The recent analysis of the Chinese smartphone market came out within days of the IDC worldwide smartphone tracker. The numbers align with no corner of the market immune from a sharp downturn in numbers.
All this as we see a transition to OLED displays and, possibly, greater market penetration for foldables. May not juice up the 2023 numbers but it may hasten the transition to these technologies in anticipation of an upturn in 2024.
The Harvard Business Review classifies consumers during a downturn into being four types: slam-on-the-brakes, pained-but-patient, comfortably well-off, and live-for-today. You have to believe that the comfortably well-off and live-for-today consumer is going to jump on the latest and greatest, knowing that it is completely different to what has gone on before. On the other hand, the slam-on-the-brakes consumer may also be prudent but also somewhat prone to believe that investing in future technologies makes sense than saving a little on what is going to be outdated very soon. Pained-but-patient are the largest grouping and that’s where the negative numbers will come from, from those truly struggling because of loss of household income or forced economies.
