Stagnant
Our media has already reported that the smartphone market is matured. The number of smartphone shipment was about 173 million in 2009 and around 1300 million in 2014, respectively. It means that the smartphone shipment was more than 7 times over only 5 years. We assume the average price of a smartphone was $300 in 2009, so the market size was almost $52 billion at that time.
In addition, we do the same calculation by assuming that the average price of a smartphone was $400 in 2014. As a result, the market size became $520 billion in 2014. This number was already incredible. What’s more, the smartphone market was grown by 10 times for only 5 years.
However, the number of shipments is stagnant now. In fact, it was about 1400 million shipments in 2018. If we assume the average price of a smartphone was $500 in 2018, the market size was almost $700 billion.
What’s more, the pandemic has made the situation worse. The number of smartphone shipment became about 1280 million in 2020. Therefore, we can possibly say that the market is not matured but declined.
Next action
Therefore, it is very crucial for both smartphone manufacturers and their suppliers to think what they will do next. This is because companies cannot expect their growth, if the main market is matured and they keep the same market share. It is very true for Apple, Samsung, Xiaomi and others. That is why these companies try to enter a new attractive market, which are the Electric Vehicle and healthcare market.
These big companies have enough money, people, experience, equipment and others to compete in new markets. However, small and medium enterprises will not be able to do the same thing. In this sense, their management must have enough insights to make better decision. Also, our media tries to help them do so.
