How far is the smart phone from fading out of the center of human life? Nokia CEO peka lundmark recently predicted at the 2022 World Economic Forum that 6G will enter the market around 2030, when smartphones will be eliminated and replaced by electronic devices directly embedded in the human body. This judgment is the same as what Zuckerberg said six years ago. At that time, when talking about smart phones with Ma Yun, he said that an old technology would be replaced every 15 years, and smart phones were no exception. Today, 15 years have passed since Apple launched the first generation of smart phone iPhone in 2007. There are various signs that smart phones are facing a big ebb. A few years after the collapse of Nokia's mobile phone Empire, the curtain of another era is slowly falling. Ebb tide acceleration In the first quarter of 2022, data from several research institutions showed that global smartphone shipments fell by about 10%, and the annual decline may be even greater. GfK, a market research institution, predicts that the sales of smart phones in China may fall below 300million in 2022, returning to the level of 10 years ago. The first clue: according to the China Academy of telecommunications, from January to April this year, the domestic mobile phone shipment was 87.425 million, a year-on-year decrease of 30.3%. Pessimism is still spreading. The Nikkei Shimbun quoted people familiar with the matter as saying that Xiaomi, oppo and vivo, China's three major mobile phone manufacturers, have informed suppliers that the order volume after the second quarter will be reduced by about 20% compared with the previous plan. In fact, the signs of ebb tide came earlier and more violent than people expected. This inflection point appeared in 2018. According to the data of research agency counterpoint research, in 2018, the smartphone shipments that have been growing for several years began to decline. At that time, IDC also predicted optimistically that the shipment volume would recover in 2019. However, the surging 5g wave also failed to save the shrinking smartphone market. In 2020, the shipment volume of smart phones decreased by 10%. In 2021, the shipment volume of 1.419 billion smart phones only reached the level of 2015, although it increased by 6.6% year-on-year. In 2022, the ebb tide will accelerate. According to the report of counterpoint research, in the first quarter of 2022, the global shipment of smart phones was 328million units, a year-on-year decrease of 7% and a month on month decrease of 12%. In November last year and may this year, the Industry Research Institute trendforce Jibang consulting lowered its forecast for global mobile phone shipments in 2022 twice, which does not rule out that there is still room for further reduction. According to Zhao Haijun, CEO of SMIC international, global smartphone sales will decrease by at least 200million in 2022, and most of the affected brands are Chinese brands. In the colder Chinese mobile phone market, the recession signal is spreading from the consumer side to the production side. Guomingpei, an analyst at Tianfeng securities, said that the mainstream Android mobile phone manufacturers in China have cut orders by a large margin this year and have cut orders for about 270Million mobile phones. Behind the ebb tide is the downhill road that the whole industry has to face after reaching its peak. At present, the smart phone market is becoming saturated and has entered the stock stage. According to bankmycell data, in 2021, there were 3.8 billion smartphone users worldwide, with a penetration rate of 77.87%. Guorong Securities said in the research report that the penetration rate of domestic smart phones had reached 97.4% in 2021, and the room for growth was very limited. In the future, the sales volume will mainly come from the periodic replacement demand, but the replacement frequency of smart phones is continuously extending. According to the data of counterpoint, at present, the average change cycle of Chinese users exceeds 31 months, far exceeding the 22 months in 2017. Hubaishan, executive vice president of vivo, said that at present, the replacement frequency of global users has reached 36 months. Without good product innovation, the replacement cycle of consumers will be longer and longer. As Qualcomm CEO anmeng said, the golden age of smart phones is over. vicious spiral On the one hand, the consumer confidence has been repeatedly frustrated, and on the other hand, the price of smartphones has continued to rise. It is not difficult to understand that users' enthusiasm for purchasing machines has cooled down. According to the future consumer index report recently released by Ernst & young, due to the economic uncertainty and inflation caused by the epidemic, nearly 60% of the global respondents prefer to reserve funds, and 52% say that their consumption capacity has decreased. In the future, they will control their consumption level and reduce non essential shopping. Replacing smart phones is non essential shopping. Guomingfu said on social media that if consumer confidence continues to decline, mobile phone sales may further decrease in the future. In contrast, the rising prices of smartphones. According to the report of strategy analytics, an American Research Institute, the average selling price of smart phones in the world exceeded $300 in 2021, reaching the highest price since 2013. One of the reasons for the rise in smartphone prices is the shortage of raw materials and high prices. The US CNBC website quoted Bain consulting analysts as saying that the global chip price has increased by 10% ~ 20% in the past year and is expected to increase by 5% ~ 7% this year. TSMC raised prices twice in less than a year, and Samsung also plans to raise chip prices by 20%. In addition, the lack of innovation in product and technology is also an important reason for the long-term decline of smartphone shipments since 2018. According to the Research Report of Guorong securities, after more than ten years of technological development, the innovation from hardware performance, operating system and other aspects of smart phones has gradually slowed down, and the performance parameters of models launched by mainstream mobile phone manufacturers have been very close. Li Jie, President of Yijia China, admitted in his speech that the overall update speed of smart phones has slowed down. The technological innovation of smart phones is mainly reflected in five aspects: photography, screen refresh rate, endurance, performance and fuselage design. The innovation in the past two years basically revolves around the body design, such as the emergence of folding screen mobile phones. However, the market feedback of folding screen mobile phones is not optimistic. According to Guojin securities, in 2021, the penetration rate of folding screen mobile phones is only 10% among smart phones with a price of more than $1000. In an interview with Caijing Tianxia in 2021, Liubo, President of oppo China, said that even if it is estimated optimistically, folding screen mobile phones can only get a 23% share from the high-end mobile phone market. The market has declined, manufacturers have reduced investment, and product development has become more prudent, which has further reduced consumers' desire to buy Mobile Phones - the "seemingly logical vicious circle" in the words of Zhaoming, CEO of glory, is eroding users' final consumption enthusiasm. The end of smartphones If the decline of smart phones is irreversible, who will pick up its lost Scepter? One view is that super smart phones that integrate more functions of electronic products will be the development direction in the future. The birth of smart phones has "eliminated" electronic products such as telephones, cameras, PSPs, MP4 and televisions, and has become a mobile terminal integrating many functions. According to this trend, smart phones in the future may become more powerful super smart phones. Techradar, a British technology media, and elementsvc, a resource data analysis agency, believe that smart phones may replace more than a dozen wearable devices all over the body by 2030. Another view is that smart phones will eventually disappear and be replaced by new species. Among those who hold this view, there are many technology leaders such as meta founder Zuckerberg, Sony Group CEO Takeo Hirai, and Microsoft founder Bill Gates. As early as 2017, the year before the inflection point of global smartphone shipments, Mr. Hirai believed that the industry had reached its peak, and the days of using smartphones in the future were numbered. At that time, he predicted that the era of smart phones would end within 10 years, and technologies such as AR (augmented reality) and VR (virtual display) would replace them. According to IDC data, the ar/vr head display market in 2021 increased by 92.1% year-on-year, and it is expected that the shipment volume will increase by 46.9% in 2022, and will maintain a double-digit growth rate until 2026. (source: IDC) Gates also predicted not long ago that smart phones "will have no future". In March, 2022, the Reference News quoted the Spanish newspaper Le Monde as saying that Bill Gates believed that new technologies were about to be born, leaving little time for smartphones. He also invested in a company that developed "high-tech electronic tattoo" technology. After the electronic tattoo is implanted into the human body, it can replace the smart phone to realize the functions of sending and receiving information and detecting human health. Georgeheld, director of digital products of veon group, a Dutch multinational telecommunications company, said in an interview with RIA Novosti that in 10 years, human beings will stop using smartphones and other technologies will replace them. At that time, the smart phone can verify the user's identity and receive information through face, fingerprint and voice, and the information display can be projected onto the wall or glass with the help of IOT sensors. From wired phones to mobile phones, from push-button phones to smart phones, the replacement of old and new species has become an inescapable destiny. When will the golden age come to an end? (Xinhua News Agency)