Why mobile phone sales in Europe are experiencing their worst moment

Mobile phone sales plummet. The smartphone market in Europe has fallen 12% in the second quarter of 2023 compared to the same period last year, reports the consulting firm Counterpoint Research.. A figure that grows up to 14% in Spain compared to a drop of 8% in Eastern Europe. This is the lowest sales figure in the Old Continent since the first quarter of 2012. But what is the reason for this decline?

The first cause is the economy. With the price of food increasingly high and salaries frozen, buyers tend to increasingly extend the life of their terminals.

In August, the annual consumer price index (CPI) in Spain stood at 2.6%, three tenths more than in July. Olive oil is registering its biggest increase in two decades and fuel prices do not stop rising either.

Companies are aware of this. Last week, Apple surprised by lowering the price of the iPhone 15 compared to the previous model to leave it at 959 euros in Spain. Despite the decrease in its cost, it still represents almost 4% of the average salary in our country, of 25,353.22 euros gross per year..

On the other hand, buyer behavior is changing. Whether by spending less or trying to generate as little technological waste as possible, citizens are increasingly opting for options such as purchasing refurbished cell phones or renting smartphones.

In 2022, for example, the global market for second-hand terminals grew by 5% compared to the previous year, data from Counterpoint Research shows.

While in Spain new models have been established, such as the rental of smartphones carried out by companies such as Rentik. “Since we were born we have been growing month by month at double digits. We have even done it in August, which is usually a more seasonal period for consumption,” the company points out.

Finally, this plummet in the sale of new mobile phones also has a lot to do with the fact that there are fewer and fewer cheap phones.

Before the supply problems that began with Covid, it was quite easy to find mobile phones under 200 euros that were competent. However, today there are few terminals in that price range.. They are phones that leave less profit margin and companies are betting less and less on this market strategy.