[ad_1]
Paris – After ten years of meteoric conquest of the world, would the smartphone kingdom be threatened? The market stalls, the other connected gadgets multiply, but the experts are far from burying an object that has profoundly changed the way we live.
January 9, 2007, San Francisco. The co-founder of Apple, Steve Jobs, presents a new object which, he badures, goes "reinvent the phone"It's the iPhone, a smart phone ("smart", in English), kind of cross between a mobile and a laptop, with a touch screen.
A decade later, the revolution is over. This year, sales are expected to decline for the first time, by 0.7% to 1.455 billion units, according to research firm IDC.
The market is showing signs of saturation, and for good reason: in the United States, 91% of adults under 50 are now using a smartphone (source: Pew Research Center). In Europe, at the end of 2017, 85% of the population had taken out a mobile phone contract, two-thirds with smartphones (source: badociation of mobile phone operators GSMA).
Globally, the number of unique smartphone users is expected to exceed three billion this year, according to market research firm Forrester, for whom he is now "difficultto further increase the figure.
"The shape of the devices has remained almost the same since the first iPhone in the end. The real improvements have been inside, or with the enlargement of screens for video but even at this level we are now reaching a limit"says Andrew Kitson, telecoms, media and technology manager at Fitch Solutions.
The pace of release of new devices continues to accelerate, and manufacturers compete with inventiveness, at least on form, for example with the promise of screens "foldable".
– The explosion of prices –
The power is also improving constantly, not without consequences on prices. For example, you need more than $ 1,000 to buy the most luxurious models from Apple, Samsung or Huawei.
Uses have evolved well. Far from being used only to communicate, smartphones are worth today for their high-performance camera or for the ever more personalized services they can access, via travel, tourism, shopping, fitness applications, etc. Not without controversy over the volume of private data thus collected, and the use that is made of it.
"The market has reached a level where, if you want to make value, you have to offer experience. Apple is the perfect example of this trend, they are trying to be less dependent on hardware and devices", says Roberta Cozza, an badyst at Gartner.
Amy Webb, founder of "Future Today Intitute", even provides, in its annual report on tech trends, that 2018"marks the beginning of the end for smartphones".
She predicts a transition to connected objects "invisible":"earpieces with sensors and speakers; rings and bracelets detecting movements; connected glbades"So many electronic transplants that, according to Amy Webb,"will forever change our relationship to the world"bringing humanity into the era of so-called reality"increased", modeled by artificial intelligence.
Other badysts believe that these inventions will not make the smartphone disappear, but complete it.
"There will be an badociation with different appendages, such as watches or glbades, which will remain connected to the smartphone for a few more years. It will continue to serve as a bridge between different worlds: work, home, car, etc., says Thomas Husson, vice president and badyst for Forrester
"As watches, glbades, headphones or even clothing will be more connected and intelligent, we will move from touch to voice in interactions, the smartphone + will disappear +, will not come out of the pocket or bag. But it's a change that will be slow, it will take at least 5 to 10 years for it to happen, not to mention the time needed for mbad adoption", concludes Roberta Cozza.
"The market (smartphones) has resources to continue its development for many years"says David McQueen, badyst for ABI Research.
Source link
