According to the company, one of the segments that dropped last year was smartphones.
The telecommunications market, which suffered a drop of 9.7% in revenue in 2022, compared to the previous year, should stabilize in 2023. takes place in Barcelona next Monday (27).
According to Jan Lorbach, GfK specialist for the telecommunications industry, the effects of saturation of the sector in 2022 were already foreseen thanks to the strong sales in the pandemic years, generating an additional weakening of the Chinese market, impacting the results.
One of the segments that showed a drop was smartphones, including phablets (a combination of a phone and a tablet). From January to December 2022, the segment recorded a drop of 9.1%, totaling 908 million units sold, resulting in a revenue drop of 10.2%, to US$ 330 billion.
With the narrowing of consumer budgets, those who drove the market in 2022 were practically the medium and high income groups. According to the analysis, these two sets of consumers were responsible for 48% of smartphone purchases in the last year, representing an increase of 4% compared to 2021, causing the demand for premium devices to also increase. One example is revenue from 5G models, which grew 1.2% from January to December 2022 compared to the previous year.
The same applies to devices with more storage, such as smartphones with a capacity of more than 256 GB, which registered an increase of 19% and represented 41% of the total market revenue. Despite this, the total number of purchases in this segment decreased in 2022 and, according to the survey, one of the reasons for this may be because people keep their smartphones longer.
Data from gfknewron Consumer showed that from January to September 2018, only 48% of consumers had used their smartphones for two years or more, but that share increased to 57% in the same period in 2022 (an increase of another 9 percentage points). This fact could be observed especially in Generation Z (15 to 25 years old), where participation is now 14 percentage points above average, and one of the reasons for this is due to the younger generation’s relationship with topics such as sustainability and conscious consumption. .
Another segment that “survived” 2022 was wearables, which consist of technological devices that can be used as accessories or that we can wear, such as smartwatches and Bluetooth headphones.
With revenue of US$ 13.9 billion, the wearables market reached almost the same level in 2022 as in the previous year (1.1% less compared to 2021).
According to the survey, these changes were driven by increased consumer demand for more detailed control of their health, through intelligent resources. Thus, wearables with a sleep tracking feature (4% more) or blood oxygen sensors (20% more) showed strong growth.
Other hot topics for the MWC are augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR) and the metaverse. While awareness and discussion of the metaverse is increasing, retail sales of virtual reality headsets in the European market dropped by 15% year-on-year in 2022, resulting in the segment’s first decline as the market recorded double-digit growth for the last few years. some years.
Expectations for 2023
GfK experts predict that 2023 will be stronger for the global telecom market compared to 2022. Regionally, China is expected to recover again and significantly boost the growth of the global market. Furthermore, developments in the three main product categories are expected to have a positive impact in 2023.
In the case of smartphones, although replacement cycles are extending, purchases of items in this segment made at the height of the pandemic in 2020 and 2021 are entering the expected renewal cycle window this year. In wearables, the next generation of Health Tracking sensors should drive the market, in addition to expected positive growth in revenue from smartwatches.
In the case of AR and VR items, these are expected to become more tangible and grow in areas beyond games.
Innovation will further drive consumer demand. Especially in times when smartphone usage times are stretching and budgets are tight, consumers will be getting their money’s worth more than ever, added Lorbach.
