in the mood of people and companies that affect the economy. Smartphones once again prove this with their drop in sales and subsequent growth, when people massively refuse to buy, and then again begin to buy in large quantities. Without a smartphone, nowhere and sooner or later you have to update it. This period is approximately the same for all users, and hence the result – users are again beginning to be interested in new smartphones.
The fact that smartphones will still be needed by users and they will buy them is confirmed by all the same IDC analysts. Experts believe that smartphones will continue to be the most important and preferred computing power for users. They are fast, efficient, applications and services are more and more optimized for them, and most importantly, they are always at hand. Even at home, many are gradually abandoning the use of computers, preferring smartphones.
What could affect smartphone manufacturers
As with any equation, there are several unknowns. Some of them can be predicted, while others have to be either guessed or just make forecasts with certain errors.
One such unknown is the pandemic. The timing of its completion has not yet been predicted, and one must understand that it can either end or flare up with renewed vigor. Accordingly, the protracted crisis that will cause this behavior of the virus will lead to the market recovering much longer than it is currently believed.
After about a year, users will again reach for new smartphones, if nothing changes.
However, the score gives an idea of when the phone business could return to something close to normal – which is good news for you, as it could lead to more companies pushing the boundaries of phone technology instead of to proceed with caution. Then indeed we, as users, will return to smartphones with renewed interest. If even then you do not plan to return and you are no longer interested in new smartphones, tell us about it in our chat.
For now, we are focusing on 2022, but we will discuss how it will actually turn out later and more than once. At the moment, you can take advantage of discounts, promotions and other manifestations of the “generosity” of manufacturers, buying smartphones on very good terms. In addition, some companies are beginning to change their approach and Samsung has changed its device update scheme, providing almost all major new products with three years of updates Android. This is a significant plus, and many will have to repeat this move. We will definitely benefit from this.