Phones on a decline too with -1.7%.

[GrumpyMan]

Everything reaches a plateau, even phones and Ipads, maybe people should do more camping, fishing, surfing, windsailing.....

 

[sm625]

On thing that I don't see anyone mentioning is the bigger picture - which is that 2012 was not a great year for business anywhere except maybe the US where it was only decent.

The global semiconductor market in 2012 shrank 3.2% from 2011. The EU is having issues, China had a rough 2012, Brazil is struggling and Japan's economy continued it's long-running issues.
http://www.pcworld.com/article/2027062/semiconductor-industry-to-recover-this-year.html

I see people predicting industry trends based on the 2011 results, but it's possible - in fact, I would argue that it's likely - that at least some of the trends were caused by macroeconomic issues more than technological or consumer reasons. In other words, I'd wait for the end of 2013 before I'd call anything a trend...

You got that right. It's 2007-early2008 all over again. We could very easily see double digit declines in the global semiconductor market for 2013. People forget that none of the problems from 2007-2009 were actually fixed, just papered over. Printing trillions and giving it to the banks and jacking up prices on everything from hot dogs to hospital beds isnt a sustainable solution. The financial sector is still sucking off 20% of GDP, and another 20% of GDP is caught in an outright fullbown bubble (healthcare). To say that sucker aint gonna pop is to say that 2006 was a good time to buy a house.

 

[pmv]

it probably has to do with the fact that everyone who wants a phone has one at this point and people are only able to get a new phone every 2 years so theres no way to grow sales at this point. phones arent like computers, youre only allowed to have one at a time so they cant sell you multiple phones based on different form factors/features

What I'm (probably naively) surprised about though it that this is the case globally. I can well see that being true in the US, Japan and "the West" generally (and there's a recession in most of Europe) but I would have thought there was still huge room for expansion elsewhere, whether in Africa, India or (above all) China. I mean China's economy is still growing fast, surely there must be a huge number of people there still just getting to the point of being able to afford cell phones? (though have no idea how universal coverage across that country).

[I may be over-estimating how many poor people there are left in China]

 

[BeauCharles]

Heh - still using my old Virgin Mobile Kyocera phone from 2005. It works.