Just ten years ago, we were somewhat saturated in the technology press. Mobile telephony was increasingly important for us, for society and for the economy, and we had the feeling that the launches of new smartphones were overwhelming us, day in and day out.
Just ten years ago, in 2014, Mobile phone manufacturers broke their record together by presenting 829 different models. More than two a day including weekends and holidays.
Nothing has been the same again: several manufacturers had to close the shutter, exhausted after a race that has left several corpses along the way (BlackBerry, LG, Ericsson, Siemens…) and has devastated others (HTC, Nokia, Sony …). And now we are far from those years when there were no fewer than 700 mobile phones launched per year.
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Let’s go with the figures. These are, according to the database, the different models that the industry has launched each year. Smart watches are not included even if they have mobile connectivity, but different international versions of the same terminal are included.
After a timid rebound after the pandemic, we closed 2023 barely exceeding 500 models.
The rebound between 2020 and 2022 has clear culprits: the wave of Chinese manufacturers that have gained momentum in recent years and their strategy includes a long catalog. We are talking about manufacturers like Vivo, Xiaomi or Oppo (65, 40 and 35 phones launched in 2023 respectively), compared to more restrained established manufacturers, such as Samsung and Apple (23 and 4).
Even so, the progressive disappearance or loss of significance of other manufacturers that were important but are no longer important has ended up reducing the supply.
We have selected some manufacturers to show their journey in units presented each year from 2000 to 2023.
That graph tells stories, such as the death of LG’s mobile division, the recession of Sony, the reduction of the catalog of a Xiaomi that reached close to 70 mobile phones launched in 2022 or the collapse and subsequent return to life of Nokia. No tinsel, but back to life after all.
And that’s not to mention the marked stages of Samsung: after being crowned in 2010 as the leading manufacturer in global sales following a strategy based on market saturation with models of different types (more than a hundred a year for three years in a row) it was reducing its launches, in step with the death of traditional telephones, to consolidate itself well below fifty models per year.
Other times.
