All consumer-oriented smartphones have experienced their technological peaks, and as each new generation comes out, sales trend downwards. You can enjoy some fun on the best au online casinos regardless of which device you use, for instance and that has been the case for a while now. For some manufacturers, smartphones aren’t performing well enough to justify further investments, particularly as worldwide smartphone shipments have peaked and slowed to historic lows.
According to the latest data from Gartner, shipments of mobile devices fell 3.7% over the last three months of the past year, and that’s the second time in eight years that shipments have fallen below 100 million units.
Smartphone Innovations Have Faded
According to data from the Gartner Consumer Smartphone Market Tracker, smartphone sales peaked at 110 million units in 2010. That was the year of the iPhone 5, and that device moved 46% of all smartphones. Since then, smartphone sales have been on a steady decline, and they now represent under 45% of the overall smartphone market, an incredible decline of 67%. Smartphone makers have lost significant market share in the last six years.
With smartphones having fallen so far, innovation has also changed. Previously, smartphone makers were pushing the envelope, introducing new features and exciting new technologies, and the smartphone market was ever-evolving. Now smartphone makers have exhausted a lot of what their customers want, and consumers are turning to their smart devices to help them improve the quality of their lives.
The Problem With Smartphones
Smartphone makers are struggling to keep up with people’s everyday needs, which is why smartphones have become somewhat redundant. With people streaming more and more of their activities onto smartphones, smartphone innovation is becoming irrelevant. Technology companies might be spending more money on smartphone innovation, but that doesn’t help consumers either, because there are many features that most consumers will never use. In addition, forcing such features into a UI that is probably not suitable for it may result in frequent OS hangs or bricking the device in the worst-case scenario. Once the phone starts acting up, users have to turn to repair services that can Fix Phone and other gadgets, and if the phone is past its warranty period, it can cost them a lot.
Moreover, as smartphone sales have been falling, the number of smartphones being purchased by consumers has been growing. In the United States alone, smartphones now account for 77% of mobile device sales. That is a huge market share, but the problem with that is it means that smartphone sales have already peaked, and it signals that smartphone innovation has just hit its ceiling. In other words, smartphones may not change very much over the next few years, and sales are likely to continue declining.
Disappearing Smartphone Innovations
We are seeing smartphones taking on new features all the time, but most smartphone innovations aren’t innovative enough to remain relevant for very long. For example, we are now seeing phones with larger displays, which may be all the more effective at showcasing games and apps. In recent months, we have seen smartphones with enhanced camera technology. Instead, the innovation resides in the platforms and services accessed with those smartphones consumers use, like the best payout online casino in NZ. Both devices featured new optics that provided dramatic enhancements, particularly in terms of low light photography.
We are also seeing faster smartphone processors, which make smartphones faster, and make them capable of processing complex tasks. The iPhone 6s and 6s Plus featured upgraded processors that also doubled the amount of RAM in both devices, giving smartphone users more RAM to work with.
Despite this, smartphone innovation has plateaued. By making smartphones faster and better than ever, smartphone makers are merely ensuring that their smart devices are better than ever, rather than genuinely improving the quality of their lives.