Overall smartphone sales to record worst decline this year, report

Well, smartphones are one of the top-selling electronic products across the world and thanks to a new report which claims that sanity would prevail and tech giants would sell 68 million lesser smartphones in 2019, a 3.8% decline if you compare to phone sales last year.

According to research agency Gartner, sales of devices (PCs, tablets and mobile phones) will fall by 3.3 percent in 2019 to make it overall 2.2 billion units. The decrease has been attributed largely to the increasing lifespan of mobile devices, an issue highlighted by a perceived lack of innovation within the market.

Meanwhile, Garter notes that 5G smartphones will account for more than half of all mobile phone sales by 2023 as manufacturers seeking to arrest the ongoing contraction of the market. As Ranjit Atwal, research director at Gartner states;

“As 5G service coverage increases, the user experience will improve and prices will decrease. The leap will occur in 2023 when we expect 5G phones to account for 51% of phone sales. This will mark significant progress from the 5G proofs of concept and commercial network construction in 2018.”

It is worth mentioning here that the current mobile phone market of 1.7 billion shipments is around 10% below the 1.9 billion shipments reached in 2015. If mobile phones don’t provide significant new utility, efficiency or experiences, users won’t upgrade them, and will consequently increase these devices’ life spans.

As you know that 5G has become widespread, it is thought vendors will seek to release more affordable models in order to increase sales. This drive will see 5G phones account for 51 percent of the market by 2023.