Daily Authority: 📱 Smartphone slump

🌡️ Good morning, and welcome to another sunny Tuesday’s Daily Authority. It’s going to be 35C here today, which I think is a record for Scotland!

Smartphone shipments slump

According to new figures from Canalys released yesterday, global smartphone shipments show a 9% year-over-year drop for Q2 2022.

• Samsung holds the majority market share at 21%, mostly thanks to demand for its budget-friendly A-Series phones.
• Apple is a close second with a 17% share as the iPhone 13 continues to be in high demand.
• Xiaomi, OPPO, and vivo are all still struggling in China, with 14%, 10%, and 9% shares respectively.
• These figures are a far cry from Q2 2021 reports which showed Xiaomi was the number two smartphone brand globally, and the number one smartphone brand in Europe, with a 25.3% market share.

The decline isn’t a massive shock given all that’s happening in the world, and it’s a smaller drop than we saw in Q1 2022.

• In Q1, we saw the global smartphone market shrink by 11%.
• Every major Android manufacturer lost market share in Q1 2022.
• North American smartphone shipments, however, were up 3.7% year over year.
• In Q1, Apple’s market share looked much healthier at 51%.
• Samsung came in second at 27%, with Motorola a close third and TCL and Google holding 4% and 3%, respectively.

What’s causing the slump?

There are plenty of reasons for the slump:

• Consumers have slowed their upgrade cycles with devices improving and becoming more robust.
• As a result of this — as well as the global chip shortage and more general component shortages — phones have also become more expensive (case in point: Sony’s Xperia 1 IV), and consumers are more cautious amid uncertain economic times, with rising unemployment and inflation.
• Supply chain bottlenecks caused by tightening import laws and customs procedures are delaying shipments.
• From Canalys Research Analyst Runar Bjørhovde: “Economic headwinds, sluggish demand, and inventory pileup have resulted in vendors rapidly reassessing their portfolio strategies for the rest of 2022. The oversupplied mid-range is an exposed segment for vendors to focus on adjusting new launches, as budget-constrained consumers shift their device purchases toward the lower end.“

What will Q3 bring?

Roundup

💻 An entire country is banning Chromebooks due to Google’s data policies (Android Authority).

👀 New documents show, again, that the US government is watching you all the time (Android Authority).

📱 A new leak has spoiled the launch date for Samsung’s Galaxy Z4 foldables (Android Authority).

🍎 M2 Pro and M2 Max MacBook Pro could land as early as fall 2022: According to Mark Gurman’s Power On newsletter, we could see them between fall 2022 and spring 2023. (9to5Mac).

😲 A canceled Surface Duo device briefly appeared on eBay (Android Authority).

🔥 Europe’s heatwave continues this week: The UK braced for the hottest day on record as wildfires broke out in Spain, Greece, and France (Reuters).

💤 On that note, here’s how heatwaves are messing up your sleep (Wired).

❓ The results of our poll are in: Do you have a chip brand bias when buying a new smartphone? (Android Authority).

💩 Pet owners are spending hundreds on AI litter boxes as high-tech cat waste solutions storm the market (Axios).

🤳 Snap launches Snapchat for Web, bringing the app’s features to desktop, initially for Snapchat Plus subscribers in the US, UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand (TechCrunch).

📺 Netflix updates us on its paid password sharing plans, testing a new feature in five countries (Android Authority).

🐈 Feline sci-fi adventure Stray landed on PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, and PC today, available to download for PS Plus Extra and Premium members at no additional cost, and reviews are in (The Verge).

🎮 Xbox’s summer sale is on with amazing deals on games like Red Dead Redemption II, Far Cry, and more, running until the end of the month (Kotaku).

Tuesday thing

So, this happened: A man from Colorado Springs became the first person to push a peanut with his nose to the summit of Pikes Peak.

He’s not alone, though:

• The so-called “Peanut Push” is a local challenge that’s been running since the 1920s.
• Bill Williams did the same in 1929, though it took him 20 days — and supposedly, he did it to earn $500 in a bet.
• In 1963, Ulysses Baxter completed the challenge, taking eight days.

Bob Salem started his journey to the summit at 9 AM on Saturday, July 9, finishing around sunrise on Friday, July 15. That’s not bad going!

Here’s hoping you have a slightly less strenuous week than Bob,

Paula Beaton, Copy Editor.