impression – SamaGamer

After a disappointing ninth place at the Silverstone F1 Grand Prix, Charles Leclerc extended his stay in England to watch tennis. With his partner and his friend Pierre Gasly (elegantly dressed in Ralph Lauren and also came with his girlfriend), he attended the round of 16 at Wimbledon. Invited to the stands of Center Court, he attended the match of Novak Djokovic, winner in four tight sets against Pole Hubert Hurkacz. Tennis fan, Charles Leclerc did not hide his joy, showing himself to be very demonstrative throughout the meeting. Accomplice with Pierre Gasly, he spent a lovely afternoon in London. With a hell of a watch on his wrist.

Like the Ferrari team, for which he competes in the Formula 1 world championship, Charles Leclerc is under contract with Richard Mille. Obviously, he wore a model from the Swiss watch brand, the RM 72-01. This very popular timepiece is available in several versions and it is the titanium one that the F1 driver chose. The exact name of the watch is: RM 72-01 Automatic Winding Lifestyle Flyback Chronograph Titanium. Extended by a white rubber strap, the Richard Mille watch displays three numbers on the dial: 3, 8 and 11. Why then? “Three times for three new counters which immediately attract all eyes. The hands dance in rhythm within these three stylized time scales (blue for the small seconds, orange for the minutes, green for the hours) coordinated by a 6-column wheel,” indicate the creators of this chronograph.

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.