Data from A global study of consumer behaviors in the smartphone market shows that Apple’s brand remains almost unassailable worldwide. However, in the study’s timeframe, September to December of 2022, there is also an emerging trend of consumers looking towards deals, bundles, and low cost devices as economic issues continue to bite.
While Apple dominates in the US with consumers seeming to preferring to spend more on the iPhone 14 Pro Max over it lesser siblings, Android phones dominate in Europe with 70% market share even as Apple saw its sales grow in France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the UK. Sales in China remained flat for Apple, where homegrown products are likely to continue to make ground in terms of market share.
Googles Pixel broke its own record in global sales during the quarter with 6.8% share of Android phone sales in Europe, 11.9% in the US, a whopping 14.8% in Australia, and 14.3% in Japan.
Kantar surveyed its 121,700 panelists and found 33% of consumers are going to be either spending less, or delaying and cancelling purchases altogether. The US market is probably the best place to buy a high-end phone because of the prevalence of financing on phones offered by carriers, which tends to be a way of spreading the pain of high costs without really addressing the consequences longer term.
All this probably points to a dampening of expectations of a second half of 2023 normalization of sales, and maybe an uptick in opportunities for higher end phone sales with higher end displays.
