Global smartphone market drops 9% in biggest ever fall

I think it is worth pointing out, China has literally 3 - 4x the market size compared to 5 years ago. Apart from India, I think globally all the important market has reached a point of near saturation.<p>The transcript in Apple conference call actually had a question similar. There are still new customers coming into the iPhone ecosystem, but the number suggest that users are now taking slightly longer cycle upgrading their Phones. So while in terms of market usage it is still expanding slowly, the unit sales is flat &#x2F; stable.<p>For Android this is more of a problem, since there are larger number of people switching to iPhone then vice versa.

No wonder, there was no significant advances in the market since several years, only bells and whistles<p>I personally do not feel any need to replace my current phone (even though it&#x27;s 4 years old) - the new one simply will not really add any significant value to my everyday smartphone experience<p>Yesterday I&#x27;ve replaced the battery because the old one was slowly dying (cost me around $8), and that&#x27;s it

<i>with incremental increases in artificial intelligence now taking the spotlight.</i><p>Hmm that does nothing for me. I wonder what the next big device is? Augmented reality? (Yes there was Glass but maybe the next generation will be more thoughtful.)<p>What I <i>personally</i> fancy is a drone-phone with more human-like AI assistant. Yes a talking, flying superphone. Inventors: please credit me, will ya ;)

I think the market is saturated. Most people in rich countries are getting the mobile experience they desire (anecdotally: just look at how addicted the user-base is) even at the price points they desire. The phones provide so much value that they do not need to be replaced as often.