Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

China smartphone market suffers hard-landing, shipments decline 21% in Q1 2018

canalys.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 187 posts

Re: China smartphone market suffers hard-landing, shipments decline 21% in Q1 2018

#11

Post by noir_lord »

rconti wrote: post #8
diminish wrote: post #5

After relentless growth we're about to arrive at a plateauing smartphone market. I wish I could read insights from experts on what to expect in coming years in smartphone market in light of similar markets which entered a no growth zone. Specifically what will happen to prices, market shares , unit sales, pace of innovation, competition, international growth, developer ecosystems. Anyone?

Certainly we're expecting sales to slow as smartphone sales plateau, but why is it happening in China first? Is it a leading indicator of slowing growth? After all, smartphone purchases are most decidedly discretionary.

It's possible that the plateau already hit in other economies but was partially masked by people buying new phones because they want the shiny.

Dropping half a months income for an incremental increase is very different to dropping 2-3mths.

Re: China smartphone market suffers hard-landing, shipments decline 21% in Q1 2018

#12

Post by GFischer »

anilshanbhag wrote: post #10

It sometimes amazes me that people switch their phones so often. I tend to have a phone for 3 years. Many of my friends change every year ! One step to towards reducing global warming is reducing consumption.

I have a Xiaomi phone. It costs less than 200 dollars after taxes in my country, and it's great.

My cell phone company basically gives them for free in exchange for the 2 year contract, so after my 2 years are up, I'm definitely switching it for a newer model, or I'm leaving money on the table.

Many people are way more careless than I am, or heavier users, and definitely switch every year (or even less!).

Chinese phones make it much more feasible. OTOH, if you care about environment, these are no good - no user-swappable batteries for instance.

Re: China smartphone market suffers hard-landing, shipments decline 21% in Q1 2018

#13

Post by genefriend »

China’s growth fueled by massive debt is over(350% to gdp, government + corporate + individuals). it’s barely returning one yuan for every yuan debt it takes on. The Chinese consumer is weighed down by housing debt and credit card debt. And the tariff is going to hit the consumers hard; soy prices increases already has Chinese consumers screaming.

Re: China smartphone market suffers hard-landing, shipments decline 21% in Q1 2018

#14

Post by slezyr »

dis-sys wrote: post #4

Smartphone maker Xiaomi is rushing to get its IPO done, the market is betting a $100 billion valuation [1]. This reminds me what its founder Lei Jun said a few years ago - "Even a pig can fly if it is in the middle of a whirlwind" [2]. Now the market has apparently reached its peak, I am wondering whether those who are thinking to buy Xiaomi shares will find their whirlwind and fly. ;) [1] https://www.telegraph.co.uk…

Well, xiaomi produces not just smartphones. Laptops, TVs, Wearables, "Smart" Scales and other stuff.

Re: China smartphone market suffers hard-landing, shipments decline 21% in Q1 2018

#15

Post by bruceb »

Almost any $200+ phone made since 2015 has a pretty good camera, screen, speed for most people.

Why upgrade when what you have is good enough? One used to check out gizmodo/engadget when a new phone came out but seems not anymore as "the new" is only incremental.

Re: China smartphone market suffers hard-landing, shipments decline 21% in Q1 2018

#16

Post by cs702 »

Wow, a 21% year-over-year drop... and this makes the fourth consecutive quarter of annual declines (in the previous three quarters, shipments had dropped -3%, -5%, and -14% year-over-year). A hard landing indeed.

The implications for phone makers are unpleasant: price competition is going to intensify and profit margins, which are already thin, will get squeezed even more and might even turn negative. (Only Apple, which makes exclusively high-end devices for style-conscious, less-price-sensitive consumers, looks well-positioned to avoid a profit margin squeeze.)

The implications for mobile software applications and services are also unpleasant: the days of ultra-rapid user/subscriber/revenue growth are likely to end soon.

Re: China smartphone market suffers hard-landing, shipments decline 21% in Q1 2018

#17

Post by sebasmurphy »

anilshanbhag wrote: post #10

It sometimes amazes me that people switch their phones so often. I tend to have a phone for 3 years. Many of my friends change every year ! One step to towards reducing global warming is reducing consumption.

Same here. They only reason that I upgraded to the nexus 5x from the nexus 5 was that the modem in the 5x supported additional LTE bands. If there's no signficiant changes in the modem hardware you're just paying more money for a slightly better version of the phone you already have.

Re: China smartphone market suffers hard-landing, shipments decline 21% in Q1 2018

#18

Post by htormey »

genefriend wrote: post #13

China’s growth fueled by massive debt is over(350% to gdp, government + corporate + individuals). it’s barely returning one yuan for every yuan debt it takes on. The Chinese consumer is weighed down by housing debt and credit card debt. And the tariff is going to hit the consumers hard; soy prices increases already has Chinese consumers screaming.

I’d love to see an article summing up some of these concerns re Chinese debt. If you have a good one please post it. Thanks.

Re: China smartphone market suffers hard-landing, shipments decline 21% in Q1 2018

#19

Post by dv_dt »

rconti wrote: post #8
diminish wrote: post #5

After relentless growth we're about to arrive at a plateauing smartphone market. I wish I could read insights from experts on what to expect in coming years in smartphone market in light of similar markets which entered a no growth zone. Specifically what will happen to prices, market shares , unit sales, pace of innovation, competition, international growth, developer ecosystems. Anyone?

Certainly we're expecting sales to slow as smartphone sales plateau, but why is it happening in China first? Is it a leading indicator of slowing growth? After all, smartphone purchases are most decidedly discretionary.

If there is a utility plateau (i.e. everyone who can justify needing one has one), then one might expect that areas with more disposable income would have more people able to keep purchasing for fashion reasons while nations with tighter margins might continue at more of a replacement rate.

Re: China smartphone market suffers hard-landing, shipments decline 21% in Q1 2018

#20

Post by theandrewbailey »

diminish wrote: post #5

After relentless growth we're about to arrive at a plateauing smartphone market. I wish I could read insights from experts on what to expect in coming years in smartphone market in light of similar markets which entered a no growth zone. Specifically what will happen to prices, market shares , unit sales, pace of innovation, competition, international growth, developer ecosystems. Anyone?

Dig up articles from about 5 years ago talking about the "post PC era". Replace all the references to PCs with smartphones, and you should have a good idea about what's in store for a "Post smartphone era".
Post reply on HN