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The last quarter of Apple was somehow bad / good news.
The bad news is that iPhone sales have dropped about 17% over the same period in 2018. The good news is that Wall Street seems to believe that there is no has nowhere where the iPhone can go up but that Apple's stock is skyrocketing.
There is, however, worse news, not just for Apple, but for the entire smartphone industry.
The analyst firm IDC reports that smartphone shipments for the first quarter of this year decreased by 6.6% compared to the same period in 2018, while Google CEO Sundar Pichai had stated that It was harder than before to sell expensive and upscale phones. . Samsung also announced results this week and said it expects competition in the "mature" smartphone sector to put more pressure on its business in the second half of the year.
It's hard to see how and if the smartphone market is returning to growth here.
Hold fast
Already in 2017, we had indications that people would hang on their smartphone longer. In 2018, the major hedge fund Maverick Capital declared that the "glory days" of the smartphone revolution were behind us, as the increasingly rare differences between older devices and newer devices make it difficult to justify each successive upgrade.
It will also be difficult to find new customers – at least in the domestic market, since nearly 80% of Americans currently own a smartphone.
Different companies use different tactics to protect themselves against this slowdown.
Apple, for example, has doubled its service business – Apple Music, iCloud and Apple Pay – to help the company generate more revenue per iPhone user, which could offset the slowdown in sales. 39; devices. Expect this strategy to intensify in the future, with Apple TV Plus streaming service and Apple Card credit card being deployed to consumers.
This approach shows positive signs, Apple reporting this week that its service revenues increased by 16% in the last quarter, compared to the same period of the previous year.
Others, such as Samsung, Huawei and Motorola, are progressing in the smartphone market hoping that new technologies, such as 5G wireless broadband internet and foldable screens, will prompt users to get started. at the level. Samsung alone is expected to offer this year a compatible version of the Samsung Galaxy S10 compatible 5G, as well as the foldable smartphone Galaxy Fold.
In reality, it will take a long time before the 5G really covers the world and the fiasco around the Samsung Galaxy Fold – according to which some critics have discovered that the device had crashed after only a few days of use – shows that it can flow well long. Foldable smartphones are really ready for prime time, if they ever are.
Read more:The Samsung Galaxy Fold fiasco is the best example of why Apple is still waiting to penetrate new markets.
And no one can ignore that flagship smartphones are becoming more expensive: the Samsung Galaxy S10 starts at $ 900; the latest iPhone Xs model starts at $ 999. The prices go, at least initially, go up from there. The Samsung Galaxy S10, equipped with 5G technology, will cost $ 1,300, and the Galaxy Fold, with a starting price of $ 1,980.
In the end, prices should stabilize, as they always do in the years following the introduction of new technologies. Nevertheless, it will be difficult in the short term – folding screen or not, 5G wireless Internet or not, these devices run the same applications and the same websites as cheaper phones, with little significant functional difference. In addition, companies such as OnePlus manufacture perfect phones at average prices.
So, although the smartphone market is not that bad, the glory days of the beginning of the smartphone boom are not likely to come back to anyone.
So what comes next?
The good news is that we can already see what comes after the smartphone. Almost all the technology companies in Silicon Valley and beyond are experimenting with at least Augmented Reality (AR), the technology for projecting digital images into the real world.
Companies such as Apple, Facebook, Microsoft, Samsung, the Google supported Magic Leap start-up, and even the developer "Fortnite" Epic Games all consider that AR is the next big IT interface. Microsoft and Magic Leap already have anti-AR glasses on the market. Apple would work on "smart glasses" that could be unveiled this year.
It is pretty clear that all these companies are considering the AR as the next big gold rush in the tech sector, after the slow stagnation of the smartphone industry.
They may be right – it's hard to imagine do not given the amount of investment each company makes in the market.
The problem, however, is that augmented reality is far from being able to replace the smartphone in any way. Strictly in terms of features, these headphones are too expensive (Microsoft HoloLens 2 costs $ 3,500), too limited (Magic Leap One and HoloLens 2 both have a small field of vision) and, frankly, you look like a dork that door can attest personally:
So, even if there will be a big news ahead, as it has always done, it is clear that it will not be there fast enough to bail out the smartphone market.
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